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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 1 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 25 ..

MR PRATT (continuing):

However, the distinction between public funding of education and public provision of education continues to be blurred. By granting all students an equal educational subsidy, we could allow families to choose which school at which to spend their subsidy-public or private-thus creating motivation and incentives for schools to provide even better education for their students.

Overseas research has indicated that allowing parents choice in schooling reaps not only academic but also significant social and financial benefits. One way to provide choice might be through tax credits, allowing parents with school-age children to claim educational expenses up to a specified amount against their tax liability. This process would cut out the government middleman and see parents' money paid directly to the schools. Another way might be the introduction of charter schools, public schools that are publicly owned and funded but self-governed under the terms of a performance contract. I believe these options should be explored, and I would like to do that.

This leads me to another fundamental plank of ACT education, our teachers, into whose hands we entrust our students, our most important asset. I am pleased to see the teachers federation encouraging the use of professional development as the basis for promotion. I trust the government will continue to support this fundamentally important system, for our teachers should stand first ranked amongst our community's professionals. I will seek new ways to maintain and further develop the vitally important teacher capability in the ACT and encourage government to add value to our current ACT system.

Other priority areas I wish to address include boys' education, the teaching of values in schools, fitness and health, the problem of school bullying and violence, the vexatious issue of drugs education, the problem of class sizes and the dilemma that we have with children with special needs.

In the 21st century, we need more than strong defence forces: we need the best brains, and the most agile minds, and those minds need a diet of the best, most innovative and sound education policies that we can devise. By the end of the new century, if Australians are both lucky and wise, I think we will be in better shape than when we started.

Whether this becomes a reality, of course, depends fundamentally on how we educate our children and their children after them. I hope I may be allowed to play some part in this transition. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

MS MacDONALD: Mr Speaker, I ask for leave of the Assembly to make my inaugural speech.

Leave granted.

MS MacDONALD: It is with a sense of honour, humility and great excitement that I rise to address the Assembly today. I am honoured and humbled by the faith that the people of Brindabella have shown in both the Australian Labor Party and me. I am excited not only by my own election but by the election of the Labor Party to government, and the potential of these developments to help improve the lives of the people of Canberra.

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