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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 4 Hansard (2 April) . . Page.. 1256 ..

MR PRATT (continuing):

at Jervis Bay. I certainly found some parts of the report very interesting. I found some aspects of the report quite useful but not to the tune of $267,000.

Mr Speaker, the minister says that the report does not attack the diversity of the ACT education system. She goes on to say that Connors actually made a statement supporting diversity. That is correct-it does, but the point is, it does not back that statement up in any substantial way. The report does not follow on from that rather bald statement. We are asking the minister to disregard the major negatives in that report, when she sees the initiatives she must exercise when she brings down the education bill.

Finally, while the Connors report makes a touchy, feely, warm-hearted statement, it does not in fact demonstrate that attitude. For God's sake, it flies in the face of that by sending strong signals which would perhaps indicate a shifting of funding from one sector to another.

Yes, I would agree with the minister that the report raises some new issues and has generated new debates but, fundamentally, it has simply listed the areas of concern the previous government identified and which the community continues to raise. It does not drill into those and it does not identify solutions in the context of a funding plan and methods of funding which would perhaps start to take issue and resolve some of those matters.

The minister has been welcomed by the stakeholders, I am pleased to say. They are certainly happy with the new minister's attitude. We on this side of the house hope she can keep up this consultative process and this consultative attitude. Unlike the Connors interviews, we hope the minister will reflect on all the concerns of the stakeholders she continues to speak to.

In respect of the working group the minister spoke about, yes-certainly community involvement is very important. We would support that, but that is not the issue we are taking here. What we are saying is that a bureaucratic set-up involving bureaucrats to help implement recommendations from the Connors report is not going to be helpful. It would be far better if there were community involvement-if representatives of the broad range of education stakeholdership were involved-in helping to implement any recommendations the minister may wish to look at for possible implementation in her new education bill.

Mr Speaker, perhaps I may turn to the ex-Minister for Education, Mr Corbell. Mr Corbell raised in his speech the issues of accountability of expenditure in non-government schools. This is a very good point. We have never, at any time, said we would disagree-and we have not disagreed-with the issues raised by Connors in talking about the accountability of ACT government funding in the non-government sector. Of course, that needs to be looked at. We would be willing to get involved in a debate about how that could be better streamlined. I think a fair point is made that, if the government is going to put money into the non-government sector, then they need to feel that they are getting bang for buck.

Mr Corbell went on to say that the report was about funding and how funding should be spent. He had a bit of a crack at me. He criticised me for raising a list of issues which I said merit attention for improvement. I must say it is a reflection of Mr Corbell's rigidity

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