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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Wednesday, 10 March 2004) . . Page.. 947 ..

subject levies, were impossible for us. I remember clearly feeling that I had to do a real begging act and seek permission—not just once but every term—from the principal to be excused from paying the fees et cetera. I remember that that was really an uncomfortable situation to be put into.

The other thing is that, because schools are so strapped for money, some parents really judge other parents who do not appear to be contributing, whether it is by paying fees or by giving in kind through donating their time to activities of the school. Once again, it is really unfortunate that recognition is not given to the fact that people have different capacities to contribute depending on their life circumstances. I would like to move the amendment circulated in my name.

MR SPEAKER: You cannot. We have to deal with Mr Corbell’s amendment first.

MS TUCKER: Okay, so I have to wait to do that. Mr Corbell’s amendment wants to change “many” into “some” and I am happy to support that because I am not aware of many but I am aware of some. There may be many students from low income families who miss out, but I do not know that so I do not mind “some”. If it is even some, we need to be worried, and some is enough for me. He also wants to add the word “could” after “students from low income families” in the first paragraph. He is recognising that some public school students from low income families could miss out on school excursions. I recognise that some do miss out on school excursions, so I think that is reasonable.

Mr Corbell’s second amendment seeks to substitute “establish” with “investigate the need for” in the second paragraph. As the amendment I will be circulating gives the government another option rather than establishing a central fund, I do not think I would support Mr Corbell’s “investigate the need for” because in a way my amendment, if it is supported, would allow the government to do that.

The reason I am concerned about Ms Dundas’s motion as it is, just calling for a central fund to be established, is that I have talked to the P&C council about this and they have concerns about taking the equity funds out of the schools because it could become more difficult for parents in what, as I have already explained, can be quite a difficult situation to be put in. I do not know that setting up a whole new bureaucracy is necessarily the best way to do that. So, as the P&C have said to me this morning, we would like the government to evaluate what is working and what is not working with the current equity fund and to look at how they can make it work better. From what Simon Corbell said, the minister is certainly concerned to hear that people may be suffering under this current system. So I take that to mean that the government are interested in looking at how they can improve it. So with my amendment, which will give the government the opportunity to look at how they can improve the current system as well as potentially the central fund, we can, hopefully, improve the current system.

But I do want to say again that this is an important issue to have been raised and I am really happy to hear Mr Corbell, on behalf of the minister, say that the government are concerned about this issue and are prepared to look at it. Our amendment also asks for them to report back to the Assembly so that we can keep track of what the work is that they are doing on this.

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