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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Tuesday, 30 March 2004) . . Page.. 1327 ..

school’s review system. Involving the community surrounding the school will, in our view, encourage a stronger community-school partnership, which, we believe, is vital to the successful running of the schools. I did not mean to sound harsh a moment ago: Ms Tucker’s amendment is in fact quite laudable and all I meant by my comment was that it does not go far enough.

I want to see an amendment here that encompasses, more specifically, elements of the community. If we are going to see our communities provide more proactive support to their local schools then they have to feel that they have got that relationship, and being involved in the review process will surely encourage them to become more active in support of their local schools.

I move to my amendment No 10. This amendment simply provides for the report of the review of a government school to be made available to members of the Legislative Assembly. If a department issues a report, it should automatically be made available to members of this place. I believe the Assembly has a vital role to represent the community in assessing across the board the performance, including the relative performances, of our schools. This way the Assembly can more closely monitor whether the department is concentrating both resources and technical support where they are most needed.

This partnering function—department, government and Assembly—ought to be enshrined in legislation as school and departmental performance is surely one of the most important areas in our community and it needs to be monitored in this place.

MS GALLAGHER (Minister for Education, Youth and Family Services, Minister for Women and Minister for Industrial Relations) (5.59): As I have said already about amendment No 9, I think that the intent of that amendment has already been achieved by the passing of Ms Tucker’s amendment. Mr Pratt’s amendment restricts some of the organisations that might serve the local community that may wish to participate in the review. It is disturbing that he has singled out two groups—local providers of local community services, whatever that may be, and the police—as being particularly required to be involved in the reviews.

In relation to the availability of reviews to the Legislative Assembly, the reviews are already freely available to members of the public; they are quite often found in the foyers of schools. If Mr Pratt is just trying to cut down his workload and would like all reviews forwarded to him, I would be happy to assist in that regard as they become available. In relation to making comparative assessments and across the board analysis, we do not review every school every year so I am not sure how you would do that sort of analysis, Mr Pratt, and, of course, analysis would differ depending on the schools, the population and the local communities they serve. To do comparative analysis I imagine would be quite difficult, although I do not deny that you might be able to pull it together and form some view on it. If the intent is to have forwarded to your office reviews of schools that may take place, we are happy to assist, but there is absolutely no need for that amendment to this legislation.

MS DUNDAS (6.01): I have already stated my reasons for opposing amendment No 9 as moved by Mr Pratt. I am also opposing amendment No 10. I have not yet been convinced that it is necessary to prescribe that these public documents be delivered to all members

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