Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Tuesday, 30 March 2004) . . Page.. 1340 ..

Amendment negatived.

Clauses 77 to 79, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Clause 80.

MR PRATT (8.27): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to move amendments Nos 18 and 19 circulated in my name together.

Leave granted.

MR PRATT: I move amendments Nos 18 and 19 circulated in my name [see schedule 3 at page 1376]. Amendment No 18 seeks to ensure that no confidential information for commercial-in-confidence or financial privacy reasons is included to be made available to parents, staff or students of a non-government school. Amendment No 19 is consequential upon amendment No 18. The opposition believes that subclause (2) is no longer necessary.

MS GALLAGHER (Minister for Education, Youth and Family Services, Minister for Women and Minister for Industrial Relations) (8.28): The government will not be supporting either of these amendments. Again, the argument from the opposition about trying to create consistency across sectors is interesting when amendment No 18 would weaken the information that a school needs to provide to parents. The clause as it exists now says “information about the school’s educational programs and policies, and the operation of the school”. I hardly think that implies commercial-in-confidence. To weaken it by substituting “appropriate information” leaves it up to the individual schools to decide what may be appropriate information about the school and its programs to hand on to parents. Again, there are quite extensive requirements on the government system to report in sections 23, 24 and 25 of the act.

I am aware that the Liberals’ amendment No 19 did stem from the Association of Independent Schools, who certainly spoke to me about their desire not to be required to consult with parents of students at a school. I could not understand their arguments about that, although they did try to put them to me quite extensively. To omit this clause and take away any responsibility for the school to consult with parents about the operation of the school would again be setting different standards. When we are trying to increase the accountability of non-government schools, the Liberals are trying to weaken it, while running the argument that they are looking for consistency across the sectors.

Mr Pratt can stand up and keep accusing us of something. But what he is saying and the amendments that he has or has not moved simply make those comments extremely questionable. I am certainly prepared to defend myself against the allegation of dividing sectors. What we are trying to do here is to create a system where there are responsibilities in the non-government sector—more responsibilities than they have had in the past. We also want to make sure that the responsibilities in the government sector are at the level they should be at. The Liberals are trying to weaken that and then trying to run the argument that we are trying to divide the sectors. It is simply nonsense.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .