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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2994 ..

That is not something I agree with as an individual but it is well received by school communities and, it seems, by many students. The federal government is currently looking to have, I think, two hours of physical exercise joined in to the new funding agreement. In ACT schools, about 150 minutes a week are spent on physical exercise. Even the kindies to year 2 do between 20 and 30 minutes a day. So we are very well placed there.

The issue of canteens is a little more complicated than Mr Pratt makes out. I imagine you have received a letter from the Heart Foundation, as I did, following the estimates appearance, where they were outraged by comments that canteens are unhealthy places. I will be meeting with them in the next week or so to go through some of the concerns they have had when training canteen managers or accrediting canteens to a certain standard around healthy food.

A number of schools have adopted the “health promoting schools program”, which focuses on a whole range of health issues, but especially nutrition and healthy eating. There are a number of projects and initiatives in place. There is $1 million in this year’s budget to increase efforts around the health and fitness of children, and I see that as an area of growth. I take the point that there could be better coordination around non-government school funding. Since the Stanhope government came in we have increased non-government school funding in every budget.

In last year’s budget there was an increase of about 3.8 per cent and this year there is an increase of over six per cent. The ACT government provides $35 million to the non-government schools here, which is, I should say, more than the Commonwealth provides to the ACT government for funding or support to our government schools for double the number of schools. There is a substantial amount of money going to the non-government sector.

In relation to children with disabilities we look at the grants as they are spread over the number of children in the non-government sector. We had quite an extensive discussion on this in estimates. The ACT government has increased the allocation of funding for students with disabilities in the non-government sector by 10 per cent in this year’s budget alone. At the same time we are going through a process where we are measuring the needs of children with disabilities in the non-government sector, with the cooperation of the sector. I think that will give us a real indication of the need and, subsequently, the funding commitments we have to make if we are not meeting the needs. On the surface, looking at the contribution from the Commonwealth in relation to children with disabilities in the non-government sector, I would say that that is the area where that funding commitment has not been maintained.

Mrs Dunne read out the letter from the P&C association. I am not sure whether, by reading it out, she was adopting their position and subscribing to the expenditure they sought, which was, I think, about $20 million a year. You were not clear on that; you just read out the letter; so I am not sure whether you are taking their side and adopting their argument that that is the amount needed in the government system.

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