Page 3538 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 2005
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These are subjects worthy of being investigated, but the arrogant government we have is just saying, “No, nine beats eight every time. You can all go and get stuffed; we are not going to do it.” All right, the government has the numbers and it is not going to change its mind, but I would counsel the government to have a bit of a think about the matter. Mrs Dunne only wants this inquiry to go on until the first sitting day in 2006. Dr Foskey obviously has a completely open mind about this matter and has raised some very good points.
The committee would comprise a government member, an opposition member and obviously Dr Foskey, being the crossbench member, unless she wanted to nominate someone else. I think having the committee would give people lots of opportunities to raise terribly important issues, probably not only in relation to this school but also, if you are thinking of going down the path of superschools across Canberra, perhaps future educational directions over the next few decades even, and it would enable people specifically concerned with this project to give their opinions—some probably would vent their spleen—and discuss the various educational options. It would give the government a chance to pause and gain a proper and full appreciation of the situation, taking the views of the committee into consideration.
The government would still have the numbers and could still do what it wanted to do after the first sitting day of 2006, but at least that would give members of the community an opportunity to have their say and would actually provide for some form of consultation. I suspect that the government is not going to be remotely interested as the government made its decision before there was any real consultation, but it would provide at least for an airing of views, for details to be put forward and, hopefully, for the government to take note of a number of points it had not considered before it irreversibly went down this track. I commend the motion to the Assembly. It is obviously going to fail. I think that that is a real shame.
MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (11.29): Mrs Dunne is asking the Assembly to form a select committee to examine what I believe we are already in the process of doing. It is really interesting that she did not approach me, as the chair of the education committee, and run this idea by me when she had an opportunity to do so. She is, in fact, a member of the education standing committee and she did not approach me.
Mr Stanhope: I wonder why?
MS PORTER: I guess she did not approach me because she is not interested really in discussing this school or the value of this school to the community as a whole and to the students and young people of west Belconnen in particular. She is really only interested in standing up in this place and bagging this school and trying to undermine the whole of the public school system in the ACT. All that I have seen her do since this debate began about Ginninderra high school is bag our public education system and undermine it. I think that is really what she is on about.
Why didn’t you come to see me and discuss this matter with me, Mrs Dunne? I think you did not do it because you really did not want to and now, of course, the opportunity has gone. By the sounds of it, you have been leading Dr Foskey and the community up the garden path, Mrs Dunne. Her rhetoric is the same as your rhetoric and her language is the
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