Page 1829 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 7 June 2006
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Mr Barr: And you will commit to reopening them, will you?
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Barr!
MR SESELJA: That is why we are here. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Proposed new section 20 (6) of Mr Barr’s bill states:
To ensure that school communities affected by closing or amalgamating a government school are adequately consulted, the Minister must … listen to, and consider, their views.
At last year’s estimates we had a debate with the former education minister about section 76 of the Education Act, which requires the minister to ask for, and consider, advice. The former education minister said that that “ask for, and consider” did not mean consultation; it did not mean she had to consult. I do not know how the amendments, if they were to get up, would be interpreted by a particular minister, but I put it to the Assembly that they allow a lot of room for manoeuvre, and I will come back to some of the detail of those amendments in a bit.
Prior to the election of 2004, the Liberal Party publicly acknowledged that some schools might have to close. That is on the public record. In fact, the Canberra Times headline of 12 August was: “Merge shrinking schools: Pratt”. The article reports shadow education minister Steve Pratt as saying that some schools may have to close because of the changing demographic realities. This was in August 2004.
What was the government’s response at the time? A spokesman for education minister Katy Gallagher categorically ruled out Labor closing any schools during the next term of government. The spokesman said that the government would not be closing schools. The announcement yesterday, that we are trying to get a handle on in this debate, is proof that the government deceived the people of the ACT in the 2004 election. They said: “Trust us. We will not close your schools. Trust us; vote for us.”
Many people did trust them and vote for them. But they should not have. Eighteen months later, suddenly the case for closure is so strong that 40 schools will be closed. The people of Canberra were massively deceived at the last election. I do not know how government members can keep a straight face in this town. Eighteen months after making that assertion before the election, they turn around and say: “We said that no schools were going to close in the next term. What we actually meant was that 40 of them will close. We are only going to close 40.”
How can this government be trusted to keep its word on consultation? This is what it comes back to. The minister would like us to trust him to engage in good process. We have seen no evidence of that to date. In previous years, every time the issue of school closures has come up, the Labor Party have been the first to oppose it. As recently as the 2004 election, they were denying it was going to happen.
We have the hit list. Rivett preschool and Rivett primary school are to close by the end of this year. I understand that many of the people of Rivett voted for the Labor Party, and they would have voted for them, in part, on this promise: “Vote for us. We will not close
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