Page 1855 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 7 June 2006
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are totally against school closures—unlike you lot, who, approaching the 2004 election, promised that there would not be any school closures. I might emphasise those points, exactly what I said in August 2004, approaching the 2004 election, and what the government said.
Members interjecting—
MR PRATT: Let me stress what I said. “It is expensive to operate a school. If it can be merged with another school that is not at capacity”—come on, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, this is a circus.
MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Gentleman): Members will keep order. Mr Pratt has the floor.
MR PRATT: As I was saying, I said, in the announcement of that policy of the opposition in August 2004, “It is expensive to operate a school. If it can be merged with another school that is not at capacity and without forcing class sizes to swell, this may be necessary in terms of funding, teacher numbers and the best possible student outcomes.” I also said that mergers or closures had to be decided on a case-by-case basis, not according to some wretched numbers game, and that process had to be open and transparent to alleviate any concern in the community. I also said in that policy announcement that there were some smaller schools in more isolated areas which should be kept open, falling in line with a case-by-case basis approach to how you administered that policy.
A spokesman for education minister, Katy Gallagher, categorically ruled out Labor closing any schools during the next term of government. Let Hansard chip that away in stone. Labor said that they would rule out closing any schools during the next term of government. “The government will not be closing schools,” the spokesman said—a back-flip with three pikes. Let us blow away the smoke and the dust and let us be very, very clear what the opposition has said, what the opposition believes in, exactly what the government believed in and what those two opposing positions were. There has been a lot of misleading spin on that particular position on the part of this government in these last few weeks.
The point is that we were saying that consultation is a very, very important part of that process. I have got to echo what Dr Foskey said earlier. The opposition has not criticised a decision taken by the government about Ginninderra high school. Dr Foskey is quite right. The criticism is about how the government made that decision. That was the nub of the criticism—how you went about it, how you did not consult the broader community and give them some warning.
Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I put it to you that, after three or four years of numbing silence on the subject of good governance which may have to involve the proper and measured closing of schools, we now suddenly find a last-minute, shock approach to governance of school administration. Thirty-nine schools are suddenly catapulted onto a list. I would say that this was akin to the last-minute, shock amputation of a complete leg after years of neglect, where toes amputated gradually may have saved the entire limb. That is the analogy that I draw.
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