Page 1859 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 7 June 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
which sets out the process that needed to be followed and the six months time as set out in the act. It took, I would say, about a year to negotiate those clauses because of the diversity of views. I relate it now to the Ginninderra district high school proposal. We went to the community with a genuine proposal. There had been no decision to shut the Ginninderra district high school before that proposal. The six months had been completed and there had been no decision—
Mrs Dunne: Pull the other one.
MS GALLAGHER: Mrs Dunne can laugh but, fortunately for the ACT, Mrs Dunne does not sit in the cabinet room, nor has she ever sat in the cabinet room. She does not understand the process that cabinet can go through.
Cabinet agreed to go to the community with a proposal. That is what cabinet agreed to. At the end of that consultation process—six months, as required by the act—the government took some decisions on that proposal. As much as the opposition does not like to acknowledge it, that was the way things were. The government agreed in the initial stages—the first stage was in July last year—to go to the community with a proposal. I said at the time, “If the community does not want this proposal, does not like the proposal being put forward by the government, fine; we will not progress that proposal.”
What happened? After six months of genuine consultation, six months of meetings with different groups—from the preschool society, the P&C, to the save our schools group at Ginninderra—public meetings, responding to hundreds of questions from the communities involved and individual questions, the government took a decision, as required by the act. After six months consultation and having regard to all the aspects that are covered in the act, the government took a decision. The act is very clear on that. The consultation process on Ginninderra district high school went through. The overwhelming support of the community was for the proposal to proceed, and that is exactly what happened.
Mrs Dunne’s amendments want to tie the process up and turn the whole discussion on provision of public education into a process argument. She does not want to get on with the job. She does not want to get on with offering children a first-rate public education in first-rate facilities with access to the best IT. She wants to tie it down in process arguments. That is essentially what her amendments do.
The government has, in the Education Act, a clear community consultation process. Minister Barr’s amendments draw that out a bit more; they make clear the process that needs to be undertaken. They respond to some of the criticism that we copped unfairly on the Ginninderra district high school proposal. But we copped the criticism. The material that the minister has put out has a whole outline of the community consultation process, including meetings to attend. It talks about the feedback and how it will be compiled. It says that the report summarising the feedback will be prepared for consideration by government and then the government will advise the community on the final decision at the end of that consultation process.
It is clear that the consultation that we are undertaking on this is genuine. This is what we would like to do. This is what we think needs to happen in order to offer a public
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .