Page 2282 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 16 August 2006
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was a pretty good idea and voted on. It is certainly something that most people in the community think would be a sensible first step in this particular problem that is concerning so many people in our community.
It is not just the schools you have targeted, it is the other schools as well. I have heard from many people from other schools in the community that, “We are going to have to get demountables; we do not have the room.” I have heard from people making inquiries now as to what school they can send their kids to, especially in my electorate of Belconnen. They are finding that, sorry, there is no room at other schools.
This is only going to get worse. Some people who are worried are probably already leaving schools if they hear they are going to close. In many instances other schools which are scheduled to remain open cannot take them. Other people are hoping that what you are engaging in now is not total sham consultation, and that their school may yet be saved.
That may or may not be so, but the fact that you are not going to announce your decision until 21 December or some time after 6 December, effectively Christmas Eve, is going to create absolute havoc. I think that decision by you people is an incredibly stupid one. You had an opportunity for an out—it was provided at your own conference. Quite clearly, and it would seem historically, many members of the Labor Party in Canberra have always been against school closures and have grave reservations about them.
The opposition you lot have shown since the first Assembly in relation to this issue has certainly been consistent, but now we have had a sudden and amazing change. It is not even a logical, structured change where you say, “Well, some might have to close. Let us talk to the community.”
Let us take the 2010 document, which Ms Gallagher ticked off on, which had about six parts to it. It included something along the lines of the future look of our system and looking at such things as what schools may amalgamate or close in, I would hope, a logical way. Yes, schools have amalgamated to close under previous governments, and in fact under the previous Labor government. Griffith primary, I recall, finally closed back in about 1992 or 1993 when Bill Wood was minister.
It has happened in the past but it has never ever happened like this. It has never ever happened with such dislocation in the community with such a cold-blooded, insensitive and arrogant announcement that: right, you 39 schools are for the chop; oops, we had better justify it now; oops, we will have to have the mandatory consultation period after the event. I think the community is right to be outraged, and it is outraged about this.
You people—and we have said this on a few occasions; it is not just moot words—have a chance to stop and think, and realise that there is a better way of doing it. Your own party conference almost showed you the way. In voting for that motion, regardless of saying yesterday in the media, “We had to do that because of our factions,” I am sure, and I know, that at least one or two of you genuinely believed there was a better way of doing it.
I would certainly think you, Mr Speaker, with your consistency in these matters, going back to the first Assembly, were probably one of those. It is a better way that some of
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