Page 2283 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 16 August 2006
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you people—in fact Sue Robinson, I assume—came up with. Maybe it was just one faction. I think Ms MacDonald’s faction was going to do it. I do not really care about that. That is your business, quite frankly.
Government members interjecting—
MR STEFANIAK: It is your business that, at the end of the day, a large section of your party came up with this particular motion, which Mrs Dunne is replicating here today, which is supported by the P&C, which Dr Foskey has said she will support, which everyone out there at the demonstration thought was at least a good first step that will get you out of this unholy, dreadful mess you lot have got yourselves into.
It is a sensible motion, it emanated from people in the Labor Party. Mrs Dunne is right to bring it forward. It is supported by the P&C and people out in the community, and you people should support it too.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Minister for the Arts) (5.48): The Leader of the Opposition went back through Hansard and quoted from it. I would like to do the same, to give some historical reference to the context of Mr Stefaniak’s views on this issue as expressed by him as a member of the government of 1990. Mr Stefaniak said:
I also want to talk about a few points about our school systems and about the school closures … the neighbourhood system has changed a fair bit in recent times in that, on the figures we have, it seems that in some cases up to about 30 per cent of enrolments at certain schools are from out of area. That tends to put another slant on the argument often used by the Opposition of the distances some kids are going to have to travel to go to school.
Our system is very good. Mr Humphries realises that; the Government realises that, and Mr Humphries has continually stated that this excellent system will be maintained. I think we have always had a good system here. It might have been better in the past than it is now, because I note that about a third of our kids are in private schools and a lot of those schools have waiting lists.
He says that that had been the case for many years, but he did not think he really had to delve into that part of the debate today. It continues:
I am probably the only member of this Assembly who went through the ACT state school system, from kindergarten … to year 12 at Narrabundah High School. I can recall quite clearly in my years in high school that many students at Narrabundah were bussed in from Curtin, Lyons, Chifley and Hughes before those schools went up in the Woden valley.
He goes on to say that it is interesting to note that those same kids who started off in year 7 or 8 at Narrabundah, when Woden Valley high and Deakin high came on stream, remained at Narrabundah and made that quite considerable journey in buses or by riding their pushbikes there. He says that he can recall walking, as a five-year-old, to Griffith. It continues:
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