Page 2285 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 16 August 2006
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It is very interesting today to refer to the very bitter concluding remarks of Mr Humphries as the abandoned Minister for Education, the Minister for Education who lost the support of his ministerial colleagues, lost the support of his party room and abandoned the school closure process.
Gary Humphries said in retrospect: my advice to a government of the future to whom we are leaving this issue—another government on another day—is to carry through with the process and the proposal which I could not as a result—
Mrs Dunne: Has somebody got a violin?
MR STANHOPE: I know Senator Humphries can lay it on with a trowel, but that is what he said. After that government bowed, after it wilted, after it fell over, when he had lost his ministerial and party room support, when his government decided to abandon a principle and policy which they knew to be right, Senator Humphries explicitly advised those governments of the future that he knew would one day again have to visit this proposal. It is, of course, highly amusing. That was Mr Humphries in 1990.
By 1996 the battle had passed to Mr Stefaniak as minister for education. In a minor sense—not in the grander sense, the fuller scale with which Mr Kaine and Mr Humphries sought to grapple with this particular issue—Mr Stefaniak submitted to his cabinet, quite appropriately, a proposal for the closure of two schools. Mr Stefaniak’s horizons lowered the baton to some extent, but he attempted to pursue a process in relation to Charnwood and Stirling. In relation to Charnwood college, what was the consultation process that was followed?
Mrs Dunne: Charnwood high. It is in your electorate.
MR STANHOPE: Charnwood high. It was quite simple, it was quite brutal: announce the decision in August, consult in September and finalise the decision in October.
Mr Stefaniak: No.
MR STANHOPE: It is there in the submission. Bill Stefaniak’s consultation model was: announce the proposal in August, consult in September and announce the decision to close in October. That is the Liberal Party’s most recent consultation model as espoused by the then minister for education, Mr Bill Stefaniak. A three-month consultation period accompanied then by those other—
Mr Stefaniak interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order, Chief Minister! Mr Stefaniak, you have to cease interjecting.
MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Then there was the suggestion, the below-the-belt blow, to reduce all funding to schools with lower enrolments to the average; ensure that there is no top-up funding to deal with those issues in relation to a lack of economies as a result of a particular size. The Liberal Party’s position was: Look, just fund them at the average, that is all they deserve. Do not provide extra support to a small school.
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