Page 2509 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 23 August 2006
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Mr Barr: There are individual plans for individual students, Mrs Burke, and they are private between the department and the students.
MRS BURKE: I see. So selective information is now being handed out to selected people, but you are not going to tell the broader community. That is an outright ridiculous statement by the Minister for Education and Training, that he cannot consult. I will not get on his case if he tells me there is a plan. Show me the plan and I will sit down.
Mr Barr: It is an individual plan for each student.
MRS BURKE: You can have your say. If 1,327 students have been catered for, I do not need to be standing here battling, demanding, lobbying—whatever you want—for these parent and students. What we do not have here is a clear plan. Students are left in limbo, up in the air. They do not know what they are doing, what the future holds for them. As late as yesterday I read a letter from one of the parents who does not know what to do or where to go. The plan the minister is choosing—the path he is choosing to go down is simply illogical, ill thought out, ill conceived. I know that Mr Barr has put his political career on this. I have heard him say this many times at many forums but let us take a closer look. Is he going to stand by that or at the end of the day will he say, “It was not me, I will not close schools”? He may say that, but the planning minister, sitting next to him, may have a different plan and Mr Barr will be overridden in cabinet. What is the education minister going to do and when is he going to table, properly in this place, his accurate plan of what is going to happen? He is going to tell us all now that it is going to be before Christmas. Is that what I go back and tell parents of students with a disability?
Mr Barr: That is the requirement under the Education Act, Mrs Burke, yes.
MRS BURKE: A requirement, that is good—“I am restrained by the program, by the guidelines”.
Mr Barr: You are asking us to extend it, Mrs Burke, so be a little consistent in your argument, if that is at all possible.
MRS BURKE: We have heard it all before. The minister needs to be very clear with these parents about what his plan is for the future.
Mr Barr: Do you want it shorter or longer, Mrs Burke?
MRS BURKE: I am not talking over the minister. He needs to be very clear and make the statement before 10 December, 2 December, or late December—whenever he is going to do it—to these parents.
Mr Barr: I have already done that, Mrs Burke.
MRS BURKE: If you have already done it, why am I still getting pleas from the heart? I know I get shot down in this place for speaking like it is, but I do not care about that. I really do not care. If people vote for me again in 2008, they will. If they will not, they will not. I can live with that. Can members on that side, Mr Speaker included, live with
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