Page 2563 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 23 August 2006
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The motion circulated in my name gives effect to what the opposition and many in the community have been calling for, and that is a wide-ranging, fully independent inquiry into the future of our schools. We need to establish a rigorous inquiry under the Inquiries Act 1991 into the future needs of education and training in the ACT for the next 25 years. We cannot afford to put our education system at risk at the whim of an inexperienced education minister who has had to try to sell a last-minute schools closure policy that the government hatched shortly before the June budget.
We have made too much of an investment over the years in Canberra to develop a first-class education system to sacrifice that on the altar of budget processes only. The plain fact is that there are very few things as important to our community as education. The community expects, and has a right to expect, that the government will give education the highest priority. It is an investment in our children and, therefore, our future.
The government produced its Towards 2020 document in this year’s budget. While the government had flagged the possible closure of some schools and preschools, the proposed closure of 39 schools and preschools shocked most people in the community. There was absolutely nothing in the Canberra plan about closing schools—not one word. The evolution of the Labor Party’s position on this issue is very interesting indeed. On 11 August 2004, the then minister, Katy Gallagher, said:
At this stage, there’s no plan to closing any school. I haven’t turned my mind to it at all. But at some stage in the future … the community will have to have a conversation about this … old schools, new schools and about what they want from the future.
This is what an inquiry would achieve. Her spokesman was even more definite and definitive the next day. The Canberra Times reported:
A spokesman for Education Minister Katy Gallagher categorically ruled out Labor closing any schools during the next term of government.
It went on:
“The Government will not be closing schools,” the spokesman said.
On 18 May 2005, Ms Gallagher’s office told the Canberra Times that “no schools in the ACT were slated for closure because of low student numbers”. Two months later the government announced the closure of Ginninderra district high school and Higgins and Holt primary schools to build a so-called super school. Ms Gallagher was keen to reassure parents with students at other schools that this was not a precursor of things to come. And, while not ruling out school closures, she said:
We have a situation in Canberra where we have 97 schools, and a declining student population, so we will monitor enrolments at every school … there are no plans to close other schools.
The government assured parents that it would not close these schools if this proposal did not have the support of the local community. These words were exposed as empty when Ginninderra district high school was closed six months after the announcement.
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