Page 2569 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 23 August 2006
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opposition have missed the point. They have failed to see that Towards 2020 is about ensuring the sustainability of our high-quality education system, now and into the future, and making it possible for the ACT to continue to lead Australia in education, lifelong learning and training.
They have also exposed, through this motion and their approach to this debate, that they have no education policies. In fact, they have no policies at all. But what they do have, of course, is a clear understanding of the issues which the government faces and which at one level it is seeking to deal with through the process of renewal, and this is reflected in the budget, the budget decisions and in this new, detailed policy position reflected in Towards 2020. And how do we know that they know what the issues are? How do we know that they embrace them? How do we know that they honestly know that the government is right? We know this from the words spoken in this place by members such as Mr Stefaniak and Mr Smyth, and previous members such as Mr Humphries and Mr Kaine and other members of the Liberal government. How do we know what Mr Stefaniak really thinks about Towards 2020 and about the need for us to cement our capacity to support public education in the territory? We know this from a statement recorded in Hansard made by Mr Stefaniak when he was a member of the Liberal government and the minister for education was Mr Humphries. This is what Mr Stefaniak said on this very subject in 1990:
I also want to talk about a few points about our school system 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. That has been the case for many years, but I do not really think that I want have to delve into that part of the debate today.
Mr Stefaniak went on to say:
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 … were bussed in from Curtin, Lyons, Chifley and Hughes before those schools went up in the Woden valley. It is interesting to note that those same kids who started off in year 7or 8 at Narrabundah, when Woden Valley High and Deakin came on stream, remained at Narrabundah and made that quite considerable journey often in buses, often by riding their pushbikes there. I can also recall walking, as a five-year-old, to kindergarten at Griffith. I can recall many students I went through infants and primary school with walking considerable distances to get to school.
I think it was in those years that we got on to a neighbourhood school system, and in each of the suburbs that blossomed in Canberra—in the expansion in the late 1960s
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