Page 2638 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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MR SPEAKER: Order! Members of the opposition will cease interjecting. If the minister stays with the subject matter of the question, opposition members might not then be so provoked.
MR BARR: Opposition members said they were not opposed to school closures. Today’s Canberra Times quotes Mrs Dunne as saying that the Liberal Party understood the need to close some schools. I am sure the ACT community would be comforted by an alternative government that said, “Yes, we will also close schools, but we will do it differently. We cannot tell you how we would do it, though, because we do not know.” In light of the lack of policies from members across the chamber we need to look at what they have said on the public record and what they have done. What else can we do when they do not have an education policy? In 1990 the Leader of the Opposition was a member of a Liberal government that was proposing to close schools. At the time he was in favour of that proposal. On 16 August 1990 he said in the Assembly:
No-one likes closing schools. It would be lovely if we could keep that system. We cannot, unfortunately.
Members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Members of the opposition will cease interjecting. The minister will come to the subject matter of the question.
MR BARR: It is the subject matter of the question. I am quoting what the Leader of the Opposition said on 16 August 1990. He said:
No-one likes closing schools. It would be lovely if we could keep that system. We cannot, unfortunately. We are standing on our own two feet now … some rationalisation has to take place…
I think Mr Humphries should be commended for the very hard, agonising and difficult decisions he has had to take—and, indeed, this Government has had to take.
I was also very interested in the newly released cabinet documents from 10 years ago. They show that, while the Liberal government of the day postured about not closing schools without the agreement of local communities, Mr Stefaniak proposed to put gravely endangered schools in an impossible position by removing vital additional resources, essentially engineering closure by stealth and starvation.
I am not sure what has changed since 1990. We can only assume that Mr Stefaniak’s views have been changed by the lure of perhaps winning an election and becoming Chief Minister. What Mr Stefaniak will not say is that, if that day comes, if he becomes Chief Minister of this territory, he will not close any schools. He will not say that because he knows in his heart that this government is doing the right thing.
I think members opposite might also be interested in the comments Mr Humphries made in 1990 that were reported in the Canberra Times. The article states that Mr Humphries:
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