Page 2789 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
department are a real problem for the delivery of any change. You cannot be a maker of change, a change agent, when you are actually reorganising yourself. You have to have stability, you have to have esprit de corps and you have to have high morale before you start if you are going to effectively implement changes that have huge ramifications.
I am glad to see that Mr Barr is here tonight wearing his Adam Smith tie to demonstrate his economic rationalist credentials. In a sense, being an “eco rat” is a bit 1990s. He has only the merest gloss of an “eco rat”. He is looking at the accounts and saying, “Gee, I can save a few million here and a few million there. In the outyears I can save $8 million, $10 million or $12 million dollars. If I am really, really lucky, in year 5 I might be able to save $14 million out of a budget of $600 million by the time you put everything into it. If you just consider the government inputs for services, it is still in excess of $400 million.”
So $14 million—let us call it what it is—is chump change. The savings that this minister proposes to make and the problems that he is going to put forward for every aspect of the education department are not warranted by the savings. It is just not good enough. I took the time this morning to attend the AEU rally outside in relation to the industrial relations laws. I was moved by the comments made by Michael Hall from Lanyon high school. I did ask him for his permission to quote him here tonight. He said, “If we were to run our schools the way this government is running the department we would be in huge strife. We cannot run our schools without certainty and we cannot run our education system without certainty.”
I suppose to some extent there is some certainty about this, because what the Stanhope Labor government is doing with Andrew Barr at the helm of the education department is certainly driving the good ship “ACT government schools” into the shoals. If the good ship is in the doldrums, there will be no wind to take it off; it will certainly founder. We will see more and more people leaving the government school system. Mr Speaker was correct on ABC radio this morning when he said, “It is certain to drive people into the government school system.” I talk to people every day who are saying that they are looking further afield. I talk to school principals in the non-government system who talk about the number of people who have made inquiries about enrolling their children next year in non-government schools.
The people who really want certainty for their children will go somewhere else. They know, as the principal of Lanyon high school knows, that the most important ingredient in a vital education system is certainty. This is the 1968 element that we have to have change at all costs and we have to have upheaval. To see Andrew Barr characterising himself as some sort of soixante-huitard is just amazing. I will take my extra time, if I can, Mr Deputy Speaker.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Carry on, Mrs Dunne.
MRS DUNNE: He, who proudly claims that he is an economic rationalist, has no rational approach to education in this town. We are seeing huge teacher losses—160 teacher losses by the time you take into account the itinerate teachers who work in the department of education, in the vicinity of 90 staff out of central office, plus the 120-odd staff who will go to the Shared Services Unit, and 22 staff such as bursars, principals and so on—as a direct result of closing schools.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .