Page 2912 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 September 2006
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I have to congratulate Dr Foskey because she was the first of the members here to move on this issue in a legislative form. I think the moratorium bill she has introduced is a reasonable start, but it has always been the view of the opposition that a moratorium by itself is nothing more than a stay of execution.
The minister referred to the fact that a moratorium would in some sense create more insecurity and more uncertainty. But this is not the principal reason for doing this. The principal reason for Dr Foskey’s move, I understand, is to create certainty about where people will be next year.
The heady combination of school closures in December, combined with schools having to do their staffing formulas and close down for the school holidays, means that there is a huge amount of uncertainty about what is going to happen with the 1,000 or so children directly affected by school closures that will be announced and brought into effect at the end of this year. Dr Foskey’s moratorium bill is to shift the decision making so that, when we are so far towards the end of the year already, parents have certainty about where their children are going to be next year.
This is about providing a service to the community. This is what we are here to do. We are not here in this Assembly to implement our own ideology or to tell the community, as this minister has just had the audacity to do, what is good for them. What Andrew Barr thinks is good for my constituents—the parents of children in my electorate—is not what they think is good for their children and their children’s education.
Andrew Barr can sit here and say, “I am providing you better outcomes in the long term.” Mr Barr, they do not believe you. They do not believe anything you say when you talk about school closures. My constituents are highly suspicious of everything this government says about school closures. They are not bamboozled by the mealy-mouthed pap words about quality of education and higher outcomes in the long term.
The parents in my constituency are concerned about where their children are going to go to school next year; whether the children who currently go to school in Giralang will find that they will be moved from a beautiful school—a picture of a school—to demountables somewhere else. They will go from an architect designed school to demountables. Do they think they are getting value for their money? Do they think they are getting value for the 39 per cent increase in rates and charges in Giralang? No, they do not.
Cook primary school is another picture of a school, with picture grounds. The minister says, by his own admission, that Cook is a great school. What is going to happen to them? They are going to move into demountables somewhere the year after next because the schools where they have a right to enrol do not have space for them.
Mr Barr: That is rubbish, and you know it.
MRS DUNNE: How many vacancies are there at Aranda, minister? You have told those children that every one of them can go to a school of their choice. If they choose to go to Aranda when you close their school—if you close their school—there is no room for the children there. There is not room for the 190 children from Cook at Aranda.
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