Page 2914 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 September 2006
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of a comprehensive survey of the reasons why there is a drift of enrolments from government to non-government schools. The close questioning by Dr Foskey, Mr Smyth, Mr Pratt and me in estimates showed that this government, this minister and his department have no idea why people are moving from the government to the non-government system.
Mr Barr: Rubbish. There is not one simple answer to that question. You know that.
MRS DUNNE: We know there is not one simple answer. There is not one simple silver bullet answer. There is a range of factors. This minister cannot tell us what they are. We all have our gut feelings about what they are, but there is no survey. There is no instrument. When a child leaves a school there is no means of ascertaining whether they go to another government school or to a non-government school, or why they are leaving.
Mr Mulcahy: That is the nub of the issue.
MRS DUNNE: That is the nub of the issue. If we are having falling enrolments and a drift to the non-government system, this minister and his predecessors have taken no interest in why. Since the beginning of 2002 Mr Pratt and I have been asking successive ministers for education, “Why is this happening?” The previous two ministers said it was not a problem. I presumed that they thought it was an economy measure.
This minister suddenly says that he thinks it is a problem, but he cannot tell us why. He cannot tell us when he is going to find out why. I could give you my reasons; Mr Mulcahy could give you what he thinks or his reasons; and Mr Stanhope could probably give what he thinks or his reasons; but that is not the answer.
You have to actually ask the people who are taking their children out of government schools why they are doing it. You cannot sit here and say, “We are spending $110 million on capital injections into schools; we are spending $65 million in writing off our assets.” We do not know why. We do not know whether it is well directed.
This minister and this Treasurer have no idea why they are spending the money they are going to spend. For all of these reasons, we should be putting a halt to the process so we are collecting some thoughts. In addition, we need to have long-term demographic analyses of school places because we see over and over again that suburbs go into decline.
Mr Barr: That is your policy: do not spend money on schools.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Barr, cease the interjections.
MRS DUNNE: I heard him in silence. We see this over and over again: suburbs work in cycles. I will give an example. My son goes to Lyons primary school. I make no secret of this. It is a school that will be affected by this policy. Lyons is in a phase of increasing population and an increasing school-age population. Chifley, next door in Ms MacDonald’s electorate, has done its own survey—because this government will not do a survey—of the prospective children coming into the school. There is a baby boom in some of these inner city suburbs.
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