Page 2927 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 September 2006
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MR SESELJA: It is interesting that Mr Barr interjects and says that paragraph (ii) is more important. Hopefully, he will be supporting this amendment then. Perhaps he would like to consider some of these things in a comprehensive way, rather than rushing out, gutting the education system and closing 40 schools. Why would you not take the time to get this right? We know why. We know the answer. It goes back to integrity.
They need to close all of the schools as quickly as they can, in the vain hope that, come 2008, somehow the people of the ACT will have forgotten what they have done, will have forgotten that they were deceived in 2004 by this government and will have forgotten that Katy Gallagher and her spokesperson said there would be no school closures, and then they closed 40. If they take a bit of time and close schools closer to the election, they are afraid of the electoral backlash. That is at the heart of this debate.
Mr Barr: That is the Liberal Party policy?
MR SESELJA: Mr Barr can interject all he likes. It is like the argument we had yesterday over the economy. The proposition put by Mr Gentleman and the Chief Minister was: “If you had stuffed things up as badly as we have, what would you now do?” This is what Mr Barr is putting to us: “If we had gone to the 2004 election and deceived the people and then were looking to gut the education system, would you do things the same?” No, we would not. We would not have gone to the people of the ACT and deceived them and would not be gutting the education system in the way that this government is proposing to do. It is a moot interjection and is the kind of thing we have been getting from, not just Mr Barr but also from the Treasurer yesterday.
We know why there is a rush. We know that they do not want to do this in a considered and comprehensive way and in a way that will improve educational outcomes. We know that they have not done a comprehensive analysis of why there is a drift from the government sector to the non-government sector. We know why they want to rush it through. They want to rush it through because they want people to forget. People are not going to forget. We will remind them. We will remind them what this minister has done. We will remind them that they can never trust the ACT Labor Party. They cannot trust them on anything. They certainly cannot trust them on education. This education policy is an absolute sham. There is nothing in there about 40 schools to close. All they do is say, “The Liberal Party would have closed all the preschools.”
We know who is closing the preschools. It is the ACT Labor Party. We know who is gutting the education system. It is the ACT Labor Party. We know who is in a desperate, desperate rush to close these schools far enough out from the next election that they can avoid political damage. This is not about integrity; this is not about doing what is best for the education system. This is about trying to get away with an outrageous gutting of the ACT education system and get away with it far enough out from the next election that they do not get voted out of office.
MRS BURKE (Molonglo) (11.37): Mr Stanhope talks in this place about honesty. Mr Seselja has talked about integrity. Deception, another word used by my colleague, is clearly what is being shown throughout this whole process. People have been deceived. It is a terrific insult to the Canberra community, an absolute insult.
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