Page 3235 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 October 2006
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We would like to know that the ACT government has carefully considered and can explain the impact of the proposal on the viability of local centres, on the long-term health of children, on meeting the needs of children with an intellectual disability or physical disability, on the needs and interests of kids at risk of unsatisfactory education outcomes, on the increased costs that might fall to families adjusting to new educational settings, on the reorganisation of the department, and indeed, on our roads. Cars are bypassing schools that have closed to get to new schools. I know Mr Barr will say that people are already doing that. A hell of a lot more people are going to be doing it once this proposal is implemented.
Finally, I would just like to make the point that when my bill to put a moratorium on the school closures was defeated in November, not one Labor backbencher bothered to speak. It seems to me that this approach is disrespectful of the school communities in their electorates who are dismayed by both the 2020 plan and its implementation. My motion today is a simple one, and I trust it is one that the backbench can support. If not, I look forward to hearing from them as to why they do not view a public and comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of these far-reaching changes as necessary.
When it comes down to it, one of the things that people in this community care about most of all is the education of their children and their right to do that. We live in a world where it is going to be the 80 per cent and the 20 per cent. We need skills and a skilled workforce. That starts with good schools, and good schools for the most disadvantaged.
We could argue about small schools until the cows come home, but where is the work? Where is the work that shows that the government cares enough about those kids, rather than a bottom line, which will not be achieved and improved for several years anyway? There is time. That is what I have always said. The government has said itself that these savings will not be seen for another two or three years. Show us the cost-benefit analysis that proves that you have looked at achieving high quality education and that the benefits outweigh the costs, not just to the government, not just for the short-term economic bottom line, but for the long-term economy of the ACT and investment in our people.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (3.57): Mr Speaker, the Liberal opposition will be supporting Dr Foskey’s motion, which reads:
That this Assembly calls on the ACT government to conduct and then release a full cost/benefit analysis of the Towards 2020 proposal before closing, amalgamating or reorganising any ACT government schools.
A cost-benefit analysis is an essential element of good policy making. Any policy maker who is interested in making good policy would embrace the notion of using a tool such as a cost-benefit analysis to test the parameters of their policy. The minister has a policy called Towards 2020 which is about diversity, access and those sorts of things, but there has never been a comprehensive tool applied to the proposals in this document that would test whether the stated outcomes, which are really, for the most part, blandishments and pious catchphrases, are capable of being met.
There is a fault with the policy. Irrespective of whether you agree with closing schools or not closing schools, there is a fault with the minister’s policy in that it does not set out
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