Page 3240 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 October 2006
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extended life of self-government in the ACT over 17 years, and it is time to confront them. They are difficult issues, but we do not do anyone any favours by seeking to postpone difficult decisions. That is why the government has set out a vision for improving education and why we have gone to the community to consult and, in the end, to make what will be difficult decisions, but decisions that need to be made to ensure the continuation and enhancement of our public education system.
The Towards 2020 proposal that was released in June this year is a comprehensive and detailed proposal that outlines the changes that the government believes are necessary to allow the ACT education system to move forward with strength. All students in the ACT deserve an education that is of the highest standard and is delivered in contemporary and state-of-the-art facilities. That is the right of every student in every school, not just those in new suburbs. In developing the proposal, the government has considered a broad range of demographic, educational, social and financial factors. We obviously considered both the relative merits and the negative impacts arising from the elements of the proposal before bringing it forward to the community. During the consultation process, the government has taken the proposal to the community in an extraordinary number of meetings and received extensive feedback. The government has called for written submissions and the community is responding.
Mr Speaker, it is the government’s job to ensure a sustainable and high quality education system across the whole territory and for every student. I acknowledge that, should the proposal proceed, there will be impacts on some families. On the other hand, the injection of $90 million into our education system for capital upgrades and $20 million for technology upgrades in our schools will have a tangible impact on the quality of education services across the territory. As a result of this investment, in this financial year alone there will be 223 separate projects undertaken to improve more than 72 schools across the ACT—that is, 72 schools will benefit from new play areas, new specialist teaching and learning areas, improved heating and electrical systems, new windows, new external painting and new landscaping. Yet those opposite, through their opposition to these reforms and, as Mrs Dunne has indicated, their view that that investment is throwing good money after bad, I believe are doing ACT residents a great disservice.
Mrs Dunne: You don’t know what you are spending it for and what the outcomes will be.
MR BARR: To pick up on Mrs Dunne’s point, I do know why we are investing that money. It is because ACT public schools have been allowed to run down over an extended period. Governments of both persuasions, both commonwealth and ACT, have allowed this to happen over an extended period and it is time that we invested some money back into our public education system. The projects that the government is funding are ones that schools have requested and it has been unable to fund in years past. We now have the resources to do that.
Mrs Dunne: Where did the $90 million come from?
MR BARR: If Mrs Dunne believes that we should not be upgrading heating systems in our schools to ensure not only that the energy usage in our schools is reduced but also that we have comfortable teaching and learning environments for our staff and for our
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