Page 3248 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 October 2006
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policy decisions of the elected government of the day who have been given the support of the electorate?
Perhaps the next step for Mrs Dunne would be that the appropriation bill should be appellable to the AAT. How would good government be possible if every single policy decision of the government were appellable to the AAT? The current Education Act clearly places the onus on the policy decisions of building, naming, closing and amalgamating ACT government schools where it should be: with the education minister of the day.
The act as amended by this government puts forward in simple and easy to read language what will be consulted on, and the principles the consultation will be based on. The current consultation period is following those principles and we still have two months to run in this consultation period. I argue that now is not the time, in a rush of blood by the opposition, to propose that decisions to be made in December following due process be reviewed by the AAT.
In Mrs Dunne’s continued attempt to whip up fear and confusion in the community—and this is another example—she is seeking to place a moratorium on all school closures and amalgamations. Regardless of the views of the community, under such a process no amalgamations would be possible before 2008. All this will do is place a burden on the community and raise the level of anxiety.
Many in the community are already actively engaging in meaningful consultation. The community and members of the Assembly are aware of the issues facing our education system. These have been discussed at length in this Assembly. We have declining enrolments, ageing infrastructure, changing demographics and clearly too many schools in the ACT. These issues were first flagged when the Stanhope government went to the community in the west Belconnen region with the proposal for a new school. I also raised it in my first speech in this place and again throughout this debate.
These difficulties are well known. The government is tackling the issues. We are not seeking to run down schools or talk down schools. What we have put forward is a real proposal and we are seeking genuine consultation and feedback on that proposal.
We have also proposed a massive investment in public education infrastructure as a major component of our reform agenda. To put this in context, the government is investing almost $190 million into our education system as part of this proposal. This includes a record $90 million injection for capital upgrades for schools over the next four years. This $90 million is designed to greatly increase the quality of teaching and learning environments for ACT teachers and students.
As I have indicated in previous debate, in this financial year alone there will be 223 separate projects undertaken to improve the infrastructure in more than 72 schools across the territory. Those infrastructure improvements range from new science labs at Lyneham high school and a new hall for Chapman primary school through to some infrastructure and playground upgrades, measures to improve the environmental efficiency of our school buildings. As we know, Mrs Dunne has indicated that she does not believe these investments are worth while.
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