Page 3254 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 October 2006
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The government has put forward Towards 2020: renewing our schools. It sets out an approach to rationalising the number of preschools and schools in the ACT and makes a record injection of funding for capital and IT upgrades in others. In putting forward the 2020 proposal, the government has publicly acknowledged the need to renew and reconfigure the way we deliver educational services in the ACT.
Unlike the opposition, unlike Mrs Dunne, we are not trying to defer that decision to the AAT or to school boards; nor are we asking the impossible, that individual school boards consider the needs of the whole educational region or the whole system. That is not their job. Their focus quite rightly is on their individual school. We have asked the community to comment on the proposals for their region, and they have, comprehensively and in volume. That shows the effectiveness of the consultation process to date. We have received a strong response and a very comprehensive range of views and issues.
The government is currently asking school boards to consider the best way to ensure that each region is provided with top-quality schools. Under Mrs Dunne’s amendment as proposed in this bill, I am not sure who would be charged with this responsibility or how necessary decisions would be made. Would the AAT, the school board chair, the principal of the school or the president of the P&C be responsible? This is clearly a nonsensical proposal.
The government has accepted its responsibility for suggesting how changes could be made to provide children and young people in future with a vibrant, responsive and world-class public education system that is second to none, regardless of which public school they choose to attend. Yes, it involves difficult decisions. It involves the prospect of closure or amalgamation. But we believe we need to address this issue now, and to do so comprehensively. The proposal we have put forward is one that we will now consider in the context of the consultation comments and representations that we have received. It is a significant proposal. There is a six-month consultation process on it.
The proposal by Mrs Dunne will act against the best interests of ACT families and students in the long run. It will also put off again for another day the difficult issue of changing demographics in our community—one that we, as elected representatives, have a responsibility to acknowledge and address.
It would be fair to say that, in contrast, we wait, in anticipation, for the day that Mrs Dunne and the opposition put forward a meaningful policy to support public education. But until we see that, and while we continue to wait, this is simply the latest in a line of long stunts by Mrs Dunne and those who prefer to stick their heads in the sand, accept the status quo and not acknowledge the comprehensive challenges we face and not put forward a pragmatic, informed and considered response to it.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (5.16): I am not going to go over this bill in fine detail, partly because it is very similar to a motion that I put earlier—and that speech is on the record—and because, and this has to be said, I am aware that the government has a majority and it is very clear that the government will not support it. I am going to talk briefly and simply to the principles here.
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