Page 3256 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 October 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
important that planners and educators know it. If it was factored into the whole 2020 policy, it might support what the government is doing but it might suggest tweaking it in other ways as well.
Who has ever said, by the way, as Mr Corbell just said in his speech, that schools should be left empty? I have not heard it said. It is certainly not something I have said. Schools are a great resource; they are part of a built infrastructure, a huge investment that was put into this territory—most of it before ACT government became an independent body—and they have given us a very good head start.
As for changing demographics, why not advance lifelong learning? It is not just kids that need to keep learning. If we have got older people in our communities, then provide a place and facilities where the third age university can extend. Open sea-change centres and climate change centres in empty wings. The need to reduce driving will strengthen community facilities so that people do not have to drive out of the suburbs to do all their shopping or to send their kids to school. Open up resource centres to support micro businesses. I am saying that that infrastructure is there. It is a useful resource. It does not have to be just educating kids, and we do not have to close them always in order to use them for other purposes.
I am sure that these ideas and many more will appear and are being put into the submissions that the community is preparing. I hope they are reflected in the government’s response. The fact is that, if Mrs Dunne’s bill goes down, following the defeat of my motion and the earlier motion, then we are at the point now where we have got to make sure that this process is really good and that it delivers.
People like me, who are speaking for a very large part of the community, will have to find other ways of making sure that the government works for the good of those communities. I will be really keen to see—and I am hoping that we will hear from the government—it stop defending a position. I have not heard anything new since the public meetings which began in June.
Mr Barr: You just said you heard something.
DR FOSKEY: I heard some new information, but I have not heard anything more about your plans and how you will deal, for instance, with the preschool situation.
Mr Corbell: It is called consulting.
Mr Barr: I am consulting.
DR FOSKEY: Excuse me, I am not talking to you. I must be very careful to talk through the Deputy Speaker.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, Mr Barr and Mr Corbell! Dr Foskey, speak through me, please. We might have a bit more order that way.
DR FOSKEY: The problem is that the ministers have not come to me and had a dialogue. No-one in the government has come to me and talked with me about this. Here we are in the Assembly, through the Deputy Speaker, in a very indirect way, having
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .