Page 3263 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 October 2006

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That is the calibre of people you have in the Labor Party and that is the calibre of people who have betrayed the trust of the people of the ACT.

This bill is designed to give ownership of the decision making about our schools, not Andrew Barr’s schools, not Jon Stanhope’s schools. The people of the ACT own those schools and they have the right to have those decisions scrutinised. This minister does not want to have those decisions scrutinised. This minister does not want to be put in a situation where he has to say to the people of, for example, Giralang, “I am going to close your school and this is the reason.” The way things are structured at the moment, he will not do that. He will say, “We have thought about it and we are going to close these schools.” There will be no individual statement of reasons to any particular school which says why that school is closing, because he cannot do it, he is not able to do it and he does not have the guts to do it.

Mr Barr: We will mark that as your statement at 5.50 pm today. When you are wrong, will you retract it?

MRS DUNNE: I always retract when I am proven wrong. This minister and this government do not have the courage, first of all, to justify their position, justify the reasons. Certainly, they do not have the courage to have those decisions tested by an impartial organisation. Dr Foskey has asked questions, members of the opposition have asked questions and members of the public have asked questions about what the process will be between when the consultation papers come in and the minister makes his decision. We have not had any answers. All we know is that the people in the ACT department of education who first came up with the policy in support of their minister are going to be the people who will review all the decisions, who will review all the papers coming in.

There is no impartiality in that. There is no science in that. Mr Stefaniak asked the minister yesterday to say what is the science behind it and how he will measure it. The minister did not have an answer, the same as when constituents of mine have asked him the same question. He does not have an answer. Is it any wonder people in this territory do not trust the word of the Stanhope government? This is about trust. The Stanhope government has betrayed the trust of the people of the ACT. If they want to recoup any of that trust, I challenge them now—I challenge you, Mr Speaker, and I challenge the members of the back bench and the front bench who voted for a moratorium—to vote for this bill and restore trust with the people of the ACT and to have proper consultation about the future of ACT education. If you do not have the courage to do that, you do not deserve the job.

Question put:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

The Assembly voted—

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