Page 3552 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 15 November 2006
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their local school, whether that be government or non-government. We cannot discount the perception that, because something costs money, it therefore offers a better product; that is, that something that is free is only for those who do not have the money to pay.
Mr Speaker, this government is committed to public education. We want to address this move towards private education in our city and we do want to ensure that our education dollar goes where our education dollar is needed. We are not prepared to give up on public education. We do believe in education choice, but we want to ensure that when families exercise their choice ACT government schools present a real and quality option for all students. I commend my amendment to the Assembly.
MR MULCAHY (Molonglo) (4.42): Mr Speaker, I asked for the opportunity to speak today on this matter because, frankly, I think that at last we are getting to the real issue here involved with education. Whilst, I understand, the minister is an economic rationalist, he might want to do a few night classes in marketing, because that is the element of the equation that I think is missing in ACT public education. Whilst Mrs Dunne’s background is not really in that field, I thought she delivered in rather eloquent terms the core issues which that have not been addressed, other than on the morning of the budget debate, and which are central to the problems besetting the ACT government and its performance in public education.
I want first to take the opportunity to acknowledge the fine work of teachers in both government and non-government schools in the ACT. Their job is vital to the development of future generations and their hard work deserves to be commended. My experience in education is anecdotal. My late father was a teacher. I grew up in a household where things related to education were often talked about and we had a lot of interaction with people in that field. I have been in both a Catholic school and a private school, and my children have been in the public system in the ACT and in non-government Catholic schools. I have had that level of exposure to the system and I have had to make decisions, in concert with my wife, based on my experience and on life experience.
This motion is important because, as Mrs Dunne has pointed out, it goes to the fundamental flaws of the government’s Towards 2020 plan. She cited Chris Uhlmann’s remark in the Canberra Times in June that when a free product is losing market share to a really expensive one there is reason to worry. Mr Barr is, I think, knowledgeable on economic issues, which puts him in a unique position across the other side of the chamber since Mr Quinlan’s departure, and I am sure that if he applied the challenge and task at hand here to other areas of society he would realise that people who continue to resist the expressions from the marketplace generally experience a long period of decline.
It does not matter if you are manufacturing cars, it does not matter if you are running a corner shop and it does not matter if you are running a political party or virtually anything else; if you are not in touch with the needs of the electorate or if you are not in touch with the needs of your customers—in this case the customers are the parents who are making the decision as to where to send their children in the first instance—then there is a good chance that you will lose their confidence. The minister said that at last Mrs Dunne is recognising demographic issues, but I do not think he read very
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