Page 3564 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 15 November 2006
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MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation and Minister for Industrial Relations) (5.24): I want to respond to Mrs Dunne’s amendment and to some of the issues that have been raised. I think we do need to look at the different sectors within the ACT education system. It is only fair to observe that enrolments are down across all sectors. I point to the increase in enrolments in secondary colleges, for example, as evidence of where the government seeks to invest and to provide some innovative education product. For example, I highlight the ANU secondary college as a new innovation that, from all the available evidence—that is, enrolments in the program, the interest that we are seeing from students who are moving out of private schools into government secondary colleges—where we provide some innovation, where we provide high-quality product, we are reversing that enrolment decline.
There is evidence that certainly the drift has slowed. The most recent census figures—that is, August—showed that the drift that was running at over one per cent a year from the public system into the private system has slowed to less than one per cent, which is the first sign in a long time of a slowing in the decline away from government schools. Of course, we expected that the opposition would, in relation to the points that were discussed on maintenance, seek to pick up on a particular example I gave in relation to Curtin. My understanding of that particular issue is that, whilst there have been several attempts to fix the hole in the roof that is letting the water in, maintenance budgets have not always stretched to provide a full solution to the problem. I understand it goes back over a considerable period, and may in fact even go back to the time when those opposite were in government. And it is not the only example, obviously, across our school system where maintenance budgets have not been sufficient. I think it goes right back to self-government. I think we are kidding ourselves if we think that, with the asset base that we inherited from the commonwealth in 1989 and the level of funding, governments of both persuasions over 17 years have had the capacity to maintain all of the infrastructure in this territory. They have not, and I do not think there is any doubt of that.
But, that said, we then put forward a proposal to increase the maintenance in our schools by 25 per cent—we put forward $90 million to provide additional capital upgrades—and we are criticised for it because it is spending good money after bad. Mrs Dunne then goes forward and says, “You should not build new schools. You should not spend $45 million on a state-of-the-art school in west Belconnen because you could spend that money on little upgrades around all the other schools.” She tells us that in her consultations parents from other schools have asked, “Well what about us? We are missing out. Why is the government spending $45 million on one school and not spreading the money around?”
Well, we are building a new school and we are putting in $90 million—we are doubling the $45 million—to address just those issues. I have written to every school board, school P&C and school principal seeking ideas for projects that they would like funded from that capital upgrade money. Because we have a school-based management system, school boards will bring forward proposals. They do that as part of the regular capital works program. That is about $11.5 million a year. We are supplementing that program—that will be about $45 million over the next four years—with the additional $90 million to address these issues.
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