Page 4095 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 13 December 2006
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Very soon, under the tutelage of the minister, under Jon Stanhope, government education in the ACT will go into receivership. Very soon, we will become the minority system. Very soon, if there is not a change in policy—it is never too late to change your policy—we will see a system where our government high schools are there only for the disabled, the poor and the kids who are too intractably badly behaved to go to other schools. That will be a shameful day, and that shameful day will be brought about by the Stanhope government.
This is what we have done today. We got the panicked approach of a minister who realises that he is losing market share. He realises that market share is important, but he does not have the vision to go out and find out why, to find out how he can make this the best system in the world, to find out how he can make this system so attractive that people will not feel the need to send their children to non-government schools. All the minister is interested in is baubles. Like his predecessor, he thinks that today he can pay people off—he can buy them off—by spending money.
Minister Gallagher thought that she could buy off the people of west Belconnen by spending money on pulling down schools and replacing them. This minister is attempting to do the same thing. He is going to attempt to buy off the people of Canberra with baubles. It will not be an education system that we can be proud of in the future, because this is the minister who has no vision. (Time expired.)
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (4.19): I am quite sure Minister Barr has learnt a great deal during this process from the time he first made his announcement here in the Assembly, but he has never once been willing to admit that he has learnt anything or that there have been any faults with the process. For instance, time after time the community has pointed out that much of the data the government was basing its 2020 strategy on was wrong. It is quite possible that use of the correct data has led to some of the changes in decisions that have occurred.
We do not know why some schools have been saved and others have not. That is something I would like to hear the minister address, if he responds to this motion or to this discussion. It is not in any of the material that was handed out today. I would like to know, for instance, why the proposal for Yarralumla to go from a P to 2 has been dropped. Narrabundah is a school which has really been assisted and understood by the education system in this town for many decades. We realise how important it is that that school be made strong because it has around 50 per cent indigenous students.
I am hoping there is still time for some good sense to prevail—and I will definitely acknowledge that there have been some sensible decisions. I guess I always wondered if some of them were ambit claims, such as the inclusion of Dickson College on the list. I notice that in the inner north now there is no change. That indicates either a good campaign or silly plans. I do not know; I want to hear those things.
We are going to see a loss of diversity in the system. We have seen cavalier treatment of the communities of Hall and Tharwa. Those communities were here well before Canberra was established. I suppose it is fairly ironic that we are seeing this move, which will make their viability much more difficult. I think this shows a bias against small schools. There seems to be some sort of belief that we cannot see resources
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