Page 4193 - Week 13 - Thursday, 14 December 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
school. I think of the irony of that place which adds so much to the character of this modernist city. There we have some old architecture. We have a school that, apart from being a living school, is also a living museum of schools. I think that either there has been selective listening or some deals have been done. We have not heard about those. We can only guess, I suppose.
The minister says that most people drive past schools, so he will make them have to drive past schools. I have not heard any talk of teachers in this conversation. I did not think they were covered in the media release. It is teachers that make a school good or not; it is not the walls. We can improve the schools like anything. Go to London, go to places which have built great schools; but, where you have not got the teachers, you have not really got a great school. We have not talked about how we invest in teachers, the major part of our system, nor have we thought about why people go to small schools.
I have had calls and emails today about the closures. I guess these are going to be the first of many. I tell the senders, by the way, to get in touch with the minister’s office because I think the minister should hear from them, that he should face the consequences of the decision he has made. I had a call today from a woman in Tharwa who has given me permission to use her story. She was in tears because she had taken her children to that small school in preference to the school they were going to because her daughter was cutting herself. A lot of that goes on in this community. If you talk to the Youth Coalition, you will find that angst amongst young people can get expressed like that. Now, of course, she has to send her daughter back to the school that she took her out of in order to overcome that issue. She was saying, “What can I do? What can I do?” I said, “Tell the minister.”
Another email was from a woman who does volunteer work at Cook. She works with some indigenous students who are having trouble learning to read. They were just starting to make a breakthrough and yesterday they heard that their school was going to close. Something that has taken months and months to build up—it is not just about teaching people to read; it is a confidence-building process and a trust-building process—has gone. It will take a long time to rebuild that.
I want to conclude by referring to the $750 payment for transition. You cannot handle a transition just with money. For most people that money is meaningless. I think they would tell you to take your money back. It is not just a matter of giving people money and saying, “Now you can buy a new school uniform, new school books and so on.” It is actually about walking through it and listening to people. Have I heard anything about additional counsellors? I am not sure.
Mr Barr: Yes, you have.
DR FOSKEY: I have not heard it but it has happened; good. From what I am hearing, a lot of the parents need counselling as well. Lots of people are going to need to be walked through this process. That must have been the penultimate thing, because the ultimate thing that I will say is that I hope that this government will not sell any schools before the next election, because I think that the people should have a right to vote for a government knowing now what it would actually do about school closures. I think that we need to have the possibility of a decent process. We might still close
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .