Page 4198 - Week 13 - Thursday, 14 December 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
question time. He claimed that it had not happened. He claimed that the government did not have such a commitment; that what Mr Stefaniak was saying was false. He referred to an interview that Ms Gallagher gave on 11 August 2004, prior to the election. Indeed, then ACT education minister Katy Gallagher ruled out any immediate school closures but said the future of small schools would have to be discussed. She went on to say:
But at some stage in the future … the community will have to have a conversation about this … old schools, new schools and what they want from the future.
So that was the position of the Labor Party on 11 August 2004. On 12 August, the education minister Katy Gallagher was getting a bit worried about the publicity, I think, and about the concerns of many in the community that the Labor Party was preparing to close schools in the next term. An article in the Canberra Times states:
A spokesman for Education Minister Katy Gallagher categorically ruled out Labor closing any schools during the next term of government.
“The Government will not be closing schools,” the spokesman said.
This was the day after the interview. So in the interview Ms Gallagher was sort of musing that maybe some time in the future, some time down the track, there would have to be school closures, but the next day she was getting worried about it. The Canberra Times went on to state—and this was never corrected; there was never another Canberra Times article or a press release to correct it:
With the school-age population in Canberra decreasing in coming decades, closures would need to be looked at, but this would not be during Ms Gallagher’s time in politics.
I must confess that when I was reading through these articles in the past I have not always highlighted this: “this would not be during Ms Gallagher’s time in politics”. Apparently Ms Gallagher was leaving politics before the school closures.
So prior to the election we had the promise that there would be no school closures in the next term of government. That was from the Labor Party. Then we had that it would not happen during Ms Gallagher’s time in politics. Then we were told that, if the government was to close a school, it would only do so with the support of the community. Well, Mr Speaker, I am not sure that some of the communities of schools that are about to be closed—some of the schools in my electorate and the communities around those, like in Rivett and in Weston Creek—are supporting these school closures. So we had this monumental deception of the people of Canberra prior to the last election with these promises: no school closures in the next term, no school closures during Ms Gallagher’s time in politics and, if there were to be school closures, it would only be done with the support of the community.
This, Mr Speaker, is the fundamental, number one and most important reason why this motion of censure should be supported. This minister, even though he did not make the promise back in 2004, was a candidate in that election where he was supporting the Labor Party’s policies, with not a word about 40 school closures. When
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .