Page 566 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 14 March 2007
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open and public. We are just asking the government to follow its own process, but in a transparent way.
I want to reiterate Mrs Dunne’s comment about Mr Hargreaves’s amendment. I find the amendment totally unacceptable, but the problems would be somewhat alleviated if, as Mrs Dunne suggests, the information that is referred to in the amendment is made available to the Assembly and, through the Assembly, to the community. No doubt the minister will speak again and will say whether that is going to be the case. It would make an amendment that is currently unacceptable slightly more acceptable, in my opinion.
I totally agree that some of the infrastructure will need adjustment. I know that some of the toilets in the preschools might be too low for the bums of many of the adults in the community organisations that will use them. That is not at issue. The issues that we are talking about are more complex than that. The situation is not simple. We are saying that we want a process in which the community can work with the government, where school communities can have a say.
Mr Hargreaves referred to his conversations with people at Flynn about the Flynn school. I am really pleased that those conversations are happening, but it is an indication of what I am talking about that it has not been made public that the government is having these discussions. Somebody has been involved with the government. My concern now is this: good ideas are taken up, but perhaps those ideas could have been better if everybody knew that they could discuss those things.
Let us not have an ad hoc process. Let us have an open process where all the players that want to be part of the action can be involved—not just those that manage to get the ear of the minister. That is the way it sounds at the moment. Mr Hargreaves is looking a little shocked at the implication of what I am saying. He has every opportunity to reassure me—and, through me, the communities that I represent—about the integrity of the process, the openness of the process and the governance that is involved here: that there is listening going on and that there is going to be full disclosure. Again, the government’s own documents say that there has to be a cost-benefit analysis. I do not see any evidence of that in here, the government having taken out all the words that refer to the government’s own processes. It makes me wonder what is going to actually be happening.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Minister for Health, Minister for Disability and Community Services and Minister for Women) (5.03): I will, of course, be speaking in favour of Mr Hargreaves’s amendment. This is a difficult issue and one that is at the forefront of the government’s mind. I have listened to the last few minutes of Dr Foskey’s discussion and I do not think there is too much that we are in disagreement over in terms of doing the analysis of need and talking with community groups—in fact, being lobbied quite extensively by community groups over the potential use of surplus school properties.
I will probably restrict my comments, because the issue crosses a bit into my area as minister for disability and, especially, community services. But, even prior to the government making any final decisions leading up to Towards 2020, I can name quite a number of non-government organisations that were in my office lobbying for use of
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