Page 3026 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 17 October 2007
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As I said, Mrs Dunne will be bringing forward some amendments in relation to some of this. I note that, while the government motion highlights the proposed business plan to take the education system forward, the recommendations ask for a strategic agenda, as I have outlined. I think that the implementation of a strategic agenda is necessary. Unfortunately, that has not been the case with much of the way education has been handled in the territory in recent years, in particular when we talk about a strategic agenda—
Mr Barr: If you had paid any attention, you would have noticed that it was released some time ago, but never let the facts get in the way of a bit of rhetoric.
MR SESELJA: Once again, we have Mr Barr getting a bit sensitive on this. There was the Towards 2020 proposal, which was dreamed up in five minutes after he became education minister and was adopted holus-bolus. The decision to close 23 schools was clearly not strategic; it was reactive. It was a reaction to the functional review. It was not well thought through. They did not think through all of the consequences. What they did was react to a situation where they had allowed spending to get out of control in areas. The knee-jerk reaction in that case was to close many of our schools.
I reiterate that the decent thing for the Labor Party to have done in that situation would have been to level with the people of Canberra, be honest with the people of Canberra and take to an election their plan to rip the heart out of the ACT government education system. If they had done that and they had won an election on the back of that, we would have had to respect that as being the will of the people of Canberra. But they did not give the people of Canberra that opportunity.
All we hear from Mr Barr on this is: “Well, we had this many meetings and we had consultation.” It is well and good to consult, but there is only one real way of consulting, and that is at an election. That is the only way that the people of Canberra can actually have a say. It is well and good for them to have a say and for the government to reject it, but an election is where they get to decide. We, as major parties, have a responsibility to be honest with the electorate when we go—
Mr Barr: Would you apply that criterion to the WorkChoices legislation?
MR SESELJA: Mr Barr always likes to refer to federal issues when he is under a bit of pressure.
Mr Barr: All right; I’ll give you a local example.
MR SESELJA: He is somehow justifying the lie of the last election by pointing to other levels of government.
Mr Barr: Let me give you a local example.
MR SESELJA: Stand on your record, Mr Barr; stand on your record. Don’t try and shift blame somewhere else.
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