Page 3073 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 17 October 2007
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learning environment is to ensure that our schools are properly staffed. What do we see here? We have got Ms Porter coming in here today with this pseudo-laudatory motion about the ACT college systems. But what do we actually have today? We have a minister for education who, by his own admission, has cut 21 teachers—21 teachers—out of the college system this year alone. He says it is 21; many of the people in the college system and some of the evidence indicates to me that it is a much higher figure than that and that it may be in excess of 30.
What we have here today is Ms Porter’s pseudo motion of congratulations to the government. She talks about the Atelier report of the review of government secondary colleges on behalf of the ACT government. This report was published in December 2005. And what is the main thrust of this motion today? It is to note that pretty soon, as a result of this review, the government will be releasing a business plan.
Mr Barr: Well, if you had paid attention, you would have noticed that it happened two months ago.
MRS DUNNE: What are we actually doing?
Ms Porter: It’s been released. That’s not the point.
MRS DUNNE: We are actually noting that pretty soon, two years after the process, there will be a business plan; a little bit of something that might get us underway and might get some of these recommendations implemented. Interestingly enough, when this minister was so busy closing schools, he was ignoring the recommendations of this report. He kept saying in published documents, on the web page and at public meetings how what he was doing was supported by this report. He did that until I had the temerity and the audacity to stand up at one of those public meetings and quote a statement that showed that he was ignoring everything that was in those reports.
We have got the minister here today saying, “We’re spending lots of money in my electorate in Melba in relation to Melba high school and Charnwood and Copland college,” but was that spending informed by this report? No, it was not. It may, in the long run, be good money; it may be a good investment. But at this stage we are working on a wing and a prayer. We do not know whether it is good money or not and whether it is a good investment or not. It certainly is not an investment that is informed by this report, which was commissioned, quite rightly and as it should have been, by the minister’s predecessor. This minister has done nothing about it, except have Ms Porter come in here today and move this motion.
I note that my amendment has been circulated, Mr Deputy Speaker. I move:
Omit all words after “Assembly”, substitute:
“(1) notes:
(a) the high success rate of the ACT secondary college system since its inception;
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