Page 3947 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 5 December 2007
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component of that will be in terms of infill and re-densification of the inner suburbs. Perhaps you would call it the gentrification of some of the inner suburbs. But there will not be any schools. In a coordinated and organised way—
Mr Barr: Keep on talking, Brendan. Your ignorance is—
MR SMYTH: Let me finish. I know you do not like this. It is okay; you sit there, lolling back in your chair; you have got your feet up. There is no strategy to ensure the long-term survival of these schools.
Mr Barr: Have you even had the remotest look at the system?
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Barr!
MR SMYTH: I know he does not like it, Mr Speaker. I will continue to speak. I will ignore him. We do not have a strategy. We have got a piecemeal approach, which we see in so many of the things that this government does. It is a little bit here, a little bit there. You have this enormous piecemeal approach.
We have actually had six years of neglect in education. The first five years under Mr Corbell and then Ms Gallagher saw no efforts to improve the school system. It saw no effort to raise the standards. Mr Pratt was talking in 2003-04 about pastoral care, the heart of what parents are looking for in their schools, and it was neglected and pooh-poohed soundly by those opposite as not being necessary.
Yes, a lot of schools in this jurisdiction have now taken up the previous commonwealth government’s offer of chaplains, moral compass, spiritual guidance, chaplains. Indeed, we have passed money recently to assist with that ongoing work. Well done, Mr Pratt; you were only four years ahead of your time.
But we have had six years of neglect. We have had a cost shift from this government to parents and we have had a cost shift from the government to the non-government sector without any extra contribution, any meaningful contribution, from the government to assist all students in the ACT.
They talk about equity; they talk about human rights; they talk about protecting minorities, but all we have sitting opposite here today is the minister for the government system, because he has neglected the non-government system. He has neglected it and has done nothing, as has his government done nothing, to focus on retention to ensure the survival of government schools in the future.
We have a low benchmark now set by Mr Barr. Ships have the Plimsoll line, and ACT schools will have the Barr mark, and this Barr mark will be the judge now. If you get too small, even though you are serving a special group in the community, a suburb or an isolated community, it does not matter. If you get too small, you are on the chopping block unless you have got somebody who is willing to protect you. But we do not have a long-term plan.
We hear about record amounts of money. Budgets grow all the time. We all know that. Successive governments, whatever they will claim, are now spending more than ever
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