Page 806 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 1 April 2008
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needed them—running stalls, manning the barbecue and selling badges. Peter, the realist and “Mr Organised”, was the foundation on which a successful venture could be made. He added calm to chaos in even the most trying times.
Peter was organised to the end. He had his whole funeral planned and stored on a thumb-drive—the eulogy, the music, the works. Peter was the epitome of the saying “Only the good die young”, and he will be sadly missed by his family, the motorcycling community, the Naval Association and anyone whose life he touched during his 58 years.
Schools—Lyons primary
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (6.27): I would like to put on the record what has actually been happening at Lyons primary school over the last little while. There have been rumours circulating for some time that something was afoot. It had been put to me and to other parents some time ago that maybe the children would be required to move out of their classrooms into the assembly hall, but that was discounted because it was just too stupid to contemplate putting 85 children in one place. As my husband said when I raised it with him, “Well, that was what it was like when I started school in Central Queensland 45 years ago.” That is what schooling was like then, and it is not what you expect in Australia’s national capital in 2008.
But the rumours persisted and other rumours started to surface, such as the school being closed down so that renovations could be undertaken and that the children would be moved out lock, stock and barrel to Yarralumla. This is not the only school where rumours abound and, as yet, the minister has not come into this place and discounted the fact that it was said to me that the principal of Southern Cross primary school has also been told that her school will be closed early so that renovations can be made for the opening of the P-2 school there.
We have had the argument about the merits or otherwise of a P-2 school system, but we also have a commitment from the ACT government that the schools in Lyons, Narrabundah and Isabella Plains, and at Southern Cross in Scullin, would continue in their present form, on their present sites, until the end of this year. The children, the parents and the teachers in those schools should not be disadvantaged. The children should not have their education disrupted in the way that has been proposed by officials in the department of education and that was being advised to the parents of Lyons primary school as late as yesterday afternoon. The minister has to come in here, come clean and tell the community what is going to happen in those schools.
Schools—Lyons primary
MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Planning, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Minister for Industrial Relations) (6.29): I thank Mrs Dunne for leaving me a very short amount of time. I would like to share with the assembly a letter that my department has received. It reads:
“Dear Joanne and Craig—
they are officials in the Department of Education and Training—
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