Page 834 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 2 April 2008
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The reality is that this has to be a discussion about the quality of education and how we deliver that. Quality of education is delivered through teachers. You only have to look to one simple fact on this. Back in 2000, the previous Liberal government put up a fund of $1 million for the continuing education of teachers. At the leaders forum on schools in Calwell, Clive Haggar pointed out that that has not grown. Yes, we are putting more money into the system, but important things like the continuing education of teachers have been left at a funding level of seven years ago. That is an indictment of the three successive education ministers and the Stanhope government and an indication of their true commitment to education—the true commitment to education that exists in this government.
The amendment is interesting. The minister is now inventing words. He does not want to talk about literacy and numeracy. We have a new word: “numerousy”—n-u-m-e-r-o-u-s-y.
Mr Barr: Yes, there was a typo. It has been fixed.
MR SMYTH:—I am sure the minister will get up and say it is a typo. But “numerousy”—I checked the dictionary—does not exist. He can explain himself in that regard, but it is there in probably the longest amending motion that has ever been tabled in this place. There are two and a bit pages to justify what we are doing. Basically nobody is hearing him. The sting that the minister is feeling is because what he has done as education minister is not welcomed by the community in the main and is not having the effect that he said it would. That will leave the minister exposed in the lead-up to the election.
Point 7 of the amendment says:
… the ACT Liberals have released no substantial education policy since the beginning of December 2007.
Oh, gosh; pardon me: we have not said anything for three months in terms of a policy! Perhaps the minister would like to stand up and now explain all of the policies that the various ministers in the cabinet have released since December 2007. By the same judgement, by the same standard, they would be very thin on the ground.
We will release our policies. We have said we will do that. We will release them, as oppositions do, when we are good and ready. We are not going to run to your timetable because you are desperate and you cannot justify what you have done because it is failing.
There we have it: the new three Rs—reduce, remove and rebuff. When we look at the numbers, we find that we are losing more and more students from government schools. There are 890 fewer students in government primary schools and 850 more students in non-government primary schools. When you ask Mr Barr to explain this, he just avoids the question. We go back to the old position: “But we are spending more money.” If that is not the head-in-the-sand approach to this issue, I do not know what is.
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