Page 1825 - Week 05 - Thursday, 2 April 2009
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One of the particularly callous and heartless measures to come out of that budget was the closure of schools in villages in the ACT without consideration of the particular role these institutions played at the heart of these communities. The now-closed Hall primary school houses the Laurie Copping Museum—a recreated 1911 classroom. Laurie Copping OAM was a long-serving principal at the school. He showed a lifelong dedication to children’s learning and was instrumental in setting up a museum. Since his passing, he has been sorely missed by the community.
This discussion of the school goes to the central theme of the MPI today—the viability of villages in the ACT. Of late, the village has gone through a tough time. The school has closed, the doctor’s surgery has left and in addition to that ACTION does not service the area. Fortunately, Transborder, which is operated by Deane’s Transit Group, provides a good service, taking students, workers and shoppers to Belconnen and Canberra City.
The previous Liberal government achieved quite a few things with the Hall community, including sealing the streets of the village and completing refurbishments of the showground and oval. Hall has a number of active community groups, including the umbrella organisation, the Hall and District Progress Association. The association has been active in many areas of late, including advocating to keep the Hall primary school open—an effort the Canberra Liberals supported—making submissions and giving feedback to ACTPLA and running what has to be one of the best community websites in the ACT—www.hall.act.au. I commend Alastair Crombie and his team for all the good work they do.
I am sorry to hear that the project to get a community bank for the village has been suspended, but I understand that it will be reconsidered every four months until it is viable. Raising the capital for such a venture during these uncertain economic times is quite difficult. I commend the steering committee for their work so far and hope that in the not too distant future the capital will be raised.
Villages in the ACT, including Hall, do not demand much from government. They do not expect to be excessively subsidised or use welfare as a substitute for hard work. All that villages in the ACT desire is a government that realises that suburban policy is not suited to rural villages and that their unique circumstances should be considered. The community rightly expect government to ensure that needs are met and aspirations can be realised. They expect that the ACT government would realise that a school can survive and flourish in a village like Hall and that the government should facilitate this.
We saw in the early 1900s what was achieved when a New South Wales government worked with the community, and I am disappointed that the ACT government cannot find the same willingness to work with our regional and rural communities. It is a cruel irony that the ACT government is supposed to be closer to the community than our New South Wales or federal counterparts, yet Macquarie Street in Sydney was more responsive to the concerns of Hall than is London Circuit here in Canberra. I hope the ACT government takes note of the importance of the viability of rural villages in the ACT and that government policy starts to reflect it.
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