Page 4399 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 14 October 2009
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Today is an opportunity for this government to do something for the communities they have so badly failed and misled. Today is an opportunity for the government to at least acknowledge that the process was not complete and that they will not undertake to make such wholesale changes to the education system on that scale again.
Today this government have an opportunity to say that they are sorry for the pain and the suffering experienced by these communities and that they acknowledge that there is a case to reopen Tharwa, Flynn, Cook and Flynn primary schools because without doing this and without the ability to acknowledge their wrongdoing in the very first place they will be forever unable to move forward with the complete trust of the ACT community.
Let us now have a look at some of the evidence of misrepresentation which has been so rudely dismissed out of hand by this government and add a couple of other factors for good measure. During the inquiry, witnesses meticulously recounted the flaws in the government’s process and highlighted the injustices that were meted out to certain communities. We heard about the perceived conflict of interest and off-the-record promises made by staff members of ministers of this government.
We heard the sorry tale of the staffer from Mr Stanhope’s office at the time, who obviously relayed the details of a confidential discussion with the Tharwa community, which essentially led to the last-minute changes to the Education Act, preventing the Tharwa community from activating their plan B—which was to open a community school.
There is also the matter of a conflict of interest in the Chief Minister’s office, which was brought to light in documents obtained under FOI and reiterated in the inquiry. There is a perception amongst the community that this conflict of interest had influence and played a part in closing the viable Flynn primary school in preference to a school with smaller enrolments where this employee of the Chief Minister was involved as a parent.
The confidence of this community was betrayed in the most underhanded way. It seems that once the government got wind that the community were not going to allow their schools to close without a fight they did what they do best—they got down and dirty and showed disregard for the due process that these decisions deserved.
The school closures inquiry report delivered many damning findings that highlighted how the minister for education at the time, Mr Barr, proceeded to close schools for no sound reasons, based on flawed data, with invalid information on school size and school performance and with no social impact study whatsoever.
The misrepresentation of significant evidence that suggested that small schools were viable, namely Professor Caldwell’s report, is another failure on this government’s behalf. Professor Caldwell’s research was clearly misrepresented and skewed to suit the purpose of the government. The education committee agreed that the research findings of Professor Brian Caldwell were misused and should not have been used at all to justify school closures. The minister was also given a gentle slap on the wrist by Professor Caldwell himself in a letter to the committee.
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