Page 2252 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 23 June 2010
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my view, the change that occurred in 2006 happens once in a lifetime. It was a result of a range of factors—the appalling planning of this city prior to self-government and the political failure of the Legislative Assembly to grapple with these issues over 20 years. As I indicated at the beginning of these remarks, a number of governments fell over on this issue. Tackling any serious structural reform has proved, until 2006, beyond the capacity of the Legislative Assembly.
I think that one of the strengths of Ms Hunter’s bill today—and I think the success of the negotiation process around what should be included in the content—is that it provides a degree of political protection in that more than one political party will sign up to this process. Consultations conducted by an independent panel clearly will relieve the minister of the day from having to go through the particular processes that occurred in 2006.
Undoubtedly, there will be mixed views on that. I will be interested to hear the views of the Liberal opposition in relation to that. They have a particular view, it would seem, about ministerial accountability and ministers attending every single meeting with every single organisation. It will be interesting to see what their views are in relation to an independent panel conducting the consultation process. I acknowledge the detailed work of my office and Ms Hunter’s office in achieving what I think is a useful compromise. It is a very workable political compromise on what is a difficult issue.
Today’s debate ought to provide closure on this matter. Education policy should be about the future. We hope that the politics of education can now be about the future as well. I would not anticipate any education minister ever again having to grapple with the issues that I confronted in 2006. The major structural reform has now occurred, but there is no doubt that at some point in the future—certainly not in this term of the Assembly but at some point in the future—a school may need to close. To the extent that this will provide an agreed political process for that to occur and that other parties will have signed up to it will no doubt provide some degree of comfort for the education minister of the day. There is an agreed process that can be gone through. I am not naive enough to think that all of the politics would go out of such a decision, but it would at least enable some of that to sit within an agreed process that other parties have signed up to. That would make the inevitable process at some point in the future of an adjustment—it would probably be only one school at a time rather than a significant structural reform as occurred in 2006—occur smoothly, or as smoothly as possible.
There are elements of Ms Hunter’s amendment bill that I believe are very backward looking in terms of trying to address issues that might have been prevalent in 2006 but certainly will not be in future, but there are a significant number of elements that are forward focused—focused on the challenges that will confront the education system into the future. I commend Ms Hunter and her office for the way in which these issues have been able to be discussed freely and frankly. I believe ultimately that we will have a workable way forward for this issue to be resolved if it ever does arise for future education ministers.
MR DOSZPOT (Brindabella) (12.20): We stand here today to debate a proposed amendment bill, protean with emotions, history and context. In fact, everyone in this
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