Page 3158 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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MR SESELJA: So some staff will have to go in order to get these $18 million savings. What, if anything, will be quarantined from the $18 million in efficiencies?
Mr Barr: At this point I am not quarantining anything. We will make those decisions based on sound advice from the department over the next few years.
MR SESELJA: So it will not just be out of head office; it will be also out of schools. It will involve the teaching staff—
Mr Barr: I am not ruling anything out at this stage. We will look at all of the options and make our decisions and our announcements in due course.
That exchange was on 20 May. As a worst-case scenario, this is an ominous exchange in light of the minister’s expectation of being an early adopter of the national curriculum. As the minister reiterates:
… I think it would be appropriate to observe that a number of structural changes will clearly occur in the ACT system over the next few years with the implementation of a national curriculum … We will have a national curriculum; so there will be a significant workload reduction in that area in the future.
The truth is that if the Stanhope government can get away with it, they will not think twice about doing away with the things that make this city proud. Recall in 2006 when the minister himself oversaw the closure of 20 neighbourhood schools in order to save money. Yet he has splashed out with millions of taxpayer money to fund his building projects. Then, in last week’s Assembly sitting, the minister, uncomfortably supported by the Greens education amendment, provided indirect contrition that the sham consultations of 2006 under his watch should never have occurred and that processes need to be more rigorous.
The Canberra Liberals stand firm in their decision to oppose this bill as we feel that there is more scope to make it stronger and provide greater assurances to the communities within our city. Last week also saw the minister backflip on his position of extending funding to the Shepherd Centre and Noah’s Ark. This is something Mr Doszpot campaigned for tirelessly. In front of one of these organisations the minister provided a curt response to our motion, uttering the following statements: “There is little benefit to the public in the Assembly debating funding of two non-government organisations in isolation from the wider policy developments that are at stake here.”
He went on to say, “I think the people of Canberra will be better served by the chamber of serious policy debate.” That sums up this minister’s attitude. By the next day, Minister Barr recanted his position and extended funding until December this year. Without these organisations stepping up to defend themselves, the government would have ignored them in the hope that they would just simply go away.
True, they were informed that funding will cease. True, they were told that funding would be reallocated through a tender process. True, they were informed of tender priorities. Yet they were not given further details on the services to be tendered, no
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