Page 1917 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2011
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testing legislation, an important piece of legislation ably championed by Jeremy Hanson. It is a piece of legislation which the Chief Minister now laughs about, having done his level best to stop it ever being implemented.
In education, we are pleased that the proposed cuts to services for children with a disability have been redressed, but we do remember the pain of the estimates period last year and even further the actions of my colleague Steve Doszpot just to get some of these issues on the agenda.
For all the hype and bluster of a Barr media release, the truth is that, according to the last My School data, a large percentage of ACT high schools scored below average when compared with schools across the nation with similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Andrew Barr has admitted that government schools under his watch are “coasting”. Ninety per cent of our schools scored below average in numeracy, with only three of 34 ACT schools scoring above average in years 7 and 9.
From the motion yesterday, Mr Speaker, and last year, you know full well our support for the non-government school sector, in addition to the government school sector. And despite Mr Barr’s purported support, it was interesting to note that the sector did not receive a word in the budget speech on Tuesday, despite over 40 per cent of all ACT school children attending a non-government school. Today, Moira Najdecki, Director of Catholic Education, said:
The ACT Government’s education motto ‘Everyone matters’ appears to apply only to students in public schools if the Education Budget announced yesterday is any indicator.
Daryl Smeaton, Chair of the ACT Catholic Education Commission, said:
It is extremely disappointing that those students attending non-government schools have been ignored in yesterday’s ACT Budget. It is clear that the Minister for Education is not interested in the educational outcomes of close to half the school age population within his portfolio responsibilities.
These are concerns that we share.
When it comes to business support, it is not possible to say what has happened to overall funding for business and industry development programs because of the changes in the administrative arrangements. Certainly there has been no attempt by the ACT Labor government to reduce the impost arising from the many inefficient taxes which are charged on transactions and doing business in the territory.
However, we do seem to be moving from “nuisance” regulations to “nanny” regulations. From deciding what sort of chairs a business can have, to what posters they can put up, what you can do, when you can do it, how you can do it—we really are the most over-regulated jurisdiction in the country, and I wonder what sort of city we are creating with this sort of approach.
The Canberra Liberals welcome the bringing together of tourism and major events programs into a single entity, as this re-establishes the approach which the former
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