Page 478 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 13 February 2013
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MS GALLAGHER: Thank you, Madam Speaker. In assisting the Assembly, what I will do is come back with the numbers since 1989, Mr Smyth, because that would be appropriate if you were not playing games with this. It would have been appropriate to say: since ACT self-government has been established, how many reports of institutionalised abuse have occurred? Then I would happily provide it. But you chose not to. You chose to politicise something that should not be politicised—
MADAM SPEAKER: Chief Minister, I have asked you to be directly relevant.
MS GALLAGHER: and I will take it on notice from 1989.
Members interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Smyth! Members! Mr Smyth, you do not have the call. Mr Doszpot, you have the call.
Schools—canteens
MR DOSZPOT: My question is to the Minister for Education and Training. I draw the minister’s attention to the article in today’s Canberra Times that suggests that school canteens will close because of such things as too much government regulation. Minister, what were the outcomes of the ministerial school canteens task force that met last year to address this issue, and have they been implemented?
MS BURCH: I thank Mr Doszpot for his question. Gee, that was unexpected—a question given to Mr Doszpot on the front page of the Canberra Times. The school canteens—
Mr Doszpot: You can’t help yourself, can you? That was a question—
MS BURCH: Well, neither can you, Mr Doszpot. The information contained in the Canberra Times article around the canteen association closing in the near future is news to me. The task force has been meeting. It was established by my predecessor last year, and it has been working closely with canteens and parent and citizen associations and groups over that time.
I have asked the directorate to provide to me in the first half of this year a report from the task force with some activities that can be implemented in the short to medium term, noting, of course, that this government went to the election with a $1 million commitment to support the P&C association with canteen viability. So there are two pieces of work: there is our commitment of $1 million over four years—the ACT Liberals did not offer any support to canteens—and then there is other work that will be identified through the school system and through the P&C councils.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mr Doszpot.
MR DOSZPOT: Minister, what is the purpose of the $1 million promise by Labor in last year’s election campaign, that you have just touched on, for school canteens?
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