Page 1208 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2016
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pressures, that there are demographic changes in our community that we need to respond to. Demographic changes are no-one’s fault. The question is how you deal with them if we are adequately preparing. I propose to outline to the Assembly when I come back in June the steps that are being taken, to be clear about where the pressure points are and what the government proposes to do in response to that. I commend my amendment to the Assembly and I look forward to reporting back to the Assembly during the June sitting period.
MR DOSZPOT (Molonglo) (4.12): I will be talking to the amendment and eventually closing. I must say, I welcome some of Mr Rattenbury’s comments. Certainly the spirit in which our motion was raised was not in any way reflecting the way that Mr Rattenbury has described it as scaremongering. We certainly want to bring to the attention of the Assembly and to the minister that there are issues that we are aware of and we wanted that to be understood by the Assembly and by the minister. Scaremongering is not one of the words I would have used but I will let that go through to the keeper.
In terms of the amendment that Mr Rattenbury has suggested, I am actually surprisingly pleased that he has come up with some acceptance of the issues that we have raised and, in the spirit of the debate that is taking place so far, I would say that I would welcome the information as per the amendment that Mr Rattenbury has put forward.
I do thank the minister for highlighting in his amendment the fact that what Mr Barr did on behalf of the government in 2006 and 2007, that is, closing 23 schools, was wrong. We know it was wrong. And even though it was 10 years ago, it obviously still rankles.
That is the only substantive change to the motion that the Canberra Liberals have put to the Assembly today. Words such as “identifying areas that may be experiencing pressure” are polite and tidy words that reflect what parents know, what teachers know, what directorate staff know. Some of our schools are facing some real space dilemmas, and not much is being done at the political level to fix them.
To come back to the scaremongering comments, Mr Rattenbury might like to talk to some of his teachers and his directorate staff and seek their views, because I know that they are concerned. I know that silly suggestions like bussing students from one side of Canberra to another have been put on the table for discussion, and I certainly was not suggesting that that is an option that should be considered. I feel I have been misrepresented by Mr Rattenbury on that point. I was raising a question as to what options the directorate and this minister would be willing to have a look at.
The issue that I would have liked to see a little more information on is the identification of those schools and those areas that face enrolment pressures. Obviously it is important for us and the schools to know that their issues will be looked at, and I am sure that the principals and the teachers in all of those schools would really appreciate the information that should be forthcoming from the government and from the Education Directorate. The parents of course would be very much grateful for that information.
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