Page 283 - Week 01 - Thursday, 14 February 2019
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There have been occasions when I have discussed this with colleagues recently. Last year I did not have an opportunity to attend a couple of the prize-givings by schools in my electorate—ones where I have routinely for 16 years been invited to attend and to give out prizes. But last year the opportunity to give out prizes was not available to members. That means that there was a change of policy in this place. It must go to the minister’s office. Suddenly this invite by schools who had been routinely inviting members of parliament of all stripes—federal and ACT, Greens, Labor, Liberal who were all given opportunities to hand out prizes—has gone.
There is something going on, and it seems to me that Minister Berry wants to close up schools from scrutiny. And the straw man that she drew up today about this being an act of selfishness by Ms Lee demanding unfettered access to ACT schools is absolutely risible. If Minister Berry even had the courtesy to listen for a couple of minutes to what Ms Lee said, it would be clear that she was not asking for unfettered access; she was asking for polite and reasonable access because this is being denied to her and to other members of this Assembly in what is supposed to be an open and democratic society.
I commend Ms Lee for bringing the motion, for the measured tone in which she brought the motion, and I condemn Ms Berry for her overreach and her highhandedness in response to this motion and overall her highhandedness in response to the reasonable request for access to government schools.
MS LEE (Kurrajong) (4.09): I thank Mrs Dunne and Minister Rattenbury for their support today in my quest to get a clearer, more equitable, efficient and more transparent process for MLA school visits. Mr Rattenbury, as former education minister, and Mrs Dunne, as former shadow education minister, will be well aware of the importance of school visits. And I am sure they also know how much MLAs and others appreciate and respect the opportunity to be invited to a school.
As for Minister Berry’s contribution, where do I start? Clearly her approach was to take this genuine Assembly business debate and turn it into a personal attack on me, my intelligence and my integrity, that I apparently have no idea what schools are for. Of course I know what schools are for and what their role and value are to our community. The real concern is whether the minister knows. Her desperate need for control demonstrates she is clearly unwilling to show us.
Who has made it all about the other MLAs than her just now? What fantasy, to suggest all 25 MLAs—and that includes the Chief Minister, so I assume that she has put him on notice too—would storm any single school at any hour of the day, unannounced, and start interrogating staff and students! Where does she get this stuff from? If she wants to talk about legal issues—let us say that I do not know about her—I have more respect for everyone sitting in this chamber that they would and could not fathom doing anything like the made-up, hypothetical, alarming situations that she speaks of.
Her amendment is just another complete rewrite, as is the usual practice, replacing every single paragraph outlining the issues with a self-serving pat on the back. She
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