Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was stunned by the Prime Minister’s talk last week of what he laughingly called a ‘revolution’ in education, given that the ALP is closing schools in my electorate without having regard to students’ interests. While the Prime Minister was crying crocodile tears over the fate of the nation’s young, the students at Bannister Creek Primary School in Ferndale were shedding real tears as they prepared to be dragged to a new site by an uncaring Labor regime. Until recently, there were three primary schools in the neighbourhood. But now there is just one and it is slated to be closed next year with the opening of a new so-called superschool. Students from Lynwood and Kinlock primary schools were transferred to Bannister Creek, which was formerly Ferndale Primary School. A new school was pledged for the Lynwood site, scheduled to open in 2009, although construction has not yet begun.

The Prime Minister’s talk of an education revolution reeks of hypocrisy given that his government are standing by while their cronies in power in Western Australia close down schools that are deemed unviable. It is all very well to talk about economies of scale, but at what cost to the welfare of our children? I am happy that the Prime Minister has apparently gone back to school; after all, his government obviously need to get some help with their sums. But he is really giving to education with one hand while his acolytes are taking with two.

There are certainly some lessons here for the rest of us. We are learning just how unreliable Labor is on education. Schools in my electorate are now suffering from both state and federal Labor governments. We have a shortage of teachers, we have the laptop debacle—which demonstrates that Labor does at least know how to divide by two—and we have closures which threaten to destroy school communities. Is that what the Prime Minister means with his talk of a new era in education? The Ferndale students, in their most tender years, face being uprooted from their happy school community and being forced to run a daily gauntlet of traffic on an arterial road for no other reason than the fleeting whim of a heartless administration. I found it ironic that the member for Swan also talked of schools. We were discussing a little earlier the fact that schools are such a major issue concerning both state and federal governments. I call on the state government to clean up this mess.