9/11/04
The WA Liberal Party's refusal to support the Gallop Government's plan to raise the school leaving age in Western Australia was a monumental error, according to Education and Training Minister Alan Carpenter.
Mr Carpenter said this was demonstrated by the failings of the Liberals' education strategy for Bunbury released yesterday.
Mr Carpenter said the Bunbury area, more than any other, needed an approach to education and training that reflected the needs of the times and not the short-term wish lists of individual Liberal Party candidates.
"The overwhelming majority of Western Australians know that it is time to get kids off the street and off the dole and into education, training and work," he said.
"The people of Bunbury have given massive support to the proposal to raise the school leaving age to 16 by 2006 and 17 by 2008.
"They have given equally strong support to the development of a new senior college for 16 and 17-year-olds, co-located with the South West Regional College of TAFE, to ensure the change is successful.
"Bunbury people told me we needed the senior college to provide the relevance, flexibility and options that many students just don't find in more traditional high schools.
"We need that different environment, linked directly to the resources of TAFEWA, to engage the hundreds of kids who should still be in the system but are not.
"At the same time, they told me we needed to develop more dynamic, specialist centres of excellence to Year 12 in our existing schools to make them more attractive and vibrant places for students and staff.
"I support that concept, but Colin Barnett made it clear yesterday he would kill that plan if he got the chance.
"Casting thousands of kids on to the scrap-heap is not my idea of good policy, but it seems to be his. His record speaks for itself.
"It's tragic. When he was Minister, more than half the young people in the Bunbury area left school without completing the equivalent of Year 12 and there was massive youth unemployment.
"Parents and grandparents know only too well the results - no jobs, family problems and more young people involved in drugs and crime. That was Colin Barnett's legacy when he was a Minister.
"We have turned that around, increased school participation rates, halved youth unemployment and produced a 52.4 per cent jump in the number of apprentices and trainees in the South-West.
"What the Liberals promised yesterday gives no hope for the future and portrays no understanding of what is needed to prepare young people for the modern economy."
Mr Carpenter said Colin Barnett had admitted he knew the Gallop Government already intended to build a middle school at Dalyellup when it was needed and he also knew there were plans for a major upgrade of Newton Moore.
"Colin Barnett's reputation as completely reckless with taxpayers' money and willing to say anything to get elected was underlined by his promise yesterday to convert Eaton Community College into a senior high school without costing the promise or saying when it would happen," he said.
"An absolute minimum of $12million would be needed.
"Colin Barnett has no financial plan and has not explained how he would pay for billions of dollars in promises - this is just another one to add to the list.
"They don't call him the Fiscal Bandit for nothing."
Minister's office: 9213 6800
