Mr BURKE - 2005-05-03
In response to your last answer, you might want to look at your own budget papers because you dispute the figures in them that show employment has dropped by 1.3% in 2004-05, and you claim employment is booming. Would you also explain why primary school student numbers have dropped from 20 888 in 2002-03 to your budgeted figure of 19 600, a loss of 1288 primary school students over four years or, roughly, equating to one school closed per year, and how that equates to your booming economy?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, in relation to the 1.3% in the budget papers that we talk about, it is the same qualification we always use …
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Mr STIRLING: You are not listening! It is the same qualification we always use when we are talking about monthly ABS figures, and that is: there is a high degree of volatility both in the way they are collected, and because it is a small labour market susceptible to great distortion, depending on where the sample is created.
I will have a look at these figures because they stand in stark contrast to this: we have 1000 more indigenous students enrolled in government schools in the Northern Territory compared with these clowns when they were in office. I will give you good reason for that: the policy they had in place for the 27 years they were in government was to deliberately not take secondary education to indigenous communities.
It was two years ago, to the shame of the Northern Territory, to the shame of successive CLP governments, that we had the first indigenous student to achieve their NTCE Year 12 in their home community, and congratulations to those three students at Kalkarindji. How many secondary programs did the CLP provide to remote indigenous communities? Answer: zero! Zero! Since we came to government, we have not only had NTCE results achieved by indigenous students in their own community two years ago at Kalkarindji, we came back last year with Maningrida, and we will have a range of communities with students achieving their Year 12 NTCE this year.
Inside those figures, whatever the figures are - and I do not trust the Leader of the Opposition when it comes to figures, I trust the budget papers implicitly. I do not trust the Leader of the Opposition for very good reason: he has form.
Mr Baldwin: What? Is it written in them?
Mr STIRLING: And so have you when it comes to budgets. So have you.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STIRLING: Madam Speaker, we have enrolled in our schools about 1000 more indigenous students. We are going to continue that process and we are going to continue to have more indigenous kids in secondary education, as is their right as Australian citizens, unlike you blokes!
Dr Lim: Hear, hear!
Madam SPEAKER: Order, thank you! We have had enough time to react. Start settling down. We could perhaps have shorter answers, Treasurer.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, in relation to the 1.3% in the budget papers that we talk about, it is the same qualification we always use …
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order, order!
Mr STIRLING: You are not listening! It is the same qualification we always use when we are talking about monthly ABS figures, and that is: there is a high degree of volatility both in the way they are collected, and because it is a small labour market susceptible to great distortion, depending on where the sample is created.
I will have a look at these figures because they stand in stark contrast to this: we have 1000 more indigenous students enrolled in government schools in the Northern Territory compared with these clowns when they were in office. I will give you good reason for that: the policy they had in place for the 27 years they were in government was to deliberately not take secondary education to indigenous communities.
It was two years ago, to the shame of the Northern Territory, to the shame of successive CLP governments, that we had the first indigenous student to achieve their NTCE Year 12 in their home community, and congratulations to those three students at Kalkarindji. How many secondary programs did the CLP provide to remote indigenous communities? Answer: zero! Zero! Since we came to government, we have not only had NTCE results achieved by indigenous students in their own community two years ago at Kalkarindji, we came back last year with Maningrida, and we will have a range of communities with students achieving their Year 12 NTCE this year.
Inside those figures, whatever the figures are - and I do not trust the Leader of the Opposition when it comes to figures, I trust the budget papers implicitly. I do not trust the Leader of the Opposition for very good reason: he has form.
Mr Baldwin: What? Is it written in them?
Mr STIRLING: And so have you when it comes to budgets. So have you.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STIRLING: Madam Speaker, we have enrolled in our schools about 1000 more indigenous students. We are going to continue that process and we are going to continue to have more indigenous kids in secondary education, as is their right as Australian citizens, unlike you blokes!
Dr Lim: Hear, hear!
Madam SPEAKER: Order, thank you! We have had enough time to react. Start settling down. We could perhaps have shorter answers, Treasurer.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016