To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives assembled in Parliament:

The petition of community members and clients of the Ballarat Community Education Centre in Ballarat, Victoria, draws the attention of the House to the proposal in the Federal Budget of May 1995 to discontinue federal funding of the Commonwealth Education Centres Program at the end of 1996.

Your petitioners therefore request the House to restore federal funding to the Commonwealth Education Centres Program as of the end of 1996, to enable Centres to continue to deliver the quality, comprehensive professional development, curriculum development and community services, both locally and nationally, that they have delivered since their establishment, and which they are perfectly positioned to continue to deliver, provided their core funding is retained. The $2.6 million which funds the entire Commonwealth Education Centre program represents extraordinarily good value for the Commonwealth dollar outlay, enabling Education Centres to provide an outstanding infrastructure of quality human and physical resources (local and national) serving extensive networks through quality partnerships (local and national) which will be lost if federal funding is not reinstated.