Mr EDWARDS (5:49 PM) —I am grateful for the opportunity to join in this debate on the appropriation bills because it gives me an opportunity to compliment Geoff Gallop, the new Premier of Western Australia, and to say how thrilled I was at his victory, and also to deal with a number of issues in my electorate. Geoff Gallop in my view will make a good Premier. I had the privilege of serving with him in the state government as a minister. He is a very dedicated and professional type of bloke—very intelligent and very hardworking. I am sure that the people of Western Australia will benefit from his stewardship and from his government.

One of the reasons that Geoff Gallop was successful in WA was that he concentrated on the issues: health, education, law and order, and job security. He turned his back completely on the negative campaign that was being run by the government. It was a negative campaign which saw the government attacking people who had not been in state politics for some 14 and 15 years, one of them a particularly good friend of mine, the former Premier, Brian Burke. This campaign backfired on the Liberals. They wasted an immense amount of money and they squandered an opportunity to be re-elected. There is a lesson in that. It is that there are issues out there that people in our community are focused on—issues that they are concerned about and that they want addressed. I have listened to, even in the time I have been here tonight, two previous government speakers who just wanted to spend a fair amount of time being negative and being personal in their attitude to members of the ALP. There is no sense and no future in that. I think that the important thing for people in parliament is to focus on the service that they ought to be delivering to their constituents and to deal with the issues that concern them.

One of the great issues of concern to people in my electorate, particularly those on fixed incomes, those on low incomes and those generally who are battling, is the GST. The GST has had a massive impact on a number of those people. It has impacted on their ability to live a reasonable life and to have a reasonable quality of life. They are just kicking more and more money into this government's coffers, and they are angry about it. They are very angry about it, and I think with good reason. It is because of those battlers, because of those pensioners and because of those people on lower and fixed incomes that the ALP has consistently opposed the GST and has now embarked on a process of rolling the GST back and making it fairer for those people who have felt the greatest impact without any proper compensation for it.

One of the other areas that I want to talk about is education, because one of the great levellers in our society is education. As I go around the schools, many teachers and parents are telling me that the gulf is widening in education and that many kids whose families are battling economically are going backwards as the gulf widens between the haves and the have-nots. I have some school communities in Cowan where parents can and do go out and fundraise very successfully. These schools can run fetes and raise many thousands of dollars. There is a lot of work involved, but they can be very successful fundraisers. I have other schools in different parts of the electorate where, because of the social and economic environment, the P&Cs battle to raise $500 or $600 at a school fete.

The level of education that kids receive and the facilities in support of them should not be determined by the financial capacity of the area in which the school is located or in which they live. One school in my electorate, which I want to talk a little about, is Montrose. Montrose has a school population of some 350 students and includes an education support unit. The school is in an area where there is a highly transient population and this movement is reflected in the school. For instance, last year from an enrolment of 330 students they had a turnover of some 130 children. That is, they started the school year with 330 and finished with 330, but during the school year they had 130 students leave to be replaced by another 130 who moved in. A lot of the parents of these kids are battlers. Many of the children have come from homes where the parents have had limited education, or education in another country. Many of the children come from war-torn countries; many of the children are Aboriginal.

While many of the students bring a myriad of social issues from diverse backgrounds, they also bring a wealth of cultural richness to the school. The school has built upon this diversity and turned it into a positive. Many of the students come from homes where there are low literacy skills and, in this environment, specialist skills in teaching English as a second language are paramount. Montrose runs a range of programs, and the teachers have created a dynamic and exciting experience for the students. For example, for the past five years the school has won the local Saturday morning netball competition, where it competes in a very competitive area; and, despite having a heavy handicap based on past success, the school continues to excel in interschool sports, athletics and cross-country events. The year before last also saw the school win the local eisteddfod in the recorder ensemble.

There are, of course, many factors that contribute to the positive environment of Montrose Primary. Certainly one of those factors is the caring, compassionate and professional attitude of the principal, Mr Metcalfe. This, coupled with the enthusiasm and dedication of his staff—which has seen a continuity of teachers who have been prepared to stay at the school for long periods—has helped create a stability at the school which, sadly, many of these children do not have in their own homes. Montrose Primary is complemented by a small but willing band of hard workers who run the P&C. Last year, they ran an all-day fete which raised some $700. They also run a not for profit school canteen which opens at 8.15 a.m. and provides healthy, nutritious food choices. In the course of last year the canteen served 11,600 lunches at an affordable cost to the students. I compliment the school canteen on delivering this particularly important service.

Last year I took the opportunity to carry the Paralymic torch through the streets of Sydney and to pass that flame on to Dawn Fraser. I brought that torch back to Perth with me and invited a number of the schools that had supported the Paralympics and the Paralympians to submit their names. We put these names into a hat, drew the winning school and I presented that torch to it. I was absolutely thrilled that the winning school was Montrose. It was a great thrill for me, too, to see that prize torch going to a school of which I have such a high opinion. When I went to an assembly at the school to present the torch, the students sang I am Australian, which is one of my favourite songs. Students from 20 or more ethnic backgrounds sang with majestic harmony and unity, and this came close to bringing a tear to my eye. I could see why the principal, the teachers and the parents of Montrose are so proud of their school and of their students. That pride in the school and that harmony may be why the school has not had a single suspension for five years.

But this school has an uphill battle. Parents and teachers tell me that the gulf is getting wider, that the struggle to keep up is getting tougher and that the playing field is not level. I said earlier that education is the great leveller in Australia. Education is also a matter of choice. Many parents choose to send their children to private schools and that is their right. What is also their right is to be given a fair go. None of the schools in Western Australia attract the sort of funding that we see going to elite schools in the eastern states. Indeed, under the Howard government, some 60 schools in New South Wales and Victoria shared approximately $57 million of government funding and will continue to do so on an annual basis. These are rich, elite schools, many of which charge fees in the order of $10,000 per student per year. These schools have out-of-classroom facilities which would cost more to maintain than many of the schools in my electorate have in total to spend on an annual basis.

There are many schools like Montrose around Australia—battling government and private schools which hang together on the basis of the dedication of the teachers and the parents. If schools like Montrose can do what they are doing and achieve what they are achieving with little or no federal government help, imagine what they could do for our young Australians if they were given some real assistance. Education is of paramount importance to the teachers and parents in Cowan and I will be making sure that it is an election issue. The future of many of the young people in Australia, not just in the workplace or in further education but in lifestyle and life choices, is paramount. It is more important for the young people in Cowan to be given a fair go than it is for this government to continue its elitist policies of taking from the many simply to give to the few.

I have also been almost inundated with a large number of people coming to see me about the problems they have experienced with the Australian Taxation Office, mainly in relation to some of these quite legal schemes which have been running for some time and in which a number of people have invested. I would like to quote from just one letter which I understand was sent to the Treasurer sometime late last year. I am not sure that the person has had a response yet, but I intend to quote from this letter because it is one of many I have had. It probably embraces the sorts of issues that many people in my electorate are having. The letter reads:

He goes on to say:

Whether it is 870,000 votes or whatever, it is apparent that these people are getting rough end of the pineapple treatment. I have had ordinary Australian families, mums and dads, sitting in my office in tears, some of them—completely devastated and stressed and having immense pressure put on their finances and their family lives. All they want is a fair go from the ATO. They want to know that they are going to have their day in court and they want the ATO to stop playing the sorts of games that they are playing.

The ATO is constantly moving the goalposts and when these investors think that they are going to have their day in court, all of a sudden something else changes and it is extended. They are the sorts of games that lawyers play and I can understand why so many people are upset and stressed. These are ordinary Australian families—they are not criminals, they are not Skases; they simply want to know where they stand and they want to know sooner rather than later. I have no doubt that the longer the ATO stretches this out, the more difficult it is going to make it for these families.

I think the game that the ATO is playing is an appalling one. It is the sort of thing that you would expect the worst and most base of lawyers to play in some sort of criminal prosecution. The ATO is playing with the lives and the wellbeing of many ordinary Australians and it is about time it realised that and got on with the issues, rather than trying to break these people through the cat and mouse tactics that it is adopting. I call on the ATO to have this matter fixed, to have it rectified and to let people know where they stand. I think that is a fair enough request and I reckon in terms of giving people a fair go, that is what the ATO ought to do.