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Mr O'DOHERTY (Hornsby) [5.22 p.m.]: Today I received a letter from the Minister for Education and Training referring to matters that I raised with him on 20 December regarding the Hornsby Helping Early Leavers Program [HELP]. The Minister has also received correspondence from the Mayor of Hornsby on behalf of the Council of the Shire of Hornsby. The Minister is well aware of the concern expressed by several of my colleagues, including the Leader of the Opposition. We met the council to discuss the defunding of HELP by the Department of Education and Training at Christmas last year. The Minister's response is manifestly inadequate, and I have taken the first opportunity afforded to me during private members' statements to urge him to reconsider. I want him to meet representatives of the Hornsby HELP program, the Hornsby mayor and me to discuss this matter because there has been precious little from the department or the Minister by way of explanation or real information about the defunding of HELP. I will go through as many points in the Minister's letter as I can in the short time available. The Minister says:
The funding application from Hornsby Shire Council was not rated as highly as applications from other areas.
The department apparently considered demographic data. This is the only program funded by the New South Wales Government that helps young people in my community who are at risk of leaving school early. It is no comfort to them to hear that some demographic study rated Hornsby as not being as needy as another area. The fact is that HELP received funding of $67,000 to run programs for a specific number of young people—from memory, about 48—a year. HELP did not have any money left over: there were more than enough young people at risk to require the program. It does not help those young people to learn that greater need is perceived in other areas.
The needs of those students in the Hornsby electorate who were being helped by this program are not being met because the Government is taking the funding away. Where are they supposed to go? The Government seems to argue that they can join another program. The Government is asking young people who cannot organise themselves to attend local schools to travel by train or bus to Manly, which is where the closest available program for early school leavers is held. That is patently ridiculous. The Government is removing a small but powerfully important level of assistance for young people at risk. They will leave the Hornsby community, and families will again be divided because there is no help available to them locally. The Minister continues:
… a Departmental officer rang the Council to advise them that their application had been unsuccessful … the Council has been provided with detailed feedback ...
That process was ad hoc, informal and completely inadequate. When the Leader of the Opposition and I met council representatives, they told me that they were asked to submit an application at the very last minute and had little opportunity to provide advice to the department. There was no discussion until the council kicked up a stink and the department then telephoned the council to justify the decision that it had made—I believe on political grounds—to allocate the money to another area. The Minister says:
I am advised that the Council accepted an offer … to extend the funding for one month to enable the Council to wind up its project operations …
That is an overly generous interpretation of what occurred. The council, the local member of Parliament and others kicked up a stink about the Government's sudden withdrawal of funding and forced it to provide extra funding for one month so that the program could wind up its affairs with the small number of young people involved in it. The Minister continues:
Supporting youth education … particularly for … youth at risk is a priority for the Department of Education and Training.
I ask the Minister: Where is the evidence of that in relation to Hornsby? I recently attended a meeting with the local area command of the Police Service, members of the Mount Colah community and officers of the Department of Education and Training to discuss the sorts of young people whom HELP assists: chronic truants who are causing significant safety and amenity problems for the residents of Mount Colah. We have local solutions to help those young people, but the one program—HELP—that provided assistance to that group has been defunded. The Minister should inform the House and me what advice he received from the local office of the Department of Education and Training—I do not want to verbal them—that led him to decide to remove money from HELP. I think the Minister will confirm that local officers do not favour his stopping that funding. I urge the Minister to reconsider his decision as a matter of urgency.