Norman Lacy - Assistant Minister of Education / Minister of Educational Services (1979-1982)

Assistant Minister of Education / Minister of Educational Services (1979-1982)

Norman Lacy held the portfolios Assistant Minister of Education from May 1979 to December 1980, and Minister of Educational Services from December 1980 to April 1982.

Together, Lacy (in the Legislative Assembly) and Hunt (in the Legislative Council) made a formidable team in the pursuit of their mission to reform the administration of the highly centralised Department of Education in Victoria. As Assistant Minister of Education and later, Minister for Educational Services, Lacy was jointly responsible with Hunt for the most significant and far-reaching reorganisation of the Victorian Education Department in the 20th Century.

Hunt appointed Lacy Chairman of the external Ministerial Consultative Committee that steered the project in its early phase and the Implementation Steering Committee later. Lacy pulled together an impressive group of people from academia and business to assist him including Emeritus Professor Bill Walker from the University of New England who became a significant influence in Lacy's career after politics.

Lacy's role in the Education portfolios included responsibility for the Special Services, the Building Operations and the Planning Services Divisions. He used this responsibility to initiate compulsory Physical Education in Schools. For this, he was recognised in March 1983 by the award of a Fellowship by the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation. Similarly, Lacy was responsible for the promotion of a reformed Health and Human Relations Education curriculum in Victorian Schools. He had been personally given this project by the Premier on being appointed to Cabinet after the 1979 election to fulfil a commitment Hamer had made prior to the election to the Women's Electoral Lobby. He pursued this mandate assiduously and against robust public opposition from rural based fundamentalist Christian groups as well as leading members of the Catholic Church and the National Civic Council. With the Premier's support he had the Principles and Policy Statements for Health and Human Relations Education approved by Cabinet on 15 October 1979 and the "Guidelines" and "Curriculum Statement" on 8 December 1981.

His work in the planning, budgeting and delivery of the school building program gave the ex plumber some of his most satisfying experiences. He accepted every invitation he received to visit schools in Victoria. Usually, the purpose of the visit was to open a new school, library, art and craft centre or physical education facility. The latter being the subject of a carefully thought out plan - Education & Community Activity Centre (Ecacentre) program - which more efficiently expended the funds available for school assembly halls on a greater number of secondary schools for the purpose of providing a facility for indoor physical education and sport. He became enthusiastic about this program for many reasons not the least of which was that the design developed at his request by the Public Works Department was able to accommodate a regulation sized basketball court. He regarded this as his contribution to the growth of the sport that had given him so much structure and distraction during his teenage years. More than 200 secondary schools benefitted from the program that also provided the structural resources needed throughout the state to accommodate his compulsory physical education policy. Returning to Healesville High School in 1981 to officially open such a facility was one of the last highlights of Lacy's Ministerial career.

The most significant achievement of Lacy's short time in government was his establishment of the Special Assistance Program in Victorian Primary Schools.

He outlined his ambitious program in a speech he made at a seminar of Special Assistance Resource Teachers in December 1980. In it he announced the most significant development in remedial education in Victoria with a strategic plan for addressing a reported decline in literacy and numeracy skills amongst secondary students. The totally new component of the Special Assistance Program was the provision of 1000 Special Assistance Resource Teachers "in the delivery of services to children with special needs." They were given "a major on-site responsibility facilitating a productive relationship between parents and pupils and teachers." The program involved the training of these primary teachers as Special Assistance Resource Teachers and their placement in schools. Their role was the early detection and remediation of children at risk of illiteracy and innumeracy. Lacy's greatest political disappointment came from the Cain Labour Government's actions after their 1982 election directed at de-emphasising and largely dismantling this educationally highly significant and ground breaking program.

Lacy had a central role in the appointment of two departmental permanent heads in the Victorian public service during his Cabinet career. In 1980, he secured cabinet support for the appointment of Paul Clarkson, a former CRA executive, as Director of the Ministry for the Arts after the retirement of Dr Eric Westbrook the founding Director. Then in 1981, with Alan Hunt, he secured the replacement of Dr Laurie Shears as Director General of the newly restructured Education Department of Victoria by Toorak State College Principal Revd Dr Norman Curry.

During 1981, in the lead up to the 1982 election, Lacy worked assiduously on policy development. He developed policies on a number of issues within his portfolios. Almost every week during the spring session of Parliament in that year he delivered a ministerial statement in the Legislative Assembly on one of these policies in an attempt to counter the emerging mood for change in the electorate. With a solid margin, he had no expectation that he would lose his seat, but he was becoming increasingly convinced that the Government could not survive. Three disparate forces combined on election day in April 1982 to end his parliamentary career. Each of them related to a State-wide issue upon which he had publicly adopted a strong position. Smarting from the provision of a promised additional 1,000 teachers to the Special Assistance Program rather than to the reduction of student teacher ratios in classrooms, the Victorian Teachers Union vigorously targeted him. Right wing Christian groups and the DLP (with the direction of their preferences against him - the first Liberal to be so treated) targeted him over his Health and Human Relations Education program. And the local Chambers of Commerce (made up of main street retailers) targeted him over his support for Sunday trading.