POLITICIANS should be careful what they wish for.
When Education Minister Nick McKim announced on July 4 that he was scrapping plans to close up to 20 state schools, parents across Tasmania breathed a sigh of relief.
However, Mr McKim's decision to set up a school viability reference group to consider falling enrolments instead was more about providing him with some breathing space.
The group handed in its report on Tuesday and, unfortunately for Mr McKim and the state government, is recommending potentially awkward measures.
That's the problem with asking for someone else's opinion _ they may give you an answer you don't want to hear, or heed.
The crux of the issue is time, money and political survival.
One recommendation is to fund the operation of a school considered unviable _ but vital to a community _ from outside the education budget.
When all government departments and agencies are dealing with severe cuts the last thing they want to take on is another expensive service.
Another recommendation is a long period of consultation with a school community, and the wider region, once it is identified as unviable.
If adopted, that proposal would create the unsavoury situation of schools closing before the next state election in 2014.
It would also delay closures that were budgeted to happen from the beginning of this school year _ saving $24 million over four years.
There is extreme pressure on Mr McKim to act from school communities that want to know what the future holds.
His department, meanwhile, must meet its budget and must be wondering where else it can make cuts if school closures don't start from next year.
An added burden is the fact Mr McKim is not just Education Minister, but also Tasmanian Greens leader.
The party has a strong policy in support of public education, and MHAs who have schools up for closure in their electorates will be nervous.
Mr McKim and Premier Lara Giddings have been out and about this week insisting that any decision on school closures will be about doing what's best for the education of the state's children.
Really?
This decision was described by one political analyst as being the most critical of this Labor-Green government's term of office.
There's a very good reason for that conclusion.
While there has already been considerable outrage in response to health cuts the faces of those cuts are largely unknown.
People don't go out on to the street to protest because they are going to need to access hospital services next week.
But when you close a school everybody knows which children are affected, who their parents are, the teachers, the crossing supervisor, the bus driver _ right down to the woman volunteering in the canteen.
Try going to the polls with that image on your campaign posters.
Mr McKim is likely to go to cabinet with his proposal on this issue within the next two months.
Members of the viability group have already warned that there should be no cherry picking of recommendations _ it's all, or nothing.
Mr McKim has said whatever is decided will be a ``whole-of-government'' policy.
That means he and fellow Greens minister Cassy O'Connor could be outvoted by Labor cabinet members on whatever proposal he puts up.
Yet, unlike some other issues that the Greens have chosen not to be part of this is not something they can disassociate themselves from when the Education Minister is the Greens leader.
While he may differentiate, at times, between those two roles no one else does.
A decision on school closures must be made in time for it to be factored into the next state budget, which will be brought down on May 17.
It's crunch time for a government that should be careful what it wishes for: as it might just get it.
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