EDUCATION Minister Nick McKim says he is ``disappointed and frustrated'' with the Federal Government for its delay in replying to a state proposal to allow teenaged asylum seekers to attend local schools.
Speaking in Parliament for the first question time of the year, Mr McKim said the state wrote to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship two weeks ago offering to place the 137 unaccompanied minors living at the Pontville centre in Tasmanian public schools.
``I's disappointing and frustrating that we are yet to receive basic information around the ages of the school-aged minors in detention, and that we are yet to receive a response to the draft Memorandum of Understanding around educating school-aged detainees in public schools,'' he said.
Mr McKim said the Federal Department had arranged for some programs to be held at the Hobart Polytechnic for the school-aged asylum seekers.
He said the unaccompanied minors ought not be in detention at all, and Premier Lara Giddings said she had written to the Federal Government to express Tasmania's opposition to the children being in detention.
The Liberal Party used question time to focus on the government's economic scorecard, asking the government to adopt its policies on shipping and a quota to cut red tape.
Economic Development Minister David O'Byrne said the opposition's shipping strategy only catered for about 30 per cent of Tasmania's international shipping requirements.
Mr O'Byrne asked opposition small business spokesman Adam Brooks whether occupational health and safety regulations and food safety regulations were included in the list of red tape to be cut.
The premier will make her State of the State address at 2.30pm today.