Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Can I say to the shadow minister that, in adding to an answer yesterday, I was hoping to assist him. At that point, of course, he was not in the chamber as a result of being excluded by you, Mr Speaker. What I can say to the member for Sturt, if he is interested—and maybe because they choose to interject rather than listen, he is not—is that the circumstances at the Hastings Public School in New South Wales are these: in 2003, there was a joint project involving a covered outdoor learning area. My understanding is that there was $40,000 of government funding and a $40,000 co-contribution from the P&C from fundraising they had undertaken themselves—a total of $80,000 for, no doubt, a very worthy project. What has been made available to the school, under Building the Education Revolution, is a significant structure. It is the size of 1½ tennis courts; it has a solid roof; and it will include the fit-out, which will include an amphitheatre, seating, a sound system to facilitate school assemblies and performances, and science and art work spaces. This is obviously a very substantial structure with a fit-out which will enable whole school activities under cover.

What seems to me remarkable about these questions is that the shadow minister’s only position on education is to come into this parliament day after day and say, ‘Why doesn’t the government do less on education?’ Presumably the shadow minister for education would only be happy if the government was doing nothing on education. Presumably he would be happy then because it would exactly mirror what the Howard government did in office—absolutely nothing. I challenge any member of this House to name one successful, profound school reform that happened under the Howard government. No, it did not. There were lots of articles in the Australian about Maoists on curriculum boards, but not one profound reform that—

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