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

That’s rubbish. The Liberal Party can now nominate what expenditure it agrees to in Building the Education Revolution. If it is less than $14.7 billion, it can table the list of schools that would miss out under its program. It could do that. The shadow minister and the leader could explain why they voted holus-bolus against this program instead of seeking to amend it to the Liberal authorised figure. If the shadow minister over there is the custodian of an alternate plan, in the interests of transparency in politics he should table it, including, very importantly, the list of schools which would miss out. I am sure the member who has asked this question would want to know, under Liberal Party policy, which schools in his electorate would miss out, so that he could walk through those gates and say honestly, ‘The policy of my political party is that you should get nothing.’ Well, actually, the policy of his political party at the moment is that he should be walking through every school gate and saying, ‘The policy of my political party is you get nothing.’

This is a huge program, with $14.7 billion being rolled out to build the infrastructure of tomorrow under the biggest school modernisation program in the nation’s history. It is being delivered urgently for a good purpose—that is, to support jobs today. It is being used for that purpose and we have said that, when you are rolling out something this big and this quickly for a good reason, it is inevitable that from time to time there will be questions, comments, concerns and criticisms. As we hear those questions, comments, concerns and criticisms we deal with them. The basic proposition here is: do you support schools or don’t you? We say yes; you say no. That is the fundamental divide.

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