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

I thank the member for Mallee for his question and I am aware, of course, that the member for Mallee in his electorate knows how much his local schools have benefited from this program. The member for Mallee, of course, when he is back in his electorate, is very keen to be associated with the expenditure in those local schools and the benefits that the Building the Education Revolution program brings. But when he comes to Canberra, when he is out of Victoria, he needs to fall behind the Leader of the Opposition’s opposition to supporting jobs today and to supporting expenditure on schools. I am aware of the article that the member refers to. What the member may know about the Building the Education Revolution program that he voted against—or maybe he does not, but he ought to know it about the program—is that it is correlated to school size. What he also ought to know about the program is that it is possible for schools to put in projects that are under their allocation. On some of the divisions and ratios that appear in that Herald Sun article today, that is exactly what has happened. A school has put in for a project that is under its allocation and consequently, when you then divide that number by the number of students, you get the variations in ratios that are reported in that Herald Sun report.

This is a program rolling out in every primary school across the country to bring new school capital. It is rolling out in every school across the country to bring vitally needed repairs. It is rolling out in 537 schools around the country to bring science and language centres. Schools around the country are welcoming this investment—including, of course, in the electorate of Mallee. The thing for the opposition and indeed the member who asked the question to explain is whether he is prepared to go to each school in his electorate and look a principal and a parent representative in the eye and say, ‘I don’t think your school should have the benefit of these facilities,’ and then whether he is prepared to walk the main streets of the towns that he represents and meet local tradespeople and look them in the eye and say—

See this speech in context