Roger Price Chifley, Australian Labor Party
2:57 pm
Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.
David Hawker Speaker
Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
Roger Price Chifley, Australian Labor Party
Last Thursday during question time, the Minister for Education, Science and Training claimed that I had complained about a lack of air conditioning in a school in my electorate and claimed that this was having an adverse effect on students’ health and their ability to concentrate. It is true that I wrote to the Prime Minister on 17 November 2004 to make representations on behalf of a group of students who had written to me from grades 5 and 6 in class S3M from Noumea Primary School. I did complain that, although there were details of how schools could apply for funding, this had not been released and an allocation had already been made for a school in the electorate of Greenway. My complaint was indirectly about pork-barrelling.
David Hawker Speaker
Order! The member will come to where he has been misrepresented.
Roger Price Chifley, Australian Labor Party
There is another misrepresentation, Mr Speaker. The Minister for Education, Science and Training also accused me of failing to write to the state government. This is a gross canard. I wrote to the state member for Mount Druitt on 4 November 2004 about the same matter, and I received a response from the then Deputy Premier on 22 December 2004. I seek leave to table the letter from the students of S3M and their signatures, a copy of my letter to the Prime Minister and a copy of my letter to the Hon. Richard Amery, state member for Mount Druitt.
Leave granted.