John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

According to a report by Joseph Sumegi in yesterday’s Inner West Courier, Dobroyd Point Public School in my electorate of Lowe was shocked to learn that its plan to apply to the federal government for much-needed funds under the Investing in Our Schools Program has been scuttled as a result of changes to the administration of that program. What is revealed is a gross breach of trust by numerous members of the Howard government who have led schools down the garden path. Despite a number of government and federal department of education assurances, both explicit and implied, that schools could apply for up to $150,000 over the four-year term of the program, we have since found out that the amount of money on offer for each school has been slashed by a third.

I refer members to a press release titled ‘Delivering round one of the $1 billion investment in school capital works’ issued on 21 October by the former Minister for Education, Science and Training. It states:

Schools are eligible to receive up to $150,000 in funding from the Programme. School communities that have not received funding in this Round will have until 2008 to benefit from the Programme.

Dobroyd Point Public School was supposed to be one such school community. It is an outrage that schools are being punished for relying in good faith on this and other statements about the Investing in Our Schools Program. Dobroyd Point Public School has painstakingly prepared plans that depend on the lodgement of separate applications over several years up to a total of $150,000. Having received grants of $40,000, the school was understandably under the belief that it could apply for a further $110,000 this year to complete its projects. The school’s expectations are entirely legitimate when one considers the nature of many statements swirling around the Investing in Our Schools Program at the time, including the one I just mentioned as well as this one again by the former minister on the Today show:

We’re giving each public school $150,000 directly to the P&C to do whatever they think is appropriate with it.

Dobroyd Point faces great financial difficulty in completing an outdoor covered learning area. It is left with a group of isolated and disjointed buildings. It is unacceptable for schools to be denied funding because the goalposts have been shifted without notice and contrary to all legitimate expectations. The current minister has dismissed the agitation of many schools by suggesting it was never intended that every school would receive $150,000, despite the former minister’s statements. The current Minister for Education, Science and Training is missing the point. Even if it were true that there was never an intention to provide all eligible schools with $150,000, all schools had at the very least a legitimate expectation that they would be given an opportunity to apply for $150,000 worth of infrastructure grants. They are not even being given this courtesy.

I call on the government to urgently answer my questions in writing Nos 5576, 5577 and 5585 on the Notice Paper of 21 and 22 March 2007. I particularly call on the minister to answer whether she will ensure that schools which had a legitimate expectation that they would be able to apply for separate grants between 2005 and 2008 to a total of $150,000 will be given an opportunity to do so. Our schools deserve better than this. (Time expired)