Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I would like to speak about the Rudd government’s commitment to an education revolution. We have heard much about how only Labor makes a connection between education and the future of the nation—what a stunning discovery! This great commitment seems to have become a pledge to supply computers for senior secondary students. In a sort of Orwellian oversimplification, we are hearing: computer pledge good, everything else bad. As a result, the government has slashed the highly popular and flexible Investing in Our Schools Program, through which local school communities could decide their own priorities.

Let us remember that the Prime Minister committed to ‘a computer for every secondary school student’. But the ground has moved and now it is ‘one computer for every two students’. Schools are telling me they are thankful for computers but they do not know how they will fund them. There is no money for installation, training and ongoing servicing. Even more disturbingly, replacement of these computers has not been discussed. One school has told me that, as the computers reach their use-by date, they will have to pull them out if no new funding comes along.

But today I specifically want to question the government’s commitment to its self-proclaimed ‘education revolution’ at Woomera, in the north of my electorate. Woomera is a world-famous facility, owned and controlled by the Department of Defence. It has a spectacular past and it promises to play an important part in the future of the development of our defence capability. After all, there are not many places in the world where you can fire a rocket and then pick it up 2,500 kilometres later and still be in the same country. All land and buildings in Woomera are owned and maintained by Defence.

In Woomera there is a Commonwealth owned school facility. This school should be leased by the South Australian Department of Education and Children’s Services, or DECS, who would then provide the education service to the residents, but DECS and Defence cannot agree on terms. So much for the end to the blame game this government is so fond of talking about!

The Woomera school is in a deplorable and dangerous state. Defence has engineering reports on the remedial action required and called for tenders to complete the work. It was all ready to happen. Now the school has been informed that the proposed work, worth around $350,000, has been pulled to meet efficiency gains within the department.

I recently visited the school to see just how bad things were. The school was built for an enrolment of 1,400; it is currently down to 70. However, it is far from the smallest school in Australia, particularly in our more remote areas. These kids and their families deserve educational facilities equal to those of the rest of the population, and certainly they deserve to go to school in a safe environment. On inspection, I found that the Woomera school is falling apart. Its walls are leaning outwards so far that the ceiling has collapsed. Furniture and plant such as photocopiers are leaning at strange angles all over the place, many of them with chocks under corners to try and level them enough so the units can function. Heavy doors in the corridors have been removed because the doorframes have twisted so much that they have fallen off their hinges. There are props in the doorframes to prevent the lintels falling. The school is in a deplorable condition. In some rooms you can see into the next through cracks in the walls. The floors are cracked and uneven to such an extent that they are an OH&S issue and almost certainly will lead to an accident.

Even more disturbingly, the Woomera school has a disabled child in a wheelchair and no wheelchair access. Can you believe that in 2008? At a time when every DECS and privately owned and controlled school in South Australia is compelled to have wheelchair access, we have a facility owned and controlled by the Commonwealth which has not made the grade. As a result, this child cannot navigate the school on their own and requires a full-time carer at a time when DECS believe that for the child’s development it is very important they be encouraged to become more independent.

The government talk big—in big, sweeping statements—about grand visions, but when it comes to putting meat on the bones they go missing. In Woomera we have children and staff operating in a dangerous environment and the government has pulled the funding. Is this a commitment to an education revolution or is it more about image and style? Whatever it is, it is certainly not delivering the goods in Woomera.