Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his promises that ‘no child between year 9 and year 12 shall be without a computer’ and for ‘a trades training centre for every secondary school’ at the last election. Given that the free-falling computers in schools program has doubled to $2 billion and only 34 trades training centres have been approved for Australia’s 2,650 secondary schools, what confidence can the Australian people possibly have that yesterday’s promises for schools will be any less hollow?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government stands unapologetically for an education revolution in Australia.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought that would get them going! We stand for an education revolution in terms of what we build in our schools—our primary schools, secondary schools, TAFEs and universities—and in our research. We believe in that because we need to equip this nation for the 21st century economy.

I said yesterday that when I said at the last election we needed to prepare for that day when the mining boom was over those opposite when they were in government scoffed and laughed. That was a little more than a year ago. Guess what? The mining boom is over. What they did for 12 years was turn their backs on developing the knowledge base of the economy to deal with the challenges of the 21st century. This seems to have escaped the attention of the member for skirt—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

that is, the member for Sturt—in the midst of what I think must be an interesting set of arrangements at the moment in terms of his loyalties between the member for Wentworth and the member for Higgins. We will just think about that for a minute.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question was very specifically about the hollow promises made at the last election and their failure to be delivered. It was about outcomes, not rhetoric. The Prime Minister should be brought back to the question—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Sturt will resume his seat. The Prime Minister is responding to the question.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A key part of the education revolution is to ensure that our kids have access to the digital education revolution of the 21st century. That means that all kids, not just those in the richest and flasher schools, have an opportunity to participate in the information economy of tomorrow. That means that we have to work hard to do it. What those opposite did, when they had 12 years to act, was simply push it all into the too-hard basket. Nothing happened on high-speed broadband; nothing happened on a rollout of effective computer access within our schools.

When it comes to trades training centres in schools, as we have gone around the country we have seen capital infrastructure in our secondary schools which has not been updated for 30 or 40 years. This is a disgrace. We need to invest to fix it. Adding to that, we have sought, with the Nation Building and Jobs Plan, which we outlined yesterday, to add language laboratories, science wings, 21st century libraries and multipurpose halls to our schools. This is part of building the best education system that this nation can possibly have. We will honour our pre-election commitments on trades training centres and on computers in schools as given.