Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Education and Deputy Prime Minister tried to imply in question time last week that I am opposed to development and funding in schools. This, of course, is not true. I am more than happy to approve funding for each and every school in the Barker electorate. My record on supporting investment in schools and education of our young Australians is there for all to see. In particular, I wholeheartedly supported the $2 billion Investing in Our Schools Program, which was axed by the Rudd Labor government last year. Indeed, I secured for the Barker electorate the third highest funding across Australia under the Investing in Our Schools Program—that is, third out of 150 electorates. These are the documents on the programs. For the benefit of Hansard, I say that this is at least a three-centimetre-thick bundle of individual programs that were supported by the previous government.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you tabling them?

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In four years, 375 projects were approved in the electorate, benefiting 125 schools and totalling more than $17 million in funding. Just a little over a year ago, before Labor axed the program, I gained funding of more than $160,000 for the Millicent North Primary School in the electorate of Barker. This funding enabled Millicent North Primary School to build a shelter between two major buildings at the school because they wanted an all-weather area for PE lessons, given the number of days it rains there and also for sun protection. Last year the acting principal of Millicent North Primary School, Moira Neagle, thanked me for assisting them to get these grants, saying that the shelter had also been most useful for events such as their weekly school assemblies and their Enterprise Education Fair. Ms Neagle went on to say that, until they got the grant funds, they did not have any interactive whiteboards in the school and that, as well as the shelter, the grant allowed them to purchase four interactive whiteboards. In fact, she described these as fantastic teaching and learning tools which allowed easier display of ideas and visual representations and brought access to the internet for the whole class to see.

How did the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education respond to a letter from Millicent North Primary School last week in relation to the economic spending spree? Quite badly. She could not even get their name right. In question time last week, the minister called them the Milton North Primary School. The minister confused Queensland and South Australian schools, not even giving Millicent North Primary School staff, parents, community and students the courtesy of correctly naming them in parliament. That is pretty insulting treatment of a fabulous school in my electorate. If that is not bad enough, if Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has his way then these children at Millicent North Primary School are the generation who will be saddled with enormous debt and deficit. (Time expired)