Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion. How are successful projects from round 1 and round 2 of the Education Investment Fund assisting communities and supporting local economies?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moreton for his question. I know that he understands the importance of investing in infrastructure for his local community and for supporting jobs. I know that he, in his local electorate, would be welcoming the 118 projects representing $34.8 million of investment. These projects include 95 projects under the Building the Education Revolution in 38 schools at a total of $23.5 million of investment—investment supported by this side of the House and opposed by the Liberal Party.

Our investments in education, in jobs today and in the infrastructure we need for tomorrow, are of course investments in schools but they are also investments beyond schools. So far this government has committed $5.1 billion in infrastructure for tertiary education and research. This includes an investment of $4.065 billion from the Education Investment Fund. As part of this investment in jobs today and in the education infrastructure we need for tomorrow, the government announced a range of successful projects as parts of rounds 1 and 2 of the Education Investment Fund rounds of investment. The Education Investment Fund round 1 contained $580 million for 11 successful projects at universities across the nation and the EIF round 2 announced funding of $934 million for 31 successful projects that will improve the tertiary sector and develop our education infrastructure and research capacity.

Just describing one of these projects I think may assist the opposition because it may make clear to them two concepts they appear to be struggling with. Concept No. 1: if the government steps forward to do investment in infrastructure it can be joined by others who want to partner in that infrastructure development. It is clear from the questions being asked by the opposition today that that concept has completely eluded them. Concept No. 2: if you are investing in infrastructure then you are supporting jobs in construction, but if you are investing in infrastructure you can also be supporting jobs for the long term. Let me explain this for the opposition around a particular project and hopefully they will manage to cotton on.

Let us look at the University of Sydney’s Centre for Obesity, Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease—obviously, a research centre looking at some of the biggest killers of Australians, some of our biggest health challenges. The opposition might want to note and have a little think about this. The University of Sydney, to develop that centre, received a $95 million grant through the Education Investment Fund, but it leveraged additional funding, having received that grant, so the cost of the project is $385 million in total.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Julie Bishop interjecting

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition says she understands this. She needs to explain it to her shadow minister for infrastructure, who clearly, from his questions, does not. This investment of $385 million in total—because of the Education Investment Fund investment and because of the leveraging of funding from extra sources—will, according to the Chairman of the Education Investment Fund, support 2,000 jobs through the construction. But beyond that, when the building is finished, it will house 330 staff. What this means, according to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney, Professor Don Nutbeam, is that there will be a 10 per cent increase in the number of staff in order for there to be the people to work from this brand-new facility. You could not get a better example of what economic stimulus in the form of infrastructure can do: jobs today through construction, jobs for the long-term through the people who will work in the building; government investment leveraging private sector investment; government investment and private sector or non-government investment working together to create a facility which will address some of the major contemporary challenges for this nation in terms of the health challenges of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Members opposite, day after day, come into this House and oppose infrastructure. In doing so, they are opposing vital projects like this one. They are opposing the jobs in construction; they are opposing the long-term jobs the facility would mean; they are opposing the additional investment that the government dollars are leveraging: a completely catastrophic economic formula for the nation.