Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for Education and Minister for Social Inclusion. I refer the minister to the brave stand of the Abbotsford Public School parents and citizens in their insistence that four perfectly usable classrooms be saved from demolition and that instead new classrooms to meet growing demand be built there with the $2.5 million grant through the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program. Will the minister give the same commitment that the member for Lowe has given to review their case and stop this reckless, wasteful spending?

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

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. I say to the Leader of the Opposition and, of course, to the member for Lowe, who I know works with his local schools and, apart from working with his local schools—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Where is he?

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

He is so busy working with his local schools he has obviously been detained from question time! The important thing, of course, is noting that the member for Lowe works with his local schools and he also comes into this parliament and votes for his local schools to benefit from programs like Building the Education Revolution.

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his concern about this school, the Abbotsford school, in the member for Lowe’s electorate, but I presume that his concern does not extend to all schools. If it extended to all schools then of course he would have voted for the biggest school modernisation program in the nation’s history and he would have voted to support jobs today during the global recession. But, of course, the Leader of the Opposition not only voted against the Abbotsford school getting any funding but voted against 9,500 schools around this country getting any. He voted against more than 24,000 projects. He did not want to support one building, one refurbishment or one job around the country.

What I can say to the Leader of the Opposition is that, as he is aware from parliament yesterday and from waking up and reading his newspapers—because that is the way that the opposition gets all of its information; it reads the newspapers—the issue of the Abbotsford school was raised in parliament yesterday. What I said yesterday is what I am saying today, which is that we are very happy to work with the school community to resolve this problem. What the Leader of the Opposition may not know is that there is already a process in train involving the New South Wales Building the Education Revolution coordinator to work on the issue raised by the local school.

As I said to the Leader of the Opposition yesterday, this is a program involving 9,500 schools and more than 24,000 projects. We have a mechanism for people to raise concerns and when I talked to the parliament yesterday I advised the parliament that through that mechanism 49 complaints had been raised in total. We are willing to work with local schools. We are willing to work with the Abbotsford school, and a process is in train doing that today.