Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for Education and Minister for Social Inclusion. I refer the minister to reports that Berwick Lodge Primary School’s school stimulus project manager has estimated that a proposed relocation of sewerage pipes would cost $203,000, whereas the principal has obtained an independent quote for just $63,000. How does the minister justify this staggering inflation of 300 per cent while ignoring the pleas of St Lucy’s special school for blind and disabled children in Wahroonga who are facing a cut of $80,000 to their funding as a result of Australian government policy?

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

I thank the member for his question because it enables me to explain some facts—things that the Liberal Party does not like when it comes to education. The facts stand about their track record in government where they discriminated against country kids; where this nation came back of the OECD class for investment in early childhood; where the standards of schools in this country against the standards of the world went down; and where the man who sits next to the member who asked the question sat there saying, ‘We knew a skills shortage was coming; we just did not bother doing anything about it.’ Their track record in government is one that bears repeating when it comes to the facts. On these schools that he has asked me about let me explain the situation to him very clearly. There are water pipes under an area of the Berwick Lodge school that was first identified for construction. The local water authority has ruled out constructing on that spot because of the nature of the pipes and other work that runs under it and consequently an alternative position for the construction will be identified. This is the kind of problem that anybody with a modicum of common sense knows happens when you are dealing with construction. On the question of lack of common sense, here it comes—

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

A point of order on relevance, Mr Speaker: the question was about the 300 per cent inflation rate, not about the relocation of pipes.

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

The Deputy Prime Minister is responding to the question.

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

Thank you very much. I was asked about a building at a particular school, and I am answering about that building at that school. On the comparison that the member has drawn with St Lucy’s, let me just explain to the member that, of course, the amount of funding that this government has allocated to students with disabilities has in fact gone up. We allocate that to school systems. We allocate it in particular to the Catholic school system. The Catholic school system, as it did when the Liberal Party was in government, makes determinations about allocations for the school within its system. Consequently, there is more money available to the system overall and it has made its determinations, including the determination for St Lucy’s School. If the member wants to take that up with the Catholic Education Office then he should, but he should not be drawing an inappropriate, inaccurate comparison in this House in the attempt to confuse or mislead people, because that is completely wrong.

Can I say to the member opposite: this is a government that has almost doubled allocations of funding to schools over a four-year period. We are doing that to drive a fundamental reform agenda, including transparency, which you were too incompetent in government to do; including a national curriculum, which the Liberal and National parties were too incompetent to do; including directing more money to disadvantaged schools, which is something the Liberals and Nationals in government could not have cared less about; including money for teacher quality reforms, such as Teach for Australia which provides more money for the best teachers in the country to go to the classrooms that need them the most—a reform you would never have dreamed of and could not have delivered even if you tried. There is the Digital Education Revolution, the Building the Education Revolution, trade training centres in schools—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Yes, it is embarrassing for you, isn’t it? Yes, it is.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question was in relation to waste in the school stimulus program. The minister is now deviating from that topic.

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

The Deputy Prime Minister is responding to the question. I call the Deputy Prime Minister.

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

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. In conclusion: the waste was almost 12 long years when education in this country went backwards. We are delivering an education revolution because we believe Australian students deserve better. The real tragedy is that we will never get those almost 12 long years back and kids only get one go at school. So what the member should be reflecting on is the thousands of school children that the Liberal and National parties let down with their track record of insufficient resources and insufficient reforms. That is the real waste that this House should be directing its attention to.