Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, and the Minister for Social Inclusion. Will the Deputy Prime Minister inform the House of progress in Building the Education Revolution and the reaction to its implementation, including possible threats to schools completing their projects?

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

I thank the member for Forde for his question. I know he is a great supporter of his local schools and a great supporter of the difference that the more than $16 billion in the Building the Education Revolution Program is making to schools in his community and around the country. This scheme is good for jobs, as the Treasurer indicated when he released the national accounts earlier this month and noted:

The infrastructure stimulus in … schools helped to offset continued weakness in non-residential buildings.

As well as being good for jobs, this program is good for schools. Let us listen to the voices of school communities themselves. For example, Peter and Susan Patchin from Holland Park, in the electorate of Bonner, wrote to me on 16 February saying:

We were overwhelmed by the wonderful new facilities. They are already making a huge difference to the daily life of both the students and the community.

That is a typical reaction to this school modernisation program. Or there is the reaction of Mr Jeffs, who is the Principal of the Korumburra Primary School in the electorate of McMillan. He said on 2 March:

Everyone is really excited about our new facilities. One of the most exciting projects has been the quadrangle roofing that has created an all-weather physical activity area. It’s been sensational. On hot days kids can play under it and normally on a hot day there would be no kids playing in the quadrangle because it’s just too hot.

Again, that is another typical example of the reaction of school communities to the Building the Education Revolution Program. I am asked about reactions to this BER program and risks to its further implementation. Of course, the main risk to its implementation is the quandary the opposition finds itself in on the question of whether or not the program should be continued.

On some days, opposition members come into this House and demand an end to the school stimulus spending because they make airy-fairy references as to how cutting this spending would enable them to fund their reckless promises. Then on other days, members of the opposition are running around their electorates wanting to be as associated with this school expenditure as much as they possibly can be.

But this hypocrisy has reached new heights—heights we have never seen before. There is the Leader of the Opposition who has described this expenditure as low-grade spending. When challenged on his lack of costings and lack of funding for his promises, with a wave of his hand he says, ‘Oh, we could cut some of the stimulus money and somehow that would fix it all’. That is what the Leader of the Opposition says. The shadow Treasurer has said this:

For example, in schools all around Australia construction hasn’t even started yet on replacement school halls. Now it’s time to look again at the massive stimulus spending.

And the shadow Minister for Finance, in his even more forthright way, says:

I’d like really to go through this and try and start trimming back some of that $21 billion they’re about to spend.

Clearly leaders of the opposition, people at the leadership level—the leader himself, the shadow Treasurer, the shadow finance minister—have indicated they believe that this program is ripe for cutback, that if they came to government they would be prepared to rip money out, to leave half-constructed school facilities decaying, open to the wind and the rain.

Interestingly, now the shadow minister for education has said the complete reverse. He has written to the Australian Primary Principals Association’s March newsletter and said this, and mark these words:

A Coalition Government will not stop phase three of the BER, but we will be rigorously examining every dollar spent to ensure schools receive value for money.

There we have it: hypocrisy laid absolutely bare by the shadow minister for education, who is trying to pretend to primary principals that the opposition supports this expenditure at the same time that the leader, the shadow Treasurer and the shadow minister for finance threaten this expenditure.

I say to the shadow minister for education: if his leader gets his way and cuts this expenditure back, what is he going to say to St Joseph’s, St Paul’s and St Francis in his electorate? Will they get their school projects? What will he say to Athelstone primary or Trinity Gardens? To the Leader of the Opposition, the man with the least credibility on economics ever to lead the Liberal Party, I say: how is it that he and his finance and economics team can point to hacking money out of schools as a savings measure when, at the same time, his shadow minister for education verifies to primary principals that every dollar will be spent? You cannot have it both ways, and there is the economic credibility of the opposition in tatters yet again.