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

My question is to the Prime Minister. The Rawlinsons Australian Construction Handbook indicates that single-level primary school buildings should cost $1,350 per square metre. The cost per square metre under the Prime Minister’s school hall program for some buildings like canteens was as high as $13,300. How does achieving potentially less than 10 per cent value in some cases fit with his promise to be a fiscal conservative? If the Prime Minister cannot be trusted to manage a $16.2 billion program, how can he be trusted to deliver any of his promises?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A minister—finance minister, I recall—of the previous government, the highest taxing government in Australia’s history, providing any lecture on fiscal conservatism is remarkable. The projects concerned formed part of the government’s school modernisation program. I noticed from the tone of the question from the shadow minister for education that he is deeply disappointed by the contents of the APPA report. The APPA report has a number of observations within it, including the following: 97 per cent of principals said students would benefit from the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program; 96 per cent of students would benefit from the National School Pride Program; 90 per cent of principals agreed that the projects undertaken matched community needs; et cetera. This has been a remarkably successful program right across the country.

Only last week I was in the electorate of the member for Deakin, opening the new library at the School of St Luke the Evangelist. I listened very carefully to the teachers, the local priest and others talking about them having something decent added to their school for the first time in decades and decades. I also went outside and looked at what had happened via the improvement program which had funded the astroturfing of an oval that had previously been completely unusable due to there not being enough water to have grass there. For the first time, the kids can go out there and not have their knees skinned if they fall over once. These stories are being repeated across the nation in the 24,000 projects that are underway under the Building the Education Revolution program.

This government is proud of the school modernisation program. This government is proud of the libraries that are being built across Australia. We are proud of the fact that we are adding science centres across Australia. We are proud of the fact that we are also assisting local school communities deal with needs that have been banking up year after year. The government has looked carefully at the Audit Office’s report. The Deputy Prime Minister has taken note of its recommendations. The government will continue to implement these projects.

I would like to say something to the shadow minister for education and the Leader of the Opposition while they are together in this chamber. On the one hand, the Leader of the Opposition says that he will cancel all stimulus.

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

Nonsense.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nonsense? I say that those opposite are walking two sides of the street. On the question of the Building the Education Revolution program, those opposite have one responsibility if they are being fair dinkum: in each electorate across the Australia, they must itemise each one of the schools at which they will cease the construction program. Otherwise, the Leader of the Opposition’s statement about halting stimulus payments across the country is revealed for what it is: a piece of utterly fraudulent politics. That is the challenge for those opposite. If you are going to say this in Canberra, do it at the local level. Every local newspaper editor will chase you down and ask which schools you will stop funding, which of those where construction has not started will you pull the plug on and how many tradies will you throw out of work.

I go back again to the School of St Luke the Evangelist. I spoke to the local builder, who said to me that, were it not for this program, he and so many other people who worked on it—up to 30 subbies on a given day—would have had no work last year. Why do you think that this country—unique among the major advanced economies—emerged from the global economic crisis with positive growth, as the only economy not to go into recession and as the only economy to continue to generate high levels of employment, with an unemployment level about half of what we see in Europe and the United States? The answer lies in getting on with the business of implementing stimulus projects on the ground, ones that have provided real and tangible returns for the kids of the 21st century. That is why the government unapologetically supports this program.