Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As tempted as I am to address the childcare issue on this occasion, I will focus on the language and science centres issue that Senator Fifield addressed at first but then strayed well away from. I say to Senator Fifield: do not try skiing, because you are lacking the snow. Senator Ryan’s questions about which electorates got what, how they compare and what the overall comparison really meant demonstrate that what the previous government did in terms of pork-barrelling has not been applied in this case. The attempts of the opposition to overlay a crass political assessment to these programs is laughable.

Senator Fifield referred to the opposition’s position in relation to our stimulus. Their view is that we should have spent less and it should have been more targeted. He forgot the critical component. The critical component was that our response needed to be timely. Our economic circumstances are where they are today because our response was timely. Our spending in schools was part of that timely, very critical and important response. It was the need for timeliness that encouraged the Rudd government to invest in infrastructure in schools, where this phase of our overall response could be rolled out relatively quickly.

It is important to repeat what Senator Arbib said in question time today. He said, ‘I am advised that the list of fully costed projects deemed by the independent national assessment panel to be highly suitable or suitable was adopted by the government.’ The independent panel determined which fully costed projects were highly suitable or suitable under established criteria, and the government accepted those recommendations. Let us look at what those criteria were.

The criteria for assessment did not include electorates. This is the opposition’s crass political overlay. That is what has informed, unfortunately, the media attention in the last day or so and the discussion in this chamber—their crass overlay. The answers about exactly which electorates got what are not immediately available for some very good reasons, and I will go through some of them.

The applications were assessed by the national assessment panel against the following criteria in order of priority: demonstrated level of disadvantage—if there are more Labor members in electorates where there is a higher level of disadvantage, maybe that better informs the assessment that Senator Scott Ryan has done rather than who the sitting member is; identified and demonstrated need for the specified building—so which schools needed language and science centres; the capacity to build the facility within the specified time frames—again this is the critical issue of timeliness; the effective and efficient use of Commonwealth funding; and the extent to which the project incorporates sustainable building principles. Those were the criteria. Data on a school’s electorate was not collected and was not required as part of the application process. The national assessment panel did not consider electorates when making their recommendations. The brief to the Deputy Prime Minister with the recommendations did not include electorate information.

What we really have here, rather than this crass political overlay, is this government delivering 537 science and language centres in secondary schools across Australia, including more than 160 in regional and remote schools. This results in $821.8 million in funding for new or refurbished science laboratories and language learning centres to create state-of-the-art facilities in secondary schools across Australia.

I said Senator Fifield lacked snow. He lacked snow because his assessment—or, indeed, Senator Scott Ryan’s assessment—of which electorate got what, is not the relevant issue; the issue was our criteria: timeliness, disadvantage and need. We have met those criteria. Senator Fifield referred to the fact that the economy is doing very well. It is doing very well in Australia uniquely because we had an effective and timely response. (Time expired)