Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

If we are going to take note of answers today, particularly answers given by my colleague Senator Kim Carr, let us have a discussion about the Building the Education Revolution program and let us get some facts on the table. One of the reasons this was instigated was that after 11 long years of the Howard government schools in this country had been neglected. Infrastructure was never seriously addressed under the previous government. In fact, education itself had plummeted to receiving the lowest contribution of GDP for many years, as the OECD continually reported and highlighted. I ask my colleagues opposite whether they can tell me how many schools we have in this country, including Catholic, independent Christian schools and government schools. How many schools do we have in this country? There is a deafening silence. They want to stand up and criticise, but they have no idea of the magnitude of this project and they have no alternative policies.

We are talking about 9½ thousand schools that will actually benefit from this education revolution, a revolution that was needed because of the abject neglect of the previous federal government. In those schools we have 24,000 projects happening around this country, from remote Indigenous schools to major high schools in capital cities to little primary schools in regional centres—primary schools, secondary schools and rural and remote schools. In fact, 9½ thousand schools around this country are benefiting from the Building the Education Revolution program, covering 24,000 projects.

We knew from the start that this was a massive undertaking. It was part of stimulating the economy through the global financial crisis, making sure that at the end of the day we were protecting jobs. If we had not instigated this project, there would have been an extra 210,000 Australians out of work. This was about not only building up the infrastructure in schools around this country—a neglected part of education under the Howard government—but also stimulating the building industry. It was about Australians having a reason to stay in work through the global financial crisis and a reason to keep collecting their fortnightly pay packet to ensure that the building industry that had gone through a massive slump was stimulated, and 210,000 Australians continue to maintain their jobs.

All you hear from the other side is criticism of the small number of projects that have encountered some problems. As Minister Gillard said this morning when she was interviewed on ABC radio, we anticipated that there would be problems. We have set up a website so that people can contact the federal government about problems. Remember that these schools are negotiating these projects with state and territory authorities. Federal government does not deliver services; it provides money to the state and territory government authorities who roll this out. School by school, projects were identified and these were negotiated with state or territory government authorities. We anticipated that projects at 9½ thousand schools would not be rolled out perfectly, and if you thought that was going to happen then you are in a fool’s paradise.