Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The issue that has been raised today by Senator Barnett during motions to take note of answers is not an unimportant issue—I agree with that. In her contribution, Senator Moore outlined what the government is doing with regard to the National School Chaplaincy Program and its future funding. I am going to come back to that in a moment, but you have to look also at the broader context—that is, what this government has done in respect of education with the additional support, additional services and additional funding for students in schools. It has been unprecedented. There has been record additional funding in both the public and the private school sectors since the Rudd government came into office.

The opposition constantly criticise and attack the Building the Education Revolution program, and go around looking for one instance here or there of where there may have been some technical hiccup. The opposition just will not acknowledge the great benefit that that program has had in providing additional resources, additional facilities, to schools and to the children who are taught in them: the extra computers, the new science blocks, the new assembly halls, the new covered learning areas—all the extra facilities, which I have seen personally on many occasions that I have visited schools. You talk to the teachers, you talk to the principals, you talk to the parents and citizens group and to the parents and friends groups, and they are so grateful for what the federal government, the Rudd government, have done over the last year to two years and for what is continuing to be rolled out as many of those projects are completed and coming into operation.

This is an opposition that do nothing but carp. They are saying today that the whole chaplaincy program has been abandoned, that it is going to fall in a hole. Nothing could be further from the truth. And the opposition know that they speak with forked tongues on this. Whilst they say that the Rudd government, the Labor government, has abandoned this program, the facts of the matter are that the previous government, the Howard government, only committed funding to the end of next year when they introduced this scheme. That needs to be repeated: they only committed funding to the end of 2010. As for the current government, the Prime Minister announced on 21 November—only a few days ago—that an additional $42.8 million will be made available to the program to ensure that the good work of the National School Chaplaincy Program funded school chaplains will continue until the end of December 2011.