Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

The education of our children is perhaps one of the most critical issues we face as a nation. Our children are the most important asset that we as parents and we as a community have. It is also said that, when we invest in the education of a child, no matter what happens to them in life it is the one thing that can never be taken away from them. I am concerned by comments by one of the state members in my electorate who says that the Howard government is dudding the schools in my electorate.

Our government has invested in a program called Investing in Our Schools, and I have been very successful: of the 54 schools in my electorate, 43 schools have received around $2.57 million, supporting their P&Cs in acquiring what is most needed for their schools. A lot of these projects could not be achieved without the investment by the federal government of up to $150,000 per school for projects. This can be for shadecloths, musical instruments, computer upgrades or books in the libraries. Indeed, the Stroud school recently opened a library. They upgraded a classroom to make a new library—a library that will provide for quality education.

One of the issues is that many of the schools, like Francis Greenway and Irrawang, have applied to put their money towards the air conditioning of their schools. However, the state education department will not pay for the electrical upgrades for the schools to be able to run the air conditioning. This is a serious situation because of some of the temperatures there.

In New South Wales, the state government announced in the last budget $120 million for a big program of upgrade and maintenance of schools. But that is $120 million over four years, or $30 million a year, amongst the thousands of schools in New South Wales. I say to the state members of parliament in my electorate, ‘Just match what we do.’ We increased our budget for educational funding of capital works by 8.9 per cent. This goes to funding approximately 50 per cent of the development of school improvements and new programs. Recently, I was honoured to be able to open the new buildings and blocks at the Anna Bay and Soldiers Point public schools. That was a program worth around $7 million, towards which this government contributed $3.4 million.

So it is not this government but the state government that is dudding the education of the most important assets of this nation by refusing to match our funding increases and refusing to meet the basic needs of education in our schools—things like computers, books and shade structures, when skin cancer is such a big issue. So I am glad that under our Investing in Our Schools program the schools in my electorate are active participants and are putting that money where it is needed. (Time expired)

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