Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

To respond to the question from the member for Casey on the Quality Outcomes Program, that is, as the member would probably be aware, a discretionary program. The savings have been derived from uncommitted funds—that is, there are no programs that have been funded under that that are going to experience a withdrawal of funding because of the savings measure. So, that is from uncommitted funds.

The answer to the question raised by the member for Blair about the government’s $2.5 billion investment in trades training centres is: yes, schools can certainly collaborate; they can put in a joint application; they can partner up. We anticipate schools around the country will turn their minds to doing that, and a number of schools have indicated to me in my travels and discussions with them that one of the things they are thinking of doing is either clustering and building a bigger facility that all schools use, or partnering and developing their facilities but with full knowledge of what other schools in their area are also applying for so that one school could specialise in the provision of trades training in one trade, safe in the knowledge that a nearby school was going to develop their facilities specialising in another trade. Then they could have arrangements for students to move between the schools so that they get the opportunity to have the experience of different trades, through schools working in that kind of partnership arrangement. So, certainly, the schools in the member for Blair’s vicinity have all of these options open to them.

On the questions raised by the member for Boothby, the GEER Scheme is a demand driven program. For GEERS to be engaged, there needs to be a corporate failure in circumstances that are triggered by the guidelines, to put it broadly—that is, in circumstances where there is no reasonable expectation that employees are going to secure their entitlements in the course of the distribution. The expenditure patterns for that are budgeted bearing in mind the historic draw-down patterns on GEERS, so the best possible anticipations are made of likely needs against those historic patterns.

The member for Boothby might give me a hint on the final question he raised.

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