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

I know ‘ratio’ is probably a confusing concept for the shadow Treasurer; she might get someone to explain it to her. The first step we took when we came to government was that we audited to see what the situation was in Australian schools. We counted students and computers that were four years old or less. What did we find when we did that count? We found that there were 280 schools—that is, more than 10 per cent of secondary schools—that had a computer to student ratio of one to 20 or worse. That is, 20 or more children were trying to get access to the one computer. Out of that 280, 110 schools had no computers at all aged less than four years—no computers at all. The record of the Liberal Party in this nation after almost 12 years of government was that Australian students did not have access to the learning tools of the 21st century.

We have started resolving that. We have allocated $1.2 billion to the direct provision of computers. We have rolled out round 1, benefiting more than 800 schools. Whereas the shadow minister has distorted all of this, the approach the government took in round 1 particularly was to move the schools most in need from their woeful computer to student ratios—

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