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

The core distortion that the shadow minister for education has engaged in concerns round 1, which was for the schools most in need, the schools with the worst student-to-computer ratios. The government said that round was to bring them up to an effective ratio of one to two. We always said that was the first part of the benefit for those schools in a program that was going to bring all schools up to an effective ratio of one to one for students in years 9 to 12—promised and going to be delivered under the government’s program—and then it comes to the time frame that the government outlined in its policy documents and its statement since. Then, of course, in the policy document that we published at the last election, we said:

A Rudd Labor Government will work co-operatively with State and Territory Governments and the Catholic and Independent schools systems to partner this program by ensuring schools have sophisticated ICT strategies—including training, client support, maintenance costs and integration with the school curriculum.

So we engaged COAG in the delivery of this program just as we consulted independent schools and Catholic schools.

At the first COAG meeting late last year the audit was agreed to. That is the audit which showed the shameful legacy of neglect of the Liberal Party opposite—an absolute disgrace, leaving students without any effective access to computers. At the second COAG meeting this year in March we agreed with the states and territories that we would work with them, particularly with the working group of COAG, to assess the legitimate and additional financial implications. That was when the Grimes review was commissioned. The Grimes review was obviously fed into the COAG discussions which resulted, on Saturday, in an additional investment to ensure that the on-costs and deployment of computers, on which we said we would work with the states and territories and the Catholic and independent schools systems, would be delivered; hence the agreement for $807 million. Of course, the Grimes review was made public after it had been worked through in the COAG processes. It was part of the confidential COAG documents up until that point. It is available now.

I say to the shadow minister opposite that, if he wants to go to government schools and say that out of this $807 million they should not benefit from $521 million of it, then he can have that discussion, government school by government school. If he wants to go to independent schools and say to them that they should not have the benefit of nearly $121 million more, then he can have that discussion, independent school by independent school. If he wants to go to Catholic schools and say to them that they should not have the benefit of almost $165 million more of investment then he can have that discussion, Catholic school by Catholic school. But what this government is going to get on with doing is what we promised: getting rid of the Liberal Party’s shameful track record of neglect in this area and making sure that students in our schools have computers. That is what the digital education revolution is about, that is what we promised and that is what we are going to deliver.

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