Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

As the member for Dunkley says: no ticket, no start. We are seeing the blatant politicisation of the Australian Public Service. I believe it is in breach of the Public Service Act. That is probably not a matter for debate today under this matter to do with the privileges committee, but it is a matter for another day as to whether the Deputy Prime Minister is in breach of the Public Service Act. So there are two demonstrable changes between the Investing in Our Schools Program of 2007 and the Investing in Our Schools Program of 2008.

Mr Speaker, I heard what you said in your report to the House on privileges but I must say that on this occasion we disagree with you. We very rarely disagree with you but we do on this occasion. We believe that this does warrant a referral to the Standing Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests. We believe that the inalienable right of members of parliament for 108 years has been to attend events such as openings at schools in their electorates when there are federal funds involved. I have been a member of this House for 16 years and I have attended hundreds of school events and programs. No-one had ever suggested that I could not be there to open a federally funded event in my own electorate until the government changed in 2007.

The Deputy Prime Minister puts on her smug, snarly smile, which she has perfected in this House, as though we do not know what we are talking about. There were Labor state governments for most of the time the Howard government was in power. This is exactly the process that they undertook for state project openings and events, and we used to complain about it even then. Federal members would turn up and find state Labor people or public servants opening events in our electorates when members of parliament should have been doing it.

The member for Hinkler wrote to me—a letter that you have, Mr Speaker—giving us a good example in his electorate where funding of $123,000 was being used at the Coalstoun Lakes State School west of Bundaberg. They were spending the money on tubular steel playground equipment, a T-shaped shed, reverse cycle air-conditioning and a storage and assembly area. He had been involved in securing those funds for the Coalstoun Lakes State School. When the member for Hinkler turned up to the opening, the principal shamefacedly informed him—he was embarrassed, I am sure, because I am sure he knows the member for Hinkler well after all the member’s years of service; Mr Neville is also a class of ’93 member—that he could not do the opening; that he would have to let somebody else do it. The principal ended up doing it because he had been instructed by the government not to allow the member for Hinkler to do his job as a member of parliament. But it is an inalienable right of this parliament.

I have another very recent example, from the member for Ryan, of the opening, at the Middle Park State School, of an Investing in Our Schools Program project. He was sent an email from the Branch Manager of Infrastructure, Funding and Coordination in the National Education System group in the Deputy Prime Minister’s Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. In that email, she confirmed that the member would not be able to open the event at the Middle Park State School in Ryan because, according to the 2008 guidelines, ‘An Australian government representative is a member of the Labor Party.’

We are seeing a classic example where the member for Ryan has been denied the opportunity to fulfil his tasks as a member of parliament. In 2009 the Labor Party say, ‘If you are not Labor, you are not really a fully fledged member of the parliament.’ We know that they basically do not have any great attachment to the democratic traditions of the Westminster system. That was on full display yesterday in the pathetic attempts by the member for Hunter to defend his incompetence as the Minister for Defence. We know that they have only a cursory attachment to the democratic principles that have underpinned this parliament for the last 108 years. And this cannot be allowed to stand. Members on this side of the House will not stand by and see their right to serve their electorates infringed upon. Their electorates expect it—the schools, the governing councils, the parents and friends, the local community groups, the Scout groups and all the others. Where will this stop, when members of parliament are not able to do their jobs as local members? We cannot allow our own constituencies to be let down. We cannot give way to unelected public servants who are members of the Australian Labor Party, which is apparently the only qualification that is required to do an opening—

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