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

I did not interrupt you. As a man who has just been carrying on about the Westminster tradition, you should know that allowing someone to have their say is a part of that. All of this is going to hurt the member for Sturt because it punctures the story he has been telling over the last few days. Fact No. 2: the Investing in Our Schools Program always came with guidelines. Those guidelines had a few iterations but they always provided that it was the Australian government that would be contacted for arrangements in relation to the opening ceremony. To directly quote:

If an opening ceremony is required schools are advised that they must:

These are the words of the Liberal Party, the Howard government—

i. before organising an official opening, contact the IOSP Liaison Officer in the Parliament House Office of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training … to arrange the Australian Government’s participation;

ii. provide the Minister with at least two months prior notice of any openings and public events relating to the projects;

               …            …            …

iii. make provision in the official proceedings for the Minister or their representative to speak.

The arrangements of the Liberal government were as follows: contact a public servant stationed in the office of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training, who was then Mr Farmer; Mr Farmer, with that public servant, would arrange an Australian government representative; and there needed to be notice requirements to the minister. We are using these guidelines. We are using them in relation to Investing in Our Schools projects. Nothing has changed in relation to that—nothing. The guidelines are the same. Any representation to the contrary is untrue, made up, fanciful and perhaps deceitful.

I will take the House to the memo that the member for Sturt has referred to, a memo put out by this government, because the purpose of that memo is a very interesting one. When I was elected as minister, because of the rigorous requirements of the Liberal Party that their members get political credit for the Investing in Our Schools Program and that there be a ceremony in relation to each Investing in Our Schools Program grant, we were faced with a circumstance where there were 22,000 opening ceremonies that needed to occur. The Liberal Party had organised an orgy of self-congratulation around the country.

I came to the conclusion—and that is why this memo went out—that maybe we would like schools to teach children rather than spend their days rolling out 22,000 ceremonies for the Liberal Party’s orgy of self-congratulation. So I issued this memo—it was put out by the department, but obviously I take responsibility for it. This memo went out to put into place the new advice to schools that, for a series of minor Investing in Our Schools Program grants, they did not have to have an opening ceremony and they could consolidate opening ceremonies. To cut down on the number of opening ceremonies, instead of having one for each individual grant, they could have just one for the whole suite of projects that had gone into the school. I stand behind that. That was the right thing to do.

What else happened when this memo went out? We do not have the situation where departmental officers sit in my office the way they used to sit in Mr Farmer’s office organising these opening ceremonies. We thought it was appropriate that those functions be organised by the department. So the other reason for putting out this memo is to say: ‘In the past you have rung into a Liberal Party politician’s office in relation to your Investing in Our Schools Program ceremonies. We don’t want you to do that. We want you to deal with the department.’ Obviously schools deal with the department very frequently. That is why the guideline was here to ask schools to deal with the department.

All of these guidelines are about who officiates at the opening ceremony, who represents the Australian government. The member for Sturt has tried to pretend that somehow when the Liberal Party were in office it was common for them, out of the goodness of their heart, to allow a member of the opposition to be that government representative. That is completely and utterly untrue. The member for Adelaide was telling me the other day about a ceremony in her electorate which was officiated by a state Liberal member of parliament whose electorate was not even in that area. I have been told by the member for Shortland that she was invited to a ceremony and the then Liberal government caused it to be cancelled. I have been told by the member for Chifley about a ceremony officiated at not by a state Liberal member but by a state Liberal member’s staffer—a political staffer. The Liberal Party would have dragged anybody out of any corner of the planet that suited their political interests rather than let a Labor member officiate at one of these ceremonies. So let us not hear this hypocrisy and cant from the member for Sturt.

Mr Speaker, if the member for Sturt had indeed listened to your ruling, he would have heard that what first brought these matters to the attention of this parliament was a complaint from the then Labor member for Swan that he had been excluded from a Green Corps announcement in his electorate under a similar sort of process. That complaint was made to the then Liberal Party member who was Speaker at the time—and I do not mean to impugn him in any way, but obviously it is a matter of fact that he was a Liberal Party member when the Howard government was in office. So let us not listen to any of the cant that we have heard from the member for Sturt. It is hypocrisy writ large in capital letters.

The member for Sturt has deliberately and craftily tried to confuse the difference between officiating at a ceremony as a representative of the Australian government and attending a ceremony. It is a question of who speaks on behalf of the Australian government as opposed to who is in attendance. The member for Sturt, the member for Gilmore and others have been saying we are somehow stopping people from going to the schools. Ridiculous! If you go to the departmental website and look at the frequently asked questions about Investing in Our Schools ceremonies, you will see the question, ‘Whom else can I invite to an opening ceremony?’ It says:

Schools are welcome to invite any member of parliament, federal or state, as a guest to an opening ceremony to acknowledge Australian Government funding and the achievements of the school with the local community.

So the guidelines are about who officiates—

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