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

I thank the member for his question—of course, a member who is opposed to this expenditure on schools in his community. If the member chooses to check the guidelines of the program he is opposed to, because of course he is opposed to this money going to schools in his community and in South Australia generally, he will find that it is not the federal government that makes decisions about when schools close. Those decisions are made by school systems—made by state school systems, made by the Catholic school system and made by independent schools.

We have said to schools around the country that we want to work with them and benefit them. We have also said to our state and territory colleagues and to the block grant authorities in the Catholic and independent school sectors that we want to see this money spent on schools that are going to be there in the future, and we are working with those block grant authorities and state and territory governments on precisely that question.

If the member had at any point chosen to look at the material on the website, he would have been aware of that. He could have answered his own question. But, of course, he wanted to come into this parliament and try and cast a slur on this program, because he knows, like every member of the opposition, that school communities around the nation want this expenditure, that tradespeople around the nation want this work. Each and every day of the adjournment from this parliament they have been there, twisting and turning in their own electorates, unable to explain to school principals—

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