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

What we did not hear in 15 minutes of invective and allegation was anything approaching a fact. I think that is best demonstrated by the fact that the school that the shadow minister referred to in his address—indeed, it was one of the few schools he actually referred to by name in a generalised attack of invective without facts—was a school in the electorate of the member for Bradfield. He sought to use the name of that school, and the project there, to say that there is something wrong with the Building the Education Revolution program. I think it says all we need to know about the calibre of the shadow minister’s contributions to this place that the project he refers to at that school is not a Building the Education Revolution project. It is not within this program of Building the Education Revolution. I am actually going to visit that school with the member for Bradfield. We have looked at the project the member for Bradfield raised in the parliament with me some time back. It is not a Building the Education Revolution project, as the shadow minister has tried to make out. His was an address long on invective and short on facts.

In terms of the various things that the shadow minister said which are not accurate, and should not be allowed to stand unchallenged, let me make the following points. He made an assertion about the Digital Education Revolution program and the provision of computers to students in years 9 to 12. He sought to assert that somehow that program had been halved. That is completely untrue. The government is honouring its election commitment to bring computers to students in years 9 to 12 with an effective one to one ratio. What we promised is what we will deliver. Anything said to the contrary is simply not correct—an assertion that has been made by the shadow minister before; an assertion he either does not understand because he has not looked at the facts long enough or an assertion he makes while the facts are so startlingly different.

Then the shadow minister made an assertion about the trades training centre program of the government. He has made this assertion before. He has sought to leave people with the impression that somehow this program has been reduced, that somehow what would have been a benefit for each secondary school in the country is now only a benefit if schools cluster into groups—and he made reference to a group of 10. That assertion is completely untrue. The trades training centre program is being rolled out, as promised to the Australian people, on the basis that it can benefit every secondary school in the country. What has happened is schools have elected to work together to bring greater resources together and therefore build bigger facilities. Sometimes schools have decided—

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