Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

There is more missing: it had no railing on the balcony to stop kids falling off; it had no structural or design engineering certifications; it had no fencing safety or security of the site. A terrific quote, this one, for the member for Patterson to go out there and say, ‘This alternative quote is the way to go. This is the way that we can save taxpayers’ money by going down this road.’ But if that did not raise enough questions, on the quote it finishes:

We recommend that all portable buildings be tied down.

It was a tent, not a classroom! They recommended that it be tied down. Once all necessary inclusions were taken into account the New South Wales department of education estimated that the price would increase to $357,000 more than the price that the department was quoting for a similar building.

So I say to those opposite, whether it is emails, whether it is the running down of our education infrastructure projects, whether it is the running down of our rail and road infrastructure projects or our community infrastructure projects through local government: check the facts, compare the quotes, because when you are looking at building infrastructure in our schools for our children, we simply cannot cut corners nor should we take anything for granted.

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