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

Can I say first and foremost: I think Australians deserve a better standard of debate about the most important issue of education. Can I also say: I think Australians deserve better than a part-time shadow education minister. It amazes me that if you go to the member’s website you will find that he has only published one speech on education this year—that was a speech on the Bradley higher education reforms. He has not one published speech on schools this year, not one published speech on VET this year, not one published speech on early childhood education this year. But there are two published speeches on the Liberal Party. So I think what people can conclude from that is that he cares twice as much about talking to his Liberal Party colleagues as he does about debating education issues. And the shadow minister just said to me, ‘What about the press releases?’ Well, if you go to his website you will find that he has put out 41 media releases this year. So, out of 222 days, he has done an average of one press release every 5.4 days. So once every working week, five days of a working week, he has struggled and managed to put out one press release—hardly indicative of a shadow minister engaged in the education debate. ‘But,’ I hear you ask, ‘maybe there are volumes and volumes of policies?’ Well, there are not on the website. And then, if you go to the Education for Australia website, what you find is 182 words under the heading, ‘Liberal focus on education,’ and most of it is paying homage to a program of the former Howard government—not one policy, not one idea for the nation’s future on education. This is not good enough for the standard of debate and an indication that the shadow minister does not take his job seriously—and clearly he puts very little effort into getting it done. In contrast, the government is completely focused on delivering our education revolution, which is both a major reform agenda and an unprecedented focus with new resources across education.

Let us go through the elements of the education revolution. Of course, true to form, the shadow minister has only talked about one—the Building the Education Revolution program. Well, can I say to the shadow minister: the Building the Education Revolution program is the biggest school modernisation program in the nation’s history, and I welcome debate and focus on it. But driving an education revolution—and making true the promise of the best possible start in life that this nation should give to every child—actually requires more than that.

But let us just focus for a minute, as the shadow minister did, on the question of the Building the Education Revolution program. I would have to say that I do not think he has got the support of his backbench, because my attention has been drawn to this journal, published by the Hon. Peter Slipper MP, federal member for Fisher—as we would know, a very longstanding member of the Liberal Party and a member of the opposition. I did read it all, of course, but my attention was particularly drawn to the back page: ‘Recent funding announcements’. Here is a list of recent funding announcements, from Peter Slipper for Fisher. There we can go through a list of funding announcements—all the Building the Education Revolution announcements: $200,000 for Beerwah State High School, $75,000 for Beerburrum State School, $200,000 for Buddina, $200,000 for Maleny, $200,000 for Talara, $200,000 for Unity College, $200,000 for another school in Caloundra, $75,000 for Conondale, $125,000 for Delaneys Creek State School—

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