Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I rise to talk about a revolution that was proposed and heralded across the land as the saviour of the children and their parents of this great nation called Australia. The so called revolution called the Building the Education Revolution was announced with great fanfare by the Deputy Prime Minister. If we go to the government website we are met with the front page introduction which says:

The Australian Government will invest a further $14.7 billion to boost the Education Revolution over the next three years.

Building the Education Revolution (BER) begins this year, and will provide infrastructure funding so each of Australia’s 9,540 schools can meet the needs of 21st century students and teachers.

This is a critical component of the Government’s economic stimulus package, giving our schools the attention they so richly deserve.

It is a great introduction and a fantastic objective with admirable ideals, but only if these objectives are actually going to be met.

It is hard to believe how poorly this scheme has been thought out and managed. The efficiencies of this scheme are shocking, and there are numerous examples Australia wide of this. How can a huge investment of $14.7 billion have achieved no better educational outcomes? From across the nation principals have come forward to tell stories of the scheme’s inflexibility and poor value for money. They have revealed duplication and bureaucracy, contradiction and profiteering, whilst the opposition and journalists have revealed extravagance and wastage. I have heard from principals in my own electorate of Swan about how ridiculous it is that they are being forced to duplicate existing facilities.

Once schools have been forced to accept these buildings, they are then told which government builders they have to hire. For many communities the specially approved contractors are not even local. The stimulus effect of this package was designed to flow through to many businesses Australia wide. In Western Australia we had one of the school package tenders come in over budget by 10 to 20 per cent. In the first instance, how much money do the consultants get paid for these budget forecasts? Is this good and efficient spending? As a result of this, a letter was sent to three major contractors asking them to meet the budget and then they would get all the work. I believe this was done and the effect was a flow-through to the subcontractors of what is known in the building industry as a ‘screw’.

In so many trades—and, having spent 20 years in the building industry, I can say that tradies do not call themselves tradies, which is something that the government might learn; they actually refer to themselves as brickies, sparkies or chippies but not tradies; that is something thought up by the advertising gurus—the subbies have been unmercifully put through the screwing process. Many are going into these contracts not making a cent and many will lose money on these projects. What a great effect that stimulus has had! Today the Deputy Prime Minister stood in this place and spoke about BER and supporting jobs. Making companies lose money is not supporting jobs. It will help companies go to the wall. When the question got a bit tough, it was back to the blame game, with the Deputy Prime Minister blaming the states for the problems. This government is just unbelievable. It does all the things it blamed the coalition for doing.

Costs are being siphoned off. The Australian has even reported that up to one-third of the money that primary schools are receiving for new libraries and school halls is being swallowed up by contractors in upfront costs before the contracts begin. The upfront costs can be up to $100,000 and the compliance costs must be met by the company, which inevitably means the taxpayer, just to satisfy the government. They must then be reported on before the company qualifies to do the work. One of the areas they have to report on is employment. They have to report Indigenous employment and apprenticeship employment. I am sure the government will find some way to use these figures as propaganda—as new job employment figures due to their stimulus package and BER.

Maybe the government could advise how many companies have been paid through the BMW. Members may wonder why I ask this question. A building contractor in Perth submitted some progress plans last week for payment and was advised by the architect that he could not be paid. Why? It was because the payment system has not been established so that people can actually get paid for the work they have done, and the architect could not advise when the company would actually be paid for their claims. What a fantastic system! This is typical of Labor. It is all about spin but there is no attention to detail or process. An editorial in the Australian on 27 July summed it up the best, describing:

… Adelaide students being left to bake in 40C summers without any airconditioning as a new gym is built; duplication of adequate multi-purpose halls and libraries; $15,000 allocated in New South Wales for a 10,000-litre water tank when a 12,000-litre tank was available for less than a third of the price, $4348.

What about the waste of the $3 million being spent on plaques to commemorate the Building the Education Revolution? In my electorate, whilst the promised Belmont Medicare office remains unopened, whilst the promised Great Eastern Highway remains uncompleted, whilst funding is cut to volunteer groups in the Canning wetlands and whilst Swan River infrastructure projects are passed over, the Labor Party sees fit to spend $3 million on commemorative plaques. (Time expired)

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