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

I thank the member for his question. As the member is probably aware, when the government announced the $42 billion nation-building package—the economic stimulus that we need to support Australian jobs with Building the Education Revolution as its centrepiece—one of the components of the Building the Education Revolution program was our pledge to construct 500 science and language centres around the country. This was the only part of the program that was done by way of competitive bid. The National School Pride Program was an entitlement for all schools calibrated to school size. The Primary Schools for the 21st Century program was a program for all primary schools calibrated to school size. The Science and Language Centres program was one where applications were made and assessed. There were various criteria, including need. The applications were not assessed by me. They were assessed by an independent panel and the independent panel made recommendations to government. Government has funded 537 of those applications as recommended by the independent panel. So we have more than delivered on that promise. The overdelivery on that promise was able to be done at a lesser cost than the $1 billion originally budgeted for. So, when it came to making adjustments within the $42 billion Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan, the residual money of that billion dollars was reallocated to help support expenditure under Primary Schools for the 21st Century. Obviously, in earlier questions in question time today I have explained how that costing was done and what was changed about that costing.

I say to the member for New England that I understand that any school that missed out on a competitive funding round would be disappointed. But we have pledged to fund 500 science and language centres and we are actually constructing more.

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