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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Of course, the reason I was going to the question of education authorities is that—although the shadow minister for education may not fully appreciate this—the Commonwealth government does not own or operate schools. What the Commonwealth government does—a fact that has clearly escaped his attention in the time that he has been shadow education minister—is to deal with education authorities. We deal with the Catholic education authority for the Catholic sector, we deal with independent education authorities for independent schools and we deal with state and territory government education authorities for state schools. Of course, the Evesham State School is operated by the Queensland Department of Education and Training on behalf of the Queensland government. Consequently, all discussions about amalgamations of this school—or indeed any other school, whether it is in the state system, the Catholic system or the independent system—would be conducted by those relevant education authorities.

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