Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I will, Madam Deputy Speaker. This money could have been spent on so many other, better priorities. There are at least 140 science and language laboratories throughout Australia which have missed out on funding as money has been ripped away from secondary schools—in country electorates particularly. The member for Kalgoorlie has examples in his own electorate of language laboratories which have had money ripped away from them. Even Nambour State School, in the Prime Minister’s own electorate, had promises made before the last election that science and language laboratories would be built there, only to see them disappear because the government and the minister would rather spend money on self-promotion. That is self-promotion that the Australian Electoral Commission has identified as electoral advertisements and for which it has required an authorisation because it is so blatantly, transparently and cynically designed to help this government win the next federal election. Everything this government does is for a political strategy, not for an economic strategy.

We have uncovered mismanagement where schools that are closing have been given money under the National School Pride program, like Smithfield primary school; where one-child schools have been given $250,000 for new libraries, as at the Evesham State School in Queensland; and where projects that are not wanted are being foisted on schools. Unless those schools courageously stand up to the government, they are insisting that schools accept four new classrooms to replace four existing classrooms, rather than using the wit and imagination that should come with being in government to provide the kinds of projects that schools want—like withdrawing asbestos from school ovals, building covered outdoor learning areas that schools actually need or refurbishing schools that already have existing classrooms but need air conditioning, for example. But the government do not do any of those things; they simply insist that it is their way or the highway.

We have seen examples like the one today in Strathalbyn, where local builders were not even given the opportunity—they were denied the opportunity—to tender for work locally, in their own communities, because instead of supporting local contractors, subcontractors or builders the government would rather support major multinational construction giants, whether it is Baulderstone, Abigroup or Hansen Yuncken. Maybe it is because they can unionise their workforces or insist on that as part of their contracts, whereas they cannot keep the control over the small businessman, the local builder, that they can keep over the big players in the construction industry.

We have seen differing treatment for public and private schools, where private schools are given the opportunity to make the decisions locally about what they need and therefore spend taxpayers’ money wisely, whereas public schools are forced to take it or leave it by the department of education and training. In fact, Ian McCluggage, the principal of Berridale Public School, has written:

Our colleagues in the private education sector are able to utilise every cent of their BER allocation, while we are being given more and more spurious reasons why the funding available for our projects is being siphoned off. “Descoping” was the term I was given last week.

The growing list of concerns is echoed by a growing list of people who want someone to take control of the education portfolio and run with it full time. They want someone to take control of this hopeless situation, to accept responsibility and to stop playing the blame game. These are people like the Auditor-General, who is inquiring into this program; the South Australian Primary Principals Association; the Australian Education Union; the Australian secondary and primary principals associations; the Australian Council of State School Organisations; the Victorian Principals Association; the New South Wales Teachers Federation; the Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations of New South Wales; and the New South Wales secondary and primary principals councils. These are not organisations, groups or associations that have always typically been associated with the coalition side of politics, yet the government refuses to listen to even the Australian Education Union, who did so much to help this government get elected in 2007.

In question time today, and all week, the minister has demonstrated that she is simply not across the detail. The minister did not even realise today that it was the changes to Building the Education Revolution that required local councils and state governments to suspend their development rules to allow the buildings to go on in schools as quickly as possible. She tried to pretend that that was a decision that state governments had made or that local councils had made—that it had nothing to do with her. In fact, state governments and local councils would not have made that decision unless the guidelines for Building the Education Revolution required it. The ACT held out against it, only to find that the federal government insisted that if they were to get one dollar they were required to suspend their rules for development in order to allow these buildings to go up as quickly as they could. The minister is simply not across the detail. She insists that these problems are all somebody else’s problems, playing the blame game, seeking to push the blame to others—to other ministers, to state ministers. But, unfortunately, when you are spending $16.2 billion of taxpayers’ money, the taxpayers expect the minister who is responsible, the federal Minister for Education, to actually take responsibility and to be accountable. This is apparently the biggest spending program in Building the Education Revolution, in the stimulus package, yet the minister says: ‘It’s not my problem; it’s all somebody else’s problem. I’ll push it off to the states. I’ll play the blame game.’

This is a minister who, rather than answering questions and rather than seriously dealing with the issues, denigrates her opposition, attacks her critics, accuses them of all sorts of gross calumnies and stands at the dispatch box and says, ‘Provide me with the detail and I am more than happy to talk to you.’ She has been told the principal’s name, the name of the school and the amount of money, yet she asks for more detail. She said that she was happy to visit schools. She has made those hollow promises before. We know they are not real. It is all about spin. It is all about a political strategy to win the next federal election rather than an economic strategy. Today, she was given the opportunity to answer questions about giving parents and citizens councils what they want, keeping track of the money like at Evesham, the cost blow-outs like at Berridale, the development rules being suspended like at Walford School, after school hours care centres being closed like at Alveston, commitments to fix problems not been followed up like at Langwarrin, retendering for cost blow-outs like at Newmerella school and display signs being a higher priority than value for money; yet this minister simply avoided answering any of these questions.

It would be bad if this was the only problem in the minister’s portfolio. But, unfortunately, this minister cannot get anything right in education. She is a sloppy minister who keeps spilling the drinks. There is the $1.7 billion blow-out in the primary schools stimulus debacle, the $1.2 billion blow-out in the Computers in Schools program, parents now being charged for laptops in the Computers in Schools program and the youth allowance debacle of the last few months which has led to a minor backflip of a couple of weeks ago. There are a lot more backflips to happen before the opposition will be satisfied that this government is even close to looking after the needs of rural and regional students.

One trade training centre was promised for every secondary school. They are now being found in one in every 10 secondary schools. There was the international students debacle where she failed to act early enough in spite of knowing about the danger signs and where, rather than resettling international students in new tertiary education, she is simply paying them out and sending them back home and, as a consequence, blowing out the insurance scheme that was put in place by the previous government. There are the Building the Education Revolution roadside signs where 10 days ago she said, ‘I am confident there is no breach of the Electoral Act,’ dismissing yet again any criticism or opposition, only to find that the Australian Electoral Commission humiliatingly required the government to put an authorisation on the sign and to ensure they were not within six metres of a polling booth because they were electoral advertisements.

The Building the Education Revolution itself is under investigation by the Auditor-General. It is under investigation by the Auditor-General for good reason. It is because it has been botched by this minister. It is time for the Prime Minister to put education at the centrepiece of his government, as he promised before the election. It used to be the No. 1 priority on the Prime Minister’s website. It has now slipped off the website altogether. Education was supposed to be the hallmark of this government. The minister is trying to handle workplace relations—not well. We understand that. Employment—not well. We understand that, as we do social inclusion. But the most important portfolio she has, from my point of view as the shadow minister for education, is education and she needs to start getting it right. There have been too many serial offences, failures by her and pushing of problems off to other people. The Prime Minister has to step in and, at the next reshuffle, appoint a full-time education minister who does not spill the drinks.

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