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

What are the names of the schools who would have missed out under the program that would have been run by this opposition if they had been in government? They are saying now they would have run a smaller program. They are bandying figures around now like $3 billion. If it would have been a $3 billion program, they should produce the names of the thousands of schools that would have missed out if they had been the government. No-one will take them seriously on this point until they do.

The shadow Treasurer is wont to wander around the media and compare this campaign to the campaign about Australian workplace agreements and the raising of individual examples in this parliament. I say to the shadow Treasurer: the problem with that perspective is that, when we were campaigning against AWAs, we knew where we stood on them. We knew what we would have done if we had been the government, and we had a fair work policy. The one thing the opposition does not know on Building the Education Revolution is where it stands on it because it does not want to tell the truth about which schools would have missed out.

I conclude by saying that people around the country who support education support this program. If you ask Therese Temby, the Chair of the National Catholic Education Commission, she will say she supports it and that it is being delivered well. If you ask Bill Daniels, the Executive Director of the Independent Schools Council, he will say he supports it and that it is being delivered well. If you ask school communities around Australia, they will say they are delighted by it. Yes, in a program of this size and scale there are going to be the occasional problems. But the shadow minister, when put to the test, is in the media today saying he has 60 complaints. That is a complaint rate of 0.25 per cent in the biggest school modernisation program in the nation’s history, which is being delivered urgently in order to support jobs. I know the Leader of the Opposition has a difficult life and I know the opposition is fundamentally divided on this, but this has really been pathetic by the opposition. (Time expired)

Question put:

That the motion (Mr Turnbull’s) be agreed to.

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