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

I thank the member for his question because it enables me to explain some facts—things that the Liberal Party does not like when it comes to education. The facts stand about their track record in government where they discriminated against country kids; where this nation came back of the OECD class for investment in early childhood; where the standards of schools in this country against the standards of the world went down; and where the man who sits next to the member who asked the question sat there saying, ‘We knew a skills shortage was coming; we just did not bother doing anything about it.’ Their track record in government is one that bears repeating when it comes to the facts. On these schools that he has asked me about let me explain the situation to him very clearly. There are water pipes under an area of the Berwick Lodge school that was first identified for construction. The local water authority has ruled out constructing on that spot because of the nature of the pipes and other work that runs under it and consequently an alternative position for the construction will be identified. This is the kind of problem that anybody with a modicum of common sense knows happens when you are dealing with construction. On the question of lack of common sense, here it comes—

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