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

If she just tried to stay up with the information cycle, it would be of help to all of us. Obviously Building the Education Revolution is a huge program: 9,500 schools and around 24,000 projects. There have been audit arrangements built in through the program. Obviously there are checks that we run. There is the value for money in the guidelines. Then, of course, there are checks taken by block grant authorities. The question of having an audit squad and having these audits was announced by the New South Wales government in—wait for it—September last year. Following the announcement in September last year, do you know what happens when you announce an audit squad? Well, go figure: they go and they conduct audits. That is what they have been doing: auditing 102 schools. They had identified the Hastings Public School for an audit. That audit is taking place now, well before any of these matters were in the media, and it is a fabulous example of the system working exactly as it was designed to do.

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