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

I thank the member for Sturt for his question. Earlier this week the member for Sturt and I spoke on the phone and he asked me in somewhat excited tones whether I had listened to him on Fran Kelly on Radio National that morning. I did have to inform him that I had not had the opportunity to listen to him and I was very sorry for that. It appears today that he has returned the compliment because if he had bothered to listen to Fran Kelly on Radio National this morning or at any point in the course of the morning read my transcript, he would have been aware of the circumstance of Hastings Public School. I will now just catch him up with the news cycle.

What is happening at Hastings Public School is that an audit is already in progress. The audit had commenced well before the question involving Hastings Public School was in the media at all. It was not associated with the opposition, the New South Wales Teachers Federation or any of the joint claims that they are raising in the public debate at the moment.

Well before this was in the media, the audit processes in New South Wales had identified Hastings Public School for an audit. Indeed, the audit processes in New South Wales have audited 102 schools, and they will continue to audit as necessary. This is obviously all big news to those opposite, but they really do need to catch up, because this was announced. The fact that there would be these audits to ensure robustness in the program was announced by the New South Wales government.

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