Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak this afternoon on adjournment in relation to a very important issue in my electorate: the waste and mismanagement of the Building the Education Revolution building program which we are seeing in my electorate—massive waste, massive mismanagement and examples of cost shifting by the incompetent Rann state Labor government. It relates to possibly the worst scheme ever implemented in the Australian parliament’s history. Estimates of up to $5 billion of waste have been suggested in recent days in this program alone.

In particular, in my electorate we have now seen several examples of different types of waste and mismanagement and the failure of this Deputy Prime Minister to implement a program properly and coherently in Kangaroo Island and eastern Fleurieu schools last year: three schools on Kangaroo Island that have had $100,000 in architectural fees for drawings they already had; Eastern Fleurieu School, which was mistreated by the state government’s decisions; and Meadows Primary School, which could not build what it wanted to build on the site because of the mismanagement of this program.

More recently and more worryingly, we have seen the example of five Adelaide Hills schools: Yankalilla, Basket Range, Macclesfield, Stirling East, and Eden Hills—which is in the member for Boothby’s seat. The issue is fire water tanks and cost shifting by the incompetent Rann state Labor government, who have used the opportunity of the bucket of money provided by the BER because they have run out of their money to implement a state program, something that the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister made very clear would not be allowed to happen. In fact, on 3 February 2009 the Prime Minister of our country said:

This Government will adopt a zero tolerance approach to any state government, whatever its political complexion to any substitution of effort.

The Deputy Prime Minister, on 16 June 2009, said:

We have been very clear, with very tough penalties for states that do not maintain effort in their forward estimates in school capital. We are very clear about that and we will be very vigorous with any state that does not acquit its obligations under the Building the Education Revolution guidelines.

So there were very clear and very stark statements by the two most senior members of this government. However, when it comes to the rubber hitting the road, they have taken no action at all. These schools are therefore missing out on significant sums. In a Stateline story last Friday night, the sums being taken out of their entitlements were stated. At Basket Range Primary School, Felicity Playford stated that the sum was $104,000; Anna Richards from Yankalilla Area School stated that it was $103,000; Carmel McNamara from Stirling East Primary School stated that it was $88,000; and Tom Shepperd from Eden Hills Primary School stated that it was $116,000. There was a similar amount from Macclesfield Primary School.

This is purely a state government responsibility; let us not misunderstand. This is a decision made by the state government to apply a bushfire rating to schools which are in dangerous bushfire zones. Of course, protecting schools from bushfires is something we support. However, these are community water tanks. They are not just for the schools’ use but for community use. This is a state government issue, a state government responsibility and something that they should be looking after. However, because the incompetent Rann state Labor government have run out of money, they have found a bucket of money that they can use to implement this program. So stark is this that, after the initial quotes were given for the buildings in these schools, they were changed after the event to include the additional money for the firefighting tanks. Clearly, what that says is that this incompetent Rann state Labor government saw the opportunity to pass this type of expenditure on to this program. As usual with the Labor Party, who do not have the courage to front up when things are difficult—like the Prime Minister last night—they sent out the chief executive officer of the Department of Education and Children’s Services, who made the situation even clearer last Friday night in a Stateline interview. This is mismanagement. This program is completely mismanaged and it is costing these schools. The Deputy Prime Minister should take some action and fix it before it is too late.

See this speech in context