Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Hansard source

I will very happily do that. Why is it that under the school halls stimulus program that is to cost $16.7 billion—some of these numbers should be fairly fixed in your mind, I would have thought—independent assessment has found in at least two or three instances that these school halls cost four times the amount of similar commercial buildings? Why are we seeing billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money potentially wasted? If that were repeated throughout the building phase you would probably be talking about somewhere between $5 billion and $6 billion of the $16.7 billion literally wasted when it could have been done for much less.

Also, Minister, why is it that border protection, having seen at least a $1 billion blow-out this year, has an estimate for next year based on an assumption that only 2,000 asylum seekers will arrive over the next 12 months of 2010-11 when 5,500 have arrived to date in this financial year? It is a billion-dollar blow-out in this financial year with 5,500 arrivals, so you can understand the blow-out, but why is it that an assumption of 2,000 arriving next year is then made? (Time expired)

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