Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The effluxion of time has not washed away the failure of the government with respect to the Building the Education Revolution and, while time might heal all, tragically for mums and dads, principals, teachers and school communities who have been bitterly disappointed by the outcome of the school hall debacle, the passage of time has not changed their disappointment or washed away their feeling of being ripped off as taxpayers by this government’s inept handling of the school hall stimulus program.

This Commission of Inquiry into the Building the Education Revolution Program Bill 2010 that I introduced last week and is being debated tonight would return some semblance of respectability to government handling of important government programs by giving a judicial officer heading a judicial inquiry the powers needed to summons witnesses, to subpoena documents and to hold inquiries both private and public in order to get to the bottom of who is responsible for the massive failure of the school hall program and, more importantly, to determine whether taxpayers have received value for money for the $16.2 billion that has been spent on the Building the Education Revolution.

Last week in estimates startling revelations only made the need for an inquiry of this kind even more current and even more important. Some of the revelations included that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission confirmed that they are interviewing BER contractors and examining contracts between builders and the government to determine whether there is evidence of collusion. I think most people in Australia would recognise that common sense suggests that there has been some kind of funny business, collusion—whatever you wish to call it—between business, between government and within businesses to ensure that taxpayers have been fleeced to the tune of billions of dollars that have lined the pockets of state governments and building contractors.

The estimates revealed that only a third of BER projects have been completed and 40 per cent of BER funds are yet to be spent in the program. So it is not too late for a judicial inquiry to improve the rollout of the school hall stimulus program. The minister—Simon Crean before and now Chris Evans—says that all these projects have begun and cannot be unravelled. Mums and dads and principals and teachers across Australia know that putting a bit of orange plastic fencing around existing playgrounds or tennis courts is not the beginning of a BER program. It is not too late for the government to admit its mistakes, to learn the lessons of the past and to ensure that taxpayers’ money is delivered effectively and that they receive value for money. It is a particularly arrogant government that continues to speak no evil, to see no evil and to hear no evil about the school hall stimulus program when they know that they could now fix the problems that the opposition has been raising since April 2009.

Another matter that came out through estimates is that despite Julia Gillard’s promise during the election campaign —yet another broken promise—that the costings for each project would be publicly revealed, none of the costings for the projects that have been overseen by this government are yet to be revealed in full in public. So what happened to their promises of transparency and accountability or the embarrassing comments by the Prime Minister that she would be opening the curtains and letting the disinfectant of sun shine in to ensure that every crack of government was exposed publicly through transparency and accountability? They were simply false promises designed to win over the support of the independents.

I call on the independents—those sitting on the crossbenches who I hope are listening to this debate—to recognise that this judicial inquiry into the Building the Education Revolution is an important opportunity for transparency and accountability to be more than just talked about but to be acted upon. This is an opportunity for the parliament to insist that transparency and accountability be brought to an area where there has been clear government failure, where there has been clear government waste, where state governments, building contractors and others have fleeced the Australian taxpayer. The Australian taxpayer is crying out for the parliament to bring the rigour of a judicial inquiry to bear on the Building the Education Revolution.

I hate to think what the parents, friends, principals, teachers and others at schools like the Hastings Public School, Tottenham Public School in New South Wales, Berwick Lodge in Victoria, Holland Park in Queensland and Stirling East in South Australia—just to name five schools out of the hundreds that have raised concerns and complaints about their programs—are thinking about a parliament that does not pass a judicial inquiry bill which would give them at least the opportunity to be heard and to know that the inquiry had the power to make independent recommendations, could act independently of government, could subpoena documents and summons witnesses and actually get to the bottom of what has been probably the greatest waste of taxpayers’ funds since Federation. It would probably only be surpassed by the waste of taxpayers’ funds as part of the National Broadband Network.

The opposition has been raising these concerns since April 2009. The government announced its program in February 2009. In June 2009 I wrote to the Auditor-General asking for an Auditor-General’s inquiry. On 25 June the Senate followed up and supported that inquiry. In late August 2009 DEEWR was already revising the guidelines and for the first time—in a $16 billion program—introduced the notion that value for money should be achieved. It announced at the same time a $1.7 billion blow-out of taxpayers funds’ on Primary Schools for the 21st Century. It took until April 2010 for the Minister for Education at the time, now the Prime Minister, to establish the Orgill task force, but without the powers to independently call witnesses and documents, to make independent valuations and to hold private and public hearings—without the powers that a royal commission would have if it were a judicial inquiry.

The ANAO handed down its report on 15 May 2010. It was a damning report. The report showed that the guidelines on the rollout of the program made it possible for rorting, price gouging, waste and mismanagement to exist and indeed flourish. It found that the program design means that schools are not getting the projects that they actually want or need. It found that it is virtually impossible to assess the success of the program against the benchmarks that the government itself has set, such as job creation. It found that the Minister for Education, the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance and Deregulation all knew that the initial funding was insufficient to cover the costs of the program, resulting in a $1.7 billion blow-out. It found that the projects are massively behind schedule—and they continue to be massively behind schedule—and in fact will stimulate the economy into 2011 and probably 2012, years after the global financial crisis which the government uses as its fig leaf to pretend that the school hall program has been a success, by saying it was designed to stimulate the economy and that the government did not care that it was wasting taxpayers’ money.

The ANAO found that there was a large degree of disquiet amongst school communities about the levels of consultation as well as about value for money achieved. Most damningly, it found that non-government schools had a high level of satisfaction but government schools a very low level of satisfaction, at 40 per cent. Why would that be the case? Because government schools did not get to manage their own projects and non-government schools did get to manage their own projects—exactly the coalition’s policy at the last election and before. Government bureaucracies did over the government sector, while non-government schools got the projects they wanted, got value for money and were able to have money left over from the taxpayer.

I am aware that I was supposed to have 10 minutes on the clock, even though I have 30. My understanding is that this is a 60-minute debate and there are six speakers speaking for 10 minutes each. So, in spite of the fact that it appears I am still within time, my understanding of the process is that I am now over time, so I commend this private member’s bill to the crossbench—

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