Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You are right, member for Sturt. They certainly know how to run a program very well, for themselves. But, unfortunately, that is not how you run government and, unfortunately, it is not how you invest in schools and in kids’ futures. Government should turn a blind eye to which schools get investment because it should go to every single school regardless of the region, where they are from or whom they represent. And that is exactly what we did. We invested in over 24,000 projects—9½ thousand schools, supporting students and local communities and regions. In a lot of depressed regions during the GFC when jobs were scarce this meant survival for a small country town, a rural community, a remote location or a school that had been suffering for at least 30 years—for some schools, maybe 50 years.

I have some fantastic schools in my area. The most recent one I visited was Redbank State School. Redbank school is celebrating 145 years—a great celebration, a great birthday. It is a little school. It started with just one teacher, who also happened to be the local pastor at what was a very tiny chapel. That was the school. Over those 145 years, it received sprinklings of investment. The biggest single investment that school has ever realised has been under the BER. The difference it has made to that school actually shocked me. I was surprised to see how much the kids have tuned into the value in their school and the difference it has made to the teachers and the principal. This is something they never could have dreamed of. They never dreamed of receiving an investment in their school of over $1 million. It was outside the realms of what they believed they could ever achieve. I am really proud, as I know many, many teachers, students and principals are proud, of what the Building the Education Revolution program has meant for them and what it has delivered.

I do not object so much to the member for Sturt putting this on the Notice Paper and wanting to debate it. It is his prerogative. He has a job to do and I understand that. He is doing his job loyally for his party. But what he is asking has nothing to do with reality. He is not trying to get to the bottom of things in this; he is trying to tear it down, pull it apart. He is trying to stop funding going to schools.

I query the real motivation behind having a royal commission. If the opposition had its way it would stop funding all schools, apart from the flagpoles. While I support it fully, as I am a patriot just like the rest of you, it did not do too much for uplifting the kids’ education. So there is a lot more that we could do. There is a lot of things that we could do with some serious money in terms of making that investment. I do not support the motion that has been put on the table because it is just a stunt. It would be better if the opposition were to have a good look at the inquiry of the independent task force that is currently going on and have a look at the improvements that we are trying to make and actually support us on those, so supporting the schools, supporting the funding and making improvements. Let us get a better program out of this. Let us do the right thing by the kids, by jobs and by local communities, rather than trying to tear down a really great program.

See this speech in context