Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

If you had put tradesmen on, you would have had tradesmen to do it. You know that is a fact, too. You could listen to that rhetoric, listen to the negativity and listen to the wrecking attitude or you could go to schools and listen to what the parents and staff are saying. For all those students like Riley, Milly and Eliza, I am very pleased that we have a Gillard government that invests in education. With this government’s support, it is kids like these that will learn, grow and gain from these new learning centres. I invite members of the opposition to go into schools and talk to the students and listen to the teachers and parents who are overwhelmed by the new buildings, pleased that they have a government that takes education seriously.

This government supports and will continue to support our schools, whether they be independent, catholic or public—as we always have. All catholic and independent schools in the electorate of McEwen have received funding through the BER. There are 26 non-government schools in McEwen—14 catholic and 12 independent schools. There are 50 projects: 26 National School Pride projects, three science and language centre projects and 21 Primary Schools for the 21st Century buildings in McEwen. They either have been completed or are currently underway.

Besides this, there has been a great deal of cooperation between government and non-government schools in McEwen, which has been fostered and demonstrated through the Gillard government’s trade training centre initiative—another program that would have been scrapped and left us with more skills shortages had the opposition fallen into government.

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