Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do, grievously so.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please proceed.

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Thursday during question time, the Minister for Education, Science and Training claimed that I had complained about a lack of air conditioning in a school in my electorate and claimed that this was having an adverse effect on students’ health and their ability to concentrate. It is true that I wrote to the Prime Minister on 17 November 2004 to make representations on behalf of a group of students who had written to me from grades 5 and 6 in class S3M from Noumea Primary School. I did complain that, although there were details of how schools could apply for funding, this had not been released and an allocation had already been made for a school in the electorate of Greenway. My complaint was indirectly about pork-barrelling.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member will come to where he has been misrepresented.

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is another misrepresentation, Mr Speaker. The Minister for Education, Science and Training also accused me of failing to write to the state government. This is a gross canard. I wrote to the state member for Mount Druitt on 4 November 2004 about the same matter, and I received a response from the then Deputy Premier on 22 December 2004. I seek leave to table the letter from the students of S3M and their signatures, a copy of my letter to the Prime Minister and a copy of my letter to the Hon. Richard Amery, state member for Mount Druitt.

Leave granted.