Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion. Will the minister please update the House on the latest developments with ABC Learning centres and in so doing advise the House on the policy failures and other actions that lead to the current situation with ABC Learning Centres?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Page for her question. I know she is very concerned about the future of child care in this country and the future of ABC Learning. Yesterday I informed the House that the receiver of ABC Learning is undertaking a review of the operational data of ABC Learning Centres. I also informed the House that my department’s task force has engaged the insolvency firm PPB to work with the receiver on this matter. I would like to give some further details to the House about the role of PPB in this situation.

PPB is one of Australia’s foremost insolvency firms. Mr Steve Parbury, a partner of the firm, is working closely with the department’s task force. He, of course, has performed work for previous governments on complex insolvency issues. For example, he was engaged by the former government in relation to the Ansett matter. Steve Parbury represented FAI as a special-purpose liquidator when HIH collapsed, so Mr Parbury is no stranger to complex situations. Mr Parbury has previously played a prominent role in the Insolvency Practitioners Association and he is able to provide objective and highly informed advice on how the government can most constructively play a role in dealing with the situation with ABC Learning.

The receivers have advised the task force in my department that the quality of ABC Learning data and their information management systems are poor. Therefore, PBB and the receivers, McGrath Nichol, have had in effect to start from scratch and work out what to do with the centres, particularly those that are currently understood to be unprofitable. Obviously, you do not need to be an insolvency practitioner to intuitively work out that this is a difficult, time-consuming and complex task. They have developed a work plan to compile, assess and analyse data and information on ABC Learning Centres that have been identified as unprofitable under the current business model.

Firstly, a template will be designed for assessing and compiling key financial and other data from ABC Learning’s systems on a centre-by-centre basis. The templates will include costs, revenues, occupancy and trends for each of the centres, and that work has started. The team will need to then take data and financial details and verify those against the records and documents of individual centres. This will be done by tracking back to the original source documents. For example, this could include lease documents, invoices for food, toy delivery invoices and/or, depending on the circumstances, staff pay records. This is clearly a time-consuming task but the work is proceeding and people are working hard on it.

Of course, there is a question of: how did we end up here? We ended up here because of the neglect of the former government over more than 10 long years when they let the market rip. It is not often that one would come into this parliament and refer to the Nationals leader in the Senate, Senator Barnaby Joyce, as a man of great and quiet reflection, but today I will refer to him because he is clearly thinking about the circumstances of ABC Learning. He said publicly today:

The reason we have got such a fiasco with ABC—

and then he diverted a little by saying that he agrees with the Greens—

… is because one organisation dominated too much of the market. That is what you get when you get market centralisation.

Senator Barnaby Joyce is thinking about these issues, thinking about the policy and thinking about the consequences of letting the market rip. Over there we have the Liberal Party, which has not reflected at all on its policy failures. The Liberal Party was not just neglectful when it came to ABC Learning; it was complicit and connected with the circumstances of ABC Learning.

Let us take one example of that connection—the member for Dickson. He and his family own a building leased to ABC Learning for $100,000 per annum. We know that in the recent election campaign the member for Higgins, the then Treasurer, toured an ABC Learning Centre with the member for Dickson for the publicity that it would generate. And the member for Dickson has referred to Eddy Groves as a friend and supporter. This shows the connection—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The minister is reflecting on members on this side of the House, which is not permitted under the standing orders in this form of proceedings of the House, and I ask for her to desist and indeed withdraw the insulting comments.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will listen very carefully to the Deputy Prime Minister’s response. I remind her of her obligation not to stray into territory that would require a substantive motion.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. If the member wants to learn about the connection between the Liberal Party and ABC Learning, I will refer her to the pages of the newspapers where these things are spelt out day after day. These connections are well known. While the Liberal Party refuses to address the consequences of its more than a decade of neglect in this area, its failure to act and its degree of connection, the Rudd Labor government will get on with the job of ensuring that families that rely on ABC Learning Centres have the stability and security they need in this difficult situation.