Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his recent apparent interest in infrastructure in Sydney eastern suburbs schools. I also refer him to the Randwick primary school, which has had imposed on it a school hall built to the Rudd-Gillard template which is not suitable for the school’s requirements. I further refer the Prime Minister to the motion passed by the P&C at Randwick primary school on 15 June expressing its concern that the government is:

… proceeding with the planning and construction of a building at the school without adequate consultation with the school community on the purpose, design and location of the building.

Why won’t the Prime Minister refer this bungled school stimulus debacle to the Auditor-General for an independent review?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What stuns me about this entire line of argument from the opposition is where they stood on education performance in their 12 years in office, when one piece of data after the other demonstrated us falling down the OECD table of education performance. Early childhood education, for example, had the lowest—the wooden spoon—performance across the OECD. Then there was the investment in government schools by those opposite: they had an appalling record over the 12 years in which they were in office. Then there was the stripping out of funds from our universities.

What we have done in the period that we have been in office, led by the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Education, is give effect to an education revolution by an investment in the quality of our schools and in the infrastructure that is available to them. I say to the honourable member as he cries crocodile tears about the investment of funds into schools in Sydney and elsewhere that he should refer to the guidelines and the provisions for handling things like this.