Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. What reasons did the Department of Finance and Deregulation give you for the massive $1.7 billion blow-out in the schools program?

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for North Sydney for his question. As the Deputy Prime Minister has explained, there are a number of factors involved in this situation, the first of which—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What did your department say?

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps you will allow me to conclude the answer. The answer is that, firstly, the enrolment data that was available at the time the costing occurred was superseded by subsequent enrolment data which, of course, was not available at the time. The school census data for the current year was not available at the time, and that meant that there were significant changes in the overall profile for funding. Secondly, the assumption behind the take-up rate, the utilisation of maximum funding rate of 90 per cent, proved to be insufficient. The amount that had been taken up was significantly higher than the amount on which that was based. The advice from my department is directly in accord with what you just heard from the Deputy Prime Minister that the take-up rate was in fact higher than was initially anticipated and that there was a particular element with respect to the costing, namely, that the school census data on which the costing was based was subsequently superseded by more updated school census data, which meant that there were more students and higher numbers of students in different categories.