Alex Somlyay (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the thousands of chaplains who will start their final month of employment next week, following the government’s decision to cut the successful National School Chaplaincy Program, supported by over 95 per cent of the participating principals in Australia. Will the Prime Minister step in, reverse this decision and ensure that the School Chaplaincy Program continues?

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

I thank the member for Fairfax for his question. Let me make a first point about chaplaincies in general, including those which are funded under this program. As you know, many have existed prior to this program coming into operation and, in fact, in the state of Queensland go back to a time when I used to work in the Queensland government, back in the early nineties. They actually do a fantastic job—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Let me come to the question about the future of this program. They do a fantastic job and, in many school communities where there is the unavailability of social workers or other forms of social support mechanisms, they actually are providing the glue which keeps school communities rolling. That is my experience of them.

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Then don’t abolish it.

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

Order!

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

I say to those opposite, before they interject in too partisan a fashion: chaplains existed in schools prior to them introducing this program. It might be a historically difficult fact for those opposite to grasp, but it is not exclusively an innovation of the previous government—far from it.

Second, as far as the existing program is concerned, I am advised by the education minister that it runs also into next year. We are currently in the process of reviewing the program. I believe they are doing a fantastic job, and we will wait till we conclude the proper review processes concerning the future.