Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly welcome a discussion on the Building the Education Revolution program and the Rudd government’s commitment to an education revolution. That is what I wish to speak about tonight. This government, when coming into office, made a commitment to invest in education in this country, at a level that this country has never seen. We are investing in the Digital Education Revolution, the Trade Training Centres Program, the Building the Education Revolution, the Smarter Schools National Partnerships, the national curriculum, more transparency through the My School website and the Local Schools Working Together Program. These are all fantastic initiatives that schools in my electorate are embracing.

I do not intend to go through all of those in detail this evening. I wish to take the House specifically to one of those elements, and that is the computers in schools program. This is a program that has been embraced fully by the secondary schools across my electorate. I was disappointed to read today an article by the LNP candidate in Petrie, Dean Teasdale, who said that the schools in Petrie have been failed. He said that a new computer had been promised for every student from years 9 to 12 but that ‘new figures released today’—not saying where those figures came from—’show that in the federal seat of Petrie, Kevin Rudd has broken his promise, with only 1,407 of the computers actually installed in schools, out of 5,586 student entitled to receive one’.

I am amused by this article because the candidate says that we have failed to deliver but he then goes on in the next paragraph to say, ‘This program has one year to go.’ He acknowledged that the program was still ongoing, so how can he claim that the program has failed to deliver when the time frames are still in place and there is progress in this area? What I can say is that in relation to the schools in Petrie we have delivered computers to secondary schools in rounds 1 and 2. In fact, the schools in Petrie have already reached a two to one ratio of students to computers. This means that the government has already provided funding for 2,136 computers in Petrie schools, and the next round of funding will take this ratio to one to one.

I would like the LNP candidate for Petrie to come out and say to Grace Lutheran College, Mueller College, Australian Trade College North Brisbane, St John Fisher College, Southern Cross Catholic College, Clontarf Beach State High School, Redcliffe State High School, Aspley State High School, Redcliffe Special School, Aspley Special School, Woody Point Special School, Bracken Ridge State High School, Deception Bay Flexible Learning Centre, Deception Bay State High School, North Lakes State College and the Lakes College at North Lakes that under an Abbott government those computers will not be delivered. In fact, the whole system is going to be scrapped.

Not only will computers in schools be scrapped but also trade training centres will be scrapped. A whole range of education programs will be scrapped, including the Smarter Schools teacher quality program and the Productivity Places Program. A whole range of programs will be scratched under an Abbott government, because they seem incapable of running programs and bringing a budget back to surplus. They are saying it is too hard and they cannot do it. They can work on a surplus but they cannot work on delivering programs and a surplus.

But this government can deliver the programs that it has committed to. It will deliver the computers to these schools in my electorate. I say to the LNP candidate for Petrie, Dean Teasdale, who is out there on his website proudly saying he went to Grace Lutheran College: go talk to Grace Lutheran College. They were the first school that wrote to me saying how fantastic this program is in delivering these computers to schools and what a successful program it has been. They said that they are extremely pleased with the overall outcome of the rollout. They are very excited and proud of the work done by the team at Grace and of the difference it has made to their students’ learning. Can I suggest that the LNP candidate stop writing articles and get out and talk to the schools in Petrie and he will find out that the parents and the schools are very pleased with this program and do not want it scrapped.