Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak about Building the Education Revolution and the unfortunate results of that program in my electorate of Farrer. As was raised again during Senate estimates last week, the Building the Education Revolution program is running significantly behind schedule, with almost half of the $16.2 billion of supposed stimulus money still unspent long after the threat of recession has passed. Under the school halls program, so far only 30 per cent of 10,697 projects, or 3,114, under all three rounds has been completed, with only five months to go before the original deadline for completion of all last round projects expires on 31 March 2011. Nationwide, thousands of projects are running behind schedule and are being granted extensions of time by the federal government to maintain the illusion that everything is progressing well.

Apart from the waste, perhaps even more shameful is this government’s efforts to hide the mess. Also revealed last week was the fact that the federal government drafted two different versions of an agreement to implement the BER. One version was signed by state and territory education authorities and another one by the non-government school authorities in each state. This delivered the situation where the non-government school sector is being held to a significantly higher standard and can be punished financially much more severely for breaches of the agreement than can the state governments. Under the deal, the federal government can seek repayment from state schools for some or all of the funding which has not been spent in accordance with the agreement or acquitted to the Commonwealth’s satisfaction. Alternatively, it means that independent and Catholic schools are required to repay all their funding, should the government decide so. The state education authorities can be required to repay only the money that the federal government deems was misspent. Fairness for all under Labor? Not under this revolution.

As the shadow minister for education highlighted in the House last week, hundreds of schools have been forced to accept McSchool hall style demountables, delivered off the back of trucks, irrespective of what local communities wanted. Schools in some jurisdictions that wished to build new classrooms were told they had to have stock standard school halls or libraries, irrespective of whether they already had a school hall or a library. Schools were not allowed to use local builders or contractors and instead were forced to use large-scale contractors from capital cities, which were used to operating on a much bigger scale, to roll out small, local projects, in many cases in tiny country schools hundreds of kilometres away from Sydney, where those contractors were based.

I will take one school in my electorate as an example, Holbrook Public School. We had what sounds like a mightily impressive $2 million project. But what was the school sold? It was a pup. There was no consultation with them at all prior to the project starting. There was no room for variation of the project that they received. While Holbrook’s children and teachers were in desperate need of new kitchen and canteen facilities, what they got was another of Labor’s ubiquitous school halls. Fair enough, the school may have reasoned, but was there enough room to seat all students and teachers, let alone parents, for assemblies and school events? Sorry, not under this revolution. Holbrook proudly fosters the education needs of over 200 students, but the hall offers seating for about a hundred. Even a grade 3 maths student could add up and tell you that it was simply not appropriate to the school’s current or future needs. It never was and is never going to be.

Was air conditioning included so that the hall was notionally comfortable during the days of 30 to 40 degrees Celsius? Sorry, not under this revolution. Under the National School Pride program, also part of the BER, schools wishing to spend their maintenance funds on energy-efficient air conditioning to make buildings usable that were without air conditioning, were refused permission to do so. Instead they have been told to knock the building down and build a new one that does have air conditioning. Even outlets and organisations which support the principle of the BER have said that there is as much as 30 to 50 per cent waste in this program. Indeed, when I wrote to the then education minister on behalf of the students and the school community of Holbrook I was referred to the government’s BER Implementation Task Force. This was the task force that the now Prime Minister said originally that we did not need, and then, when she finally did agree that it was needed, she would not release its specific findings. There are many other examples throughout my electorate and it is no small feat that these can be made public given the original guidelines announced by the government where principals and governing councils were effectively gagged and told not to speak to the media or the opposition for fear of losing their funds.

At the little town of Pleasant Hills just north of Albury, the Building the Education Revolution scheme delivered a total package of two screen doors, three blinds and awnings, a concrete path, soft floor mats and a new storage area. There were a few dollars left over for small improvements to their driveway, a ceiling for a shed used in the wet weather, and new surrounds for the sandpit. What was the price? Let us say that it came in at a quarter of $1 million—$250,000. But even if you could rationalise that staggering price tag, the school had to write off project management costs of $80,000.

The story was similar for the nearby town of Henty. The Henty public school was so frustrated that it could only express public dismay at the rapid progress being made under the BER at a neighbouring private school which had self-managed its BER funds. Indeed I went to St Paul’s Lutheran Primary School at Henty just a fortnight ago. The upgrades to their toilet block, library and classrooms were impressive. And what about the work at Henty public school? It is not yet finished; not under this revolution.

Parents have called my office in tears as they see the progress being made in the non-government schools in their town and the wonderful facilities that are appearing before their eyes. Whether or not you agree with the rationale for the stimulus in the first place, we all, especially country people, demand and understand the need for value for your dollar and value for money. I can recall when the stimulus program was first announced. It was talked about in terms of local builders, local architects, local tradespeople, local workers getting a say. But the reality has been so different.

I went to one school—and I am not going to name the school—where the principal almost hung his head in shame and pointed to a small demountable classroom that had cost $200,000. They were not even allowed to connect the rainwater tank that they had acquired under a Howard government program for water conservation. They were not even allowed guttering on the roof of this sad little square box that had come off the back of a truck from far away. If the government wants to truly implement how these projects should be managed, it should look no further than the private sector.

As the House is aware, the opposition have been calling—and we have called again today—for a judicial inquiry from the very outset when our concerns were announced. Those calls have been ignored. It is now time for the parliament to agree to the private member’s bill that my colleagues have spoken about in the House tonight, and I do call on all Independent members to support the inquiry. The creation of a fully-independent judicial inquiry is absolutely critical, as it will be the only investigation into the school hall program that actually has the power to subpoena documents and summon witnesses. It will also be the only inquiry with the primary task of discovering whether the government obtained value for money, because we have seen reams of evidence and testimony in the media and from the various other inquiries suggesting widespread rorts, price gouging, collusion, state-skimming and waste. The government just simply has not provided any good reason why they are opposed to the judicial inquiry that we want. It is incumbent on the government to ensure that taxpayers receive full disclosure of how their funds are spent. Despite promising to publish all the costing data during the election campaign they have made no move to do so. So if the Prime Minister has nothing to hide in her handling of the rollout of this program, then surely she has nothing to fear from a judicial inquiry. Again, I call on the Independent members of the cross benches to support this bill so that it succeeds in the House of Representatives and we have the inquiry we so desperately need.