Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me acknowledge, on Valentine's Day, my beautiful wife, Paula; my gorgeous 6½-year-old, Poppy; and my somewhat rambunctious 2½-year-old, James.

I want to turn my mind and the attention of the House to Powlett River Primary School. Powlett River Primary School is a small school of 40-plus students. Its numbers oscillate a little bit each year under the principalship of Jeff Bell. I have been fortunate to visit the school many times over the years. Unfortunately, Powlett River Primary School has had a bad experience with the BER, the project and the program that was put together by the current Prime Minister and is now under the guidance of Minister Garrett. Powlett River Primary School was allocated $850,000 under the BER program. As part of that the school submitted a proposal for new classrooms and a $200,000 upgrade to its administration block. This was approved during the tenure of the now Prime Minister and then education minister. It was confirmed in several emails by BER managers and, in July 2009, project drawings were completed for the development that included the administration block. After months of waiting, the classrooms were constructed, costing about $650,000. A number of questions have been raised by the school community as to the relative value for the $650,000. However, after waiting for at least two additional years the school was told late last year that the administrative project would not go ahead. As the school said to me, they wrote to the Minister for School Education, Mr Garrett, in November of the previous year. They recently received a response from Minister O'Connor, who was assisting Minister Garrett. The reason given for not completing the administration block upgrade was that 'administration facilities are not included in the priority list under the BER program'.

Why was the school not informed of this fact more than two years ago? Why were they told repeatedly that the administration block upgrade was approved and that it was coming? Why was the school not given the opportunity to redraft its proposals so that it was within the BER guidelines, and where has the remaining $200,000 allocated for the school's BER project gone? In short, the school has been left to struggle when it could have made alternative plans. Significantly, the application of the project rules has been inconsistent. We are aware of at least three other Gippsland schools who received administration block upgrades under the BER. We expect answers from the minister. We expect to know why this school was led down the garden path for more than two years. (Time expired)