Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Did I say Senator Brandis? I say sorry to both Senator Brandis and Senator Mason, and I hope neither of them sues me. Senator Mason readily admitted in his contribution to this debate that all these issues have been thoroughly dealt with through the Senate estimates process. All those issues and figures that Senator Mason talked about were thoroughly canvassed and adequately responded to by the department and the relevant minister at the table through many, many hours of Senator Mason’s questions, yet Senator Mason continues—based on a fabrication—to run the line that this government is not committed to the education revolution. Quite frankly this demonstrates the poverty of the previous government’s, the now opposition’s, position with respect to education as a whole.

Senator Mason well knows that some of those figures that were being quoted were on the basis of a single computer with singly purchased software in a single installation. That is clearly not the case and that was gone through and explained to Senator Mason hour after hour by the department. The costs of bulk purchasing of the many thousands upon thousands of computers and their software together with the bulk arrangements for the rollout of these computers in schools are nowhere near the costs that he quotes for a single individual unit. I think it is unfortunate that, based on that fabrication, Senator Mason wants to run the line that what we are doing in terms of an education revolution is not with the best intentions for the future of our economic development in this country and with the best interests of our community at heart.

I appreciate that Senator Mason is actually very passionate about education and I give him due credit in that respect. But it is a problem when in opposition—and I have seen it because I have spent quite some time in opposition—that rather than constructively addressing the issue he is trying to take this fabrication and expand it into an argument to undermine the very education revolution that this country needs. I thought that Senator Mason was better than that. One must wonder and question, given his contribution today, whether he actually thinks that rolling out computers to secondary school students is a good thing or a bad thing.