Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It has been interesting to sit here and listen to those on the other side espousing the good things that the Rudd government has done since coming to office in relation to education. I, too, have to acknowledge one thing that the Rudd government is good at, but it has nothing to do with education. It is all about media spin—spin over substance every time; 10 out of 10 on the report card for that one. I think it is fair to say that the greatest success of the Rudd government to date is its capacity to produce spin rather than substance when dealing with important policy issues. After all, the Rudd government was elected as a result of media hype and media spin, with a range of so-called policies that, in the main, comprised of glib lines designed to entice and entrap the voter into believing that a Rudd government would actually deliver the educational needs of the nation. After nine months we can now see how the worm has turned and how the voter has now learnt that they got taken for a ride based on spin, rhetoric and a few glib political lines rather than substance.

Labor’s so-called education revolution has to be seen for what it is—that is, a fraud on the people of Australia, who were entitled and are entitled to expect more from this government. Let us look at the promises made by Mr Rudd in relation to the Productivity Places program, a Labor election commitment to deliver an additional 450,000 training places over four years. The spin on that is absolutely fantastic. Mr Rudd sold this policy as ‘a core piece of our overall armoury in fighting inflation’. This was the commitment: up to 20,000 places were offered to jobseekers from 1 April to 30 June. That was phase 1. From 1 July, up to 66,000 training places would be available to existing workers looking to upskill. But what is the reality in terms of this government delivering on this election promise? The reality is that the Rudd government has failed to meet their own expectations that were placed on the program when it was launched. Labor failed to fill even half of the 20,000 training places before phase 1 ended on 30 June. After selling this policy as ‘a core piece of our overall armoury in fighting inflation’, this is a gross failure by the Rudd government.

Only 3,300 places of the 66,000 places that are available to existing workers have been filled, because the Rudd government has only negotiated agreements with three states. This is in stark contrast to the coalition’s work-school vouchers. This was a simple, fully funded federal government initiative which allowed every jobseeker who wanted to improve their skills the opportunity to do so.

Now let us look at Mr Rudd’s plans to hand over all of the Australian technical colleges to the states, in favour of—and you have to love this one—a resource stretched trade training centre policy. Labor’s proposal, or spin as I like to call it, is to build state-of-the-art trade training centres in all 2,650 secondary schools around the country. Each school can apply for between $500,000 and $1.5 million to build or upgrade vocational education training facilities. The problem is that the funding available for each school program is grossly inadequate to provide proper trade training.

The coalition, however, spent an average of $24 million for each Australian technical college. In contrast, the Rudd government is offering each school an average of just $900,000 over 10 years. The funding is so paltry schools will be lucky if they can update woodwork rooms at best. This will not create 2,650 state-of-the-art trade training centres.

The evidence is clear. The Rudd Labor government’s education revolution is now being seen by the public for the fraud that it is. The Rudd government has during its time in office failed to deliver its education revolution, which was hailed as a flagship election policy. Clearly, the Rudd Labor government has failed the people of Australia, and the people are entitled to feel cheated. The product that was advertised to the people of Australia and that they bought is not the product that is now being delivered. If the Labor government were subject to the provisions of the Trade Practices Act, they would be sued by the people of Australia for misleading and deceptive conduct and the people of Australia would win hands down.