Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Coonan was of course right. With this government there is a history of government waste and a cavalier attitude towards taxpayers’ money. From the beginning, the education revolution has been a shambles, and it has been debated many times in the Senate. The computers in schools fiasco was just that, a fiasco. Eighteen months down the track less than eight per cent of the computers have hit the desk. More importantly, the program is way, way over budget. It is a billion dollars over budget already.

As Senator Coonan has already indicated, Building the Education Revolution is even more of a fiasco. This is the problem: schools are not getting what they need, what they want; they are getting what the state bureaucrats believe they need. There is a diktat from the state governments about what they need. There are templates—template A, template B, template C; take your pick. ‘You’ve got a library? Do you want another one?’ That is what is happening. It is a totally inefficient, centrally planned approach, as always. On the government’s own words, there were two aims involved in Building the Education Revolution. One was to provide jobs. The other was to enhance educational outcomes. Neither of those has been achieved. There is little flexibility in what schools can receive. There is this whiff of central planning.

And what about overcharging? Already this week in the Senate in question time the ministers on the other side have been very reluctant to talk about the tendering process. Yet the evidence is coming in that schools themselves have wanted cheaper projects but they have been denied them by state governments, who have forced more expensive projects on them or projects they do not even want. They are projects that the schools do not want and they are more expensive. This is a centrally planned shambles, with a whiff of Leonid Brezhnev in it. It is thus far a total fiasco.

I mentioned today Mulgildie State School, west of Bundaberg. I will be interested to find out what Senator Arbib finds out on notice about that school. I think he will find that the government is spending money it does not need to and, worse, the school is not getting what it wants. That really is the point about this. That is where government waste is. Schools are not getting what they want and what they need. They are being told by state governments what they should get. Ultimately that is the theme of the entire Building the Education Revolution. It is all about spend, spend, spend, but it is not a good spend.

What did we discover from estimates? We discovered that the primary aim of Building the Education Revolution was to create jobs. That was the primary aim. Yet in the first round $2.6 billion was given out, and did the Commonwealth government or the state government ask any successful tenderers how many jobs would be created on each individual project? Did they? No, they did not. The government, Commonwealth or state, never asked how many jobs would be created on each individual project. Job creation was not the key here; rather, it was for the Prime Minister and Ms Gillard to be seen in a high-visibility vest, a hard hat and a bulldozer. It was all about PR and spin. That is what this is about, and that is why it is such a damn shame—$12.7 billion, and it could have done so much. But it is not about education outcomes. We know that because the schools are telling us that. And it is not about creating jobs, because the government did not even ask how many jobs would be created. So on both counts, both primary aims of Building the Education Revolution, the government failed. This is not even a facet of best spend or indeed even a good spend; this is just a spend. This is about spend and spin, not value for money. And $12.7 billion will be sacrificed for photo opportunities for the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, and it will not maximise job creation or maximise educational outcomes.