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

They do not lose the money. I take that interjection from Senator Humphries, because he was there also when we talked about the state government and how people can intervene. I want to go to that very important question about what happens when the school community disagrees with the state bureaucracy, because they are actually managing the rollout. What happens when they disagree? These issues were covered in Senate estimates and the evidence is on Hansard. Dr Nicoll said:

I recall the issue of Bobs Farm Public School. In that case the school had sought a quote from a local builder for a particular construction that did not include insulation and appropriate fit-out for the building, and the principal felt that he or she could have received a cheaper price by going to the local builder, but the building that that builder would have provided would not have been of the quality that would have been accepted by the New South Wales Department of Education for students. It missed a whole lot of things that the school would then have had to pay for later on.

We actually have standards for school buildings and the requirements for our children. It is not simply about any builder saying, ‘I think I could do that,’ at a standard that they may think is acceptable. We are talking about school infrastructure that needs to be rugged and last for a long, long time. Senator Mason then said:

I am not even saying the school community always gets it right. What you are saying is that the school community did not necessarily get it right but that the government had other objectives in the particular case; is that right?

Dr Nicoll responded:

The governments’ objective, both the Commonwealth’s and the state’s, is for the highest quality product for students to be able to operate in that we can possibly achieve.

Senator Mason then asked—and this is the crux of Senator Mason’s argument:

How do you reconcile when school communities want a certain project and the state government wants another one? How do you resolve the tension between the two?

And Dr Nicoll responded:

We look to the education authority to work with the school community. If there is not a resolution possible, it would be possible for the Commonwealth to step in. The bottom line from our point of view would be—and I know this is the Deputy Prime Minister’s view—that what the school community wants would be what the school community should get.

That is the evidence. Principals do not have to sign off and the Commonwealth can intervene when there is a dispute between the school community and the state bureaucracy. (Time expired)