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

One would be justified in thinking that schools who were receiving grants from the Commonwealth government might actually be over the moon. But it really must say something about the atrocious implementation of this program that schools are coming out every single day of the week—in fact, if you listen to talkback radio, they are coming out phone call after phone call—calling on the government to revise the way this program is being delivered. It is shameful. Listening to those on the other side trying to justify this atrocious spending demonstrates beyond a doubt the depth to which this government will stoop to put a good spin over what they know is a very bad spend. But, then again, it is only public money, and they do not really have to care about how they spend public money. That is for us on this side to hold them accountable for, and that is what we will continue to do.

Indeed, as my colleague Senator Mason has so eloquently put it, despite all of its spin, the government simply cannot reassure the Australian community that $14.7 billion of taxpayers’ money is being spent appropriately. Let me give the Senate an example from my home state of Western Australia—and you are really going to like this one. The headline in the Australian on 20 June read:

$250,000 hall for remote Yulga Jinna Remote Community School ‘a waste’

The article went on to report that the Yulga Jinna Remote Community School has only 24 students amongst three classrooms. Apparently, with funding it received from the Building the Education Revolution program, it must build a multipurpose hall which will give it, in effect, a fourth classroom. And this is wherein the problem lies, because the school does not need a fourth classroom for its 24 students.