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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research (Senator Carr), the Special Minister of State (Senator Ludwig) and the Assistant Treasurer (Senator Sherry) to questions without notice asked by me and Senator Humphries today, relating to education.

I heard in the corridor today that today is a very unattractive anniversary—two years since the election of the Rudd government. Some will be celebrating; many, many more will be commiserating. I want to touch on the failures in education policy this afternoon. Who remembers those wonderful political optics of Mr Rudd before the last election, holding up a laptop computer? Do you remember that? He said, ‘This is the toolbox of the 21st century.’ He promised the delivery of one million laptop computers to every year 9 to year 12 student in this country. This was a core promise. It was a headline in the education revolution.

Two years later, what has happened? After two years only 150,000 have been delivered—a little bit better than one in seven. That is after two years. This is more shambolic implementation by the Rudd Labor government. What is worse is this: the government had budgeted about $1 billion for those one million computers. In fact, it is costing $1.8 billion. That is 80 per cent more than was budgeted. Why? It is because they did not budget for the ongoing costs—the cost of licences, storage, electricity, air conditioning and teaching teachers how to use them. They did not budget for that. So in fact the project is costing $800 million more than was budgeted for. They still cannot get it right.

The computers, even more importantly, were supposed to be connected to the internet. They need to be connected to the internet because otherwise they are basically just glorified typewriters. What has happened after two years? None of those 150,000 computers have been connected to the 100 megabytes per second internet. Not one has been after two years. The government says, ‘We have to wait. Don’t worry. Wait for Senator Conroy and the National Broadband Network, because Senator Conroy is going to fix up our problems.’ What is the chance of that happening? What is the chance that Senator Conroy is going to fix up this problem? The fact is you have one million computers being rolled out hopefully over the next few years and not one of them has been connected to the National Broadband Network and not one of them has been connected to the promised 100 megabytes per second internet—not even one after two years. So what have we got? We have glorified typewriters. This is absolutely shambolic implementation. There was great political optics but no implementation at all.

Without going into the shambolic implementation of the Building the Education Revolution and the Julia Gillard memorial halls, I want to touch on an issue that not much attention has been given to. Not enough attention has been given to this. Do you remember the sorry speech? In February 2008 Mr Rudd made his famous sorry speech and he promised to build 35 children and family centres in remote communities, principally for Indigenous children. That was a centrepiece of the sorry speech and a centrepiece of the education revolution. How many of those centres have been delivered? None. Not one. Construction has commenced on how many of those centres? Not one. Coming on to two years, not even one has commenced. Thirty-five children and family centres in remote communities were to deliver early learning, child-care and family support programs to Indigenous children. None of the promised 35 centres are in existence or for that matter anywhere close to coming into existence. That is after nearly two years. Indeed, no consultations with local communities have even taken place in the overwhelming majority of locations. No construction has commenced at all.

I have no doubt Mr Rudd was sincere in his sorry speech, but the fact is this government is typified by great rhetoric but absolutely appalling implementation. These 35 children and family centres in remote communities were the centrepiece of the sorry speech and, after two years, not even one has been delivered at all. Whether it is the supply of computers to year 9 to year 12 students, the connection to the internet or the 35 children and family centres in remote communities, the delivery of all these educational services has been absolutely appalling.