Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

We saw the signs in place. I will take the interjection because I worked in the construction industry for many years and I saw many, many construction signs out the front of schools. A genuine construction sign had the name of the contractor, the name of the project, the name of the architect and the details of the project. I saw dozens and dozens of school project signs in my time and I know what they look like. They do not look like anything like this and they were not declared to be electoral advertising under the Electoral Act. So, Senator, if you want to interject then you go for your life because we know exactly what they are and we know exactly what they were designed to do. Of course, they have to be covered up at election time; the electoral officer said that. The local member for Braddon, Mr Sidebottom, said they were no different to a sign on a road. Well, there are not too many roads that I know that are actually polling booths. There are not too many roads anywhere in this country that double as a polling booth. Here you have, outside polling booths all around the country, these electoral signs that are deemed to offend the Electoral Act.

Next we can look at what has been occurring as part of the program. Senator Bernardi has already detailed some of those things. When you start talking to contractors who are involved in these projects you hear the problems that they are facing. When you talk to the school communities you hear the problems they are facing. There are delays in project commencement. There are no completion dates on contracts or completion dates that are a long way out. You see very, very poor documentation in some cases, which is causing contractors to have to put contingency into their pricing because they do not know what they are going to miss.

I have spoken to a school which had to have its power lines changed and its septic tanks moved because the documentation did not include those sorts of things. These things are all leaving shortfalls for the schools in finishing the projects and causing delays. Contractors are having to price the projects two or three times because they have been over-specified and have to be cut back or they have been over-calculated and then cut back.