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

They are in there. They are being rolled out. This is a great success story. It is great news. Why is it that you do not want school kids to have computers? Why don’t you want them to have school computers? Why don’t you want them to have new gyms, new common areas, new works being done and new buildings? All those things which update the environment in which students learn improve the educational outcome. Why is it that you do not want to do that? Why do you not want to improve the educational outcomes for our students? Why are you so anti-education in this country? Come and tell us which school should not get the building that has been allocated to them. Tell us which school should not get the computers.

This is the hypocrisy of the Liberal Party members on the other side of the chamber. When these things are being opened or when they are being built, those opposite come along, and the local member comes along, and stands there with the building in the background. They say: ‘Isn’t it wonderful? Can I get my photo taken with the new school building? Can I get my photo taken at the introduction of the new computers? I want to be associated with all that.’ But they come into this place and they say: ‘This is a terrible waste of money. We don’t think it is any good. We don’t want to be part of it.’ Well, you are nothing but hypocrites over there and you ought to get on board and start supporting the future of this country. The fundamentals of our future prosperity are based in education.

This government is improving the education outcomes at every level. It is something that you should have been doing in your wasted 11 years in government, but you completely ignored it. It is an absolute disgrace. We know—and I think the Australian community will know—that the Liberals cannot be trusted to look after the education needs of this country. Mr Abbott cannot be trusted to look after the education needs of this country. I think the longer these things are exposed and the longer these broad accusations, with no evidence and no examples, keep coming to the fore, the more the Australian people will start to see that they can have no trust in the Liberals or in Mr Abbott with respect to some of these things.

As part of the Australian government’s $42 billion Nation Building education stimulus plan, $16.2 billion is being invested over three years for the Building the Education Revolution program to fund infrastructure projects at primary and secondary schools. I just want to explain to you the size of this program and how exciting and beneficial it is going to be. As at 31 December 2009, the Building the Education Revolution is funding 24,009 infrastructure projects valued at $16.2 billion. That is the size of the program. Are those opposite suggesting that we should not be doing that? I think it is what they are suggesting, because all they want to do in here is to say no to everything. It does not matter whether there are good grounds to say no; they simply want to say no.

The economic stimulus plan one-year report released on 3 February 2010 shows that within 11 months around 24,000 projects were approved to build and upgrade learning spaces in 9,524 Australian schools. This is an extraordinary achievement. That is our achievement. That is our record. And all you want to do is to make up these hypothetical problems, and come in here and whinge and whine about the program. I am not surprised, because you have nothing to say about education. You have no vision for education. You have no vision for this country. You ignored education for the last 11 years. You ripped millions and millions of dollars out of the higher education sector. You did nothing about reform in the industry. You must sit there and squirm because for 11 years the opportunities were wasted and now you see us doing so much in two years. It must annoy you. It must frustrate you.

Instead of getting up in the Senate and just saying no, and whinging and whining and making things up, why don’t you sit down and think about some hard policy development? Why don’t you try and develop a policy position for a future education system in this country? Why don’t you come in here and have a serious debate with us about the future of education?

Have we heard or seen or sniffed a policy on education from that side of the chamber? No. Those opposite cannot be trusted with education. They do not want to have a policy because it is so easy just to say no. They come into this chamber and say no for the sake of saying no. That is all they are good at. They say no. They come in. They make things up. The veracity of some of the contributions in this place in this debate from that side of the chamber have to be seriously questioned. The porky-pies that Senator Bernardi referred to I think apply more to him than anyone else.