Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Acting Deputy President Boyce, for this opportunity to speak today, and indeed, for standing in for me in the chair. I want to speak today about the success of the federal government's Building the Education Revolution and also the Teaching and Learning Capital Fund for Vocational Education and Training. It may be a bit unusual for a retiring senator to spend his last weeks criss-crossing vast reaches of Western New South Wales rather than at some overseas location, but I took the opportunity to visit a number of towns and villages in the electorates of Calare and Parkes.

On that journey I had the pleasure of being able to open school halls, libraries, schoolrooms, science labs, innovative centres and much more. I think I covered 1,400 kilometres in five days. I was able to do this because of the foresight and courage not only of the current government but also the Prime Minister herself. The BER was part of the economic stimulus program announced in February 2009. This meant that there will be 24,000 projects to be delivered over five years in 9,000 schools supporting local jobs in the construction of minor and major infrastructure projects in primary schools or science and language centres in secondary schools. Shortly I will share with the Senate the programs that this government funded and the genuine gratitude that was shown to me as a representative of this government because of our decisions. All up, I was able to announce that this government had spent $11,590,282 in those areas in schools and TAFEs.

Last week in New South Wales it was Catholic Schools Week. It was appropriate, then, that my first school was All Hallows in Gulgong. Gulgong is a famous old gold­mining town where Henry Lawson spent the early part of his life, and in fact the local Labor Party celebrates that formidable feminist, his mother, Louisa Lawson, at an annual Louisa Lawson Dinner. The school, All Hallows, was opened in 1883. The school was run, up until some years ago, by the order that founded it, the Order of Sisters of St Joseph, that is, St Mary McKillop's order. She may well have visited that school.

The building itself was constructed in the Spanish Mission style. The school received $1.4 million. The project was managed by that exceptional group of men in the Catholic Education Office in the diocese of Bathurst. The executive director, Peter Hill, was present, as were those chaps from that division, Brian Morrissey and Gerry Lynch. The school has 120 students, and the school captains, Grace Hensley and Olivia Sevin, gave me a tour of the facilities in which they learn. Principal Catherine Gaudry, staff, parents and locals worked hard to get that new classroom, library and the multipurpose refurbishments delivered on time and on budget. It did support the employment of 40 local workers and everybody is proud of the outcome, despite the snickers of those opposite. Indeed, the extensions were blessed by Monsignor Frawley who had a hall named after him, and also by Father Bellamy, who did not have one named after him—maybe he will later. I moved from there to Borenore Public School. This school has been going since May 1876 and the BER, our program, delivered an impressive structure including a new library. The BER funds amounted to $300,000. This primary school has 40 students, and this figure has almost doubled in the last few years. The school captains, Gabrielle Guisard and James Maclennan, gave me a very professional tour of the school. The Principal, Ruth Harris, a former schoolgirl from Tullibigeal—I am sure Senator Nash knows where that is—