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

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Education, Senator Carr. Will the minister advise the Senate whether the government intends to scrap the highly successful Investing in Our Schools Program, as announced by the Minister for Education, Ms Gillard?

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Rudd Labor government is committed to investing in our schools’ infrastructure and will provide $2.1 billion over four years, which is nearly double the commitment of the Investing in Our Schools Program in terms of the capacity to rebuild Australian schools. The Rudd Labor government is committed to a more targeted approach to infrastructure funding through the Trade Training Centres in Schools Program and the Digital Education Revolution. It has announced $2.5 billion over 10 years to enable secondary schools across Australia to apply for funding of between $500,000 and $1.5 million for trade training centres. The government will also invest $1 billion through the National Secondary School Computer Fund to improve secondary school student access to world-class information.

The former government decided that there would be no further funding committed to the Investing in Our Schools Program. The former government had already made that decision. On 19 February 2007 the former Prime Minister issued a press release noting that 2007 would be the final round of funding. Not only did the Howard government announce that 2007 would be the final round of funding but the former education minister, now the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, cut the amount of funding government schools would be eligible for under this program from $150,000 to $100,000. She said that after the final round of funding for state schools there would be 6,894 schools with projects approved for funding, over 99 per cent of schools in the sector. Grants totalling $779.8 million were allocated as a result of these approvals and $26 million remained unallocated. This unallocated funding of $26.1 million was returned to consolidated revenue. Accordingly, this budgetary decision precedes the election of the Labor government. The department will be working with government and non-government schools to ensure projects funded under the IOSP are satisfactorily completed and the public reporting requirements are met.

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

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Let me remind Senator Carr, Mr President, that the former government committed to reinvest in the Investing in Our Schools Program. Nonetheless, the minister has stated that the trade training centres and the education revolution are expressly targeted at students in secondary education. If so, how will the government compensate primary school students, who will now be missing out on much needed funding for new classrooms, shade structures, air conditioning and other amenities that were funded under the Investing in Our Schools Program?

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is an irony. We had the previous government closing down this program and now we get asked by the current opposition: ‘What are we going to do about schools that are adversely affected by the previous government’s decision?’

I remind the Senate of a few basic facts in this regard. Initially, $700 million was provided to state government schools and $300 million was provided to non-government schools over the life of the program. The total amount of funding available to schools was increased by $181 million in 2007. These funds were targeted at schools that had received little or no funding. But, to give all state schools the opportunity to access the new funding, schools that had already received funding at or above $100,000 were not eligible. Furthermore, under the guidelines of the previous government, schools were required to give an appropriate recognition of assistance from the Australian government, which included the conducting of official—(Time expired)