Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The President has received a letter from Senator Parry proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely:

The waste of taxpayers money spent on the Building the Education Revolution program, particularly the spending on the blatantly political signage at each school that has received funds under the program.

I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak today on this matter of public importance. I am particularly unimpressed with the reason that we are speaking today. A press release was put out this morning by the Australian Electoral Commission in relation to the government’s school signs scandal. What the AEC very clearly articulated—and, quite frankly, I cannot remember this happening in some 16 years of my being in both this place and the other place—is where the government has actually breached the provisions of the Commonwealth Electoral Act.

The AEC said in relation to section 328 that the signs were in clear breach of the requirements of the act. The AEC actually went on further and said that, if those signs were there on a polling day, they would be in breach of section 340 of the Electoral Act.

We need to go back and have a look at the history of the Labor Party in relation to the Electoral Act in order to put this in some sort of context, to put this in the context of it being a deliberate act by the federal Labor government to breach the provisions of the Commonwealth Electoral Act. It beggars belief that, given the nature of this program, they would not have sought some advice in relation to it. But you have only got to go back to former senator Graham Richardson, who was the architect of the modern Electoral Act, and the comments he made in his autobiography, where he said that the current act—the one we are dealing with now—was put in place to maximise the political advantage that Labor could obtain. We have seen no clearer example of that than this signs-in-schools scandal. Some 4,000-plus schools have already got these signs up. By the time the program finishes, there will be over 8,000 political signs in schools throughout this country. Eight thousand political signs! Who could possibly use children and their parents as pawns in a political game?

Opposition Senators:

The Labor Party.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Exactly. What government could go into an election campaign full of hyperbole about political advertising and then come out after the election and get busted for doing something like this?

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rudd Labor.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rudd Labor. Absolutely! The issue here is that the Labor Party has been caught red-handed. This is a political stunt; this is a political scam. Why is it that, during question time, the Special Minister of State, Senator Ludwig, refused to answer my questions and those of my colleagues on this matter? Why was it that the Special Minister of State refused to say whether he had sought advice as to whether these signs also breached state electoral acts? Senator Arbib was also asked that question, and I suspect that those following me are going to have some comments to make on this.

In 22 months, a government that was elected, supposedly, on the back of openness and transparency has already revealed itself as one of the most deceitful governments that we have seen in this country’s history. This is a blatant politicisation of schools. This is a blatant attempt to ensure that, twice a day between now and the run-up to the election campaign, parents will go into those schools and see those signs. Now that the government has been caught out red-handed, what is it going to do? Apparently it is are going to put up authorisation stickers—stickers required on political material—

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Funded by taxpayers.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Funded by taxpayers. It is going to put up over 8,000 stickers. Are we going to see the minister or Senator Arbib walking around in six months time with sticky tongues, having stuck these things on? Are we going to see an army of public servants out there putting these stickers on? On polling day, are we going to see the farcical situation where bags or some sort of coverage need to be put on to avoid breaching further provisions of the Commonwealth Electoral Act?

There is only one solution to this blatant politicisation of schools. There is only one solution to this deliberate attempt by the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister to politicise a government program: these signs must be removed. There is no excuse for these signs not to be removed. It is a farcical situation when the government believes it can get around this pork-barrelling exercise by putting stickers on those signs.

During question time, the minister spoke foolishly. I say that as someone who has actually got some time for the minister, but he has been badly briefed. In relation to the Investing in Our Schools Program, guess what we did not require the schools to do? Guess what we did not mandate? We did not mandate signs in schools talking about the Investing in Our Schools Program.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For two years.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For two years. We did not mandate that. We said that, if schools were going to put out material or put up signs, then they should acknowledge the Commonwealth government. Did we mandate that? No, we did not. I refer honourable senators to appendix 4 on page 19 of the guidelines, which makes it quite clear that we did not require schools to do so.

I cannot, in living memory, remember a government being caught out red-handed like this government has been. There had been no excuse delivered by the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister up until today. There was no legitimate excuse given by the Special Minister of State or by Senator Arbib, who was tasked with the job of doing the dirty work of the government in relation to this sort of political advertising. The mantra of this government is: ‘Send out the one with the best reputation to get down and dirty and do whatever is required to win the election again.’

You only need to look at abuses of the Commonwealth Electoral Act by the Labor Party. They have form in relation to this—serious form. You have the fake Labor enrolments in Queensland, where a number of ALP operatives ended up in jail. You have the Shepherdson inquiry, where a number of ALP members were forced to resign. You have the Christian Zahra and Gino Mandarino false enrolments. Gino Mandarino and Mike Kaiser, who were both found guilty of false enrolment, are now back working as Labor staffers. This is how seriously federal Labor takes this sort of matter. I am looking forward to my friend Senator Feeney’s defence of this program when he stands up, because there is no defence. He knows that the only legitimate way to get out of this is to pull these signs down—8,000 bits of Labor propaganda using kids and their parents and teachers and school communities as pawns in a cheap political game.

The community are, quite rightly, absolutely outraged about this. They will be even more outraged when they read tomorrow morning that the government has been caught red-handed. No-one should underestimate the significance of the Australian Electoral Commission putting out a press release saying that a government of the day has breached the Commonwealth Electoral Act. There is no greater crime for a government than to do so. This government must immediately undertake to pull every one of those signs down within the next seven days.

David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to rise to speak to this matter of public importance. I should say that congratulations are in order for Senator Ronaldson, because clearly this is an issue that he has worked diligently on. He is doing his level best to attract publicity to this cause. I guess it is a feature of contemporary politics that matters like these attract the interests of the media and the press. The business of the opposition is to gain the occasional headline and it is good to see Senator Ronaldson returning to core business. But I think the Senate, and indeed all of the participants in this debate, would be well served by us having a more considered and more factually based discussion about what has actually transpired and what will transpire into the future. One thing is clearly true: when describing government propaganda and when describing how taxpayers’ money can be best deployed to a partisan task, no-one is better qualified than the Liberal Party. They have a record on these matters which, frankly, is second to none. Indeed, the dictators of North Korea and 1970s Romania would struggle in a competition with the Liberal Party as to who can best deploy taxpayers’ funds to their own advancement.

Having made that bold assertion, let me set about the task of making the argument out, because this is an entertaining subject for those of us who are interested. There was a fascinating political study in 2005 by Peter van Onselen, who I think even those opposite would have to concede is by no means a left-wing commentator. That study was described as ‘John Howard’s PR state’. It is a fascinating read, because what we see in John Howard’s PR state is a political scientist going through the task in a measured and considered way of discovering how the Liberal Party in office was able to deploy hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ funds to build the power of incumbency for a conservative government. It is a fascinating study. I intend to take the Senate to the details in a moment, but the other interesting thing is that we can see that Labor in power over the last 18 months has set about keeping its promises, realising its mandate and systemically dismantling the pillars that sustained John Howard’s PR state.

This debate proves an old truism. Labor has made important changes and introduced new standards of transparency and honesty in how taxpayers’ money can be used and, most specifically, not used to a political task. But are the media or the opposition interested in talking about the hundreds of million dollars saved on television advertising or the staff positions that no longer exist or the entitlements to individual MPs that have been changed? Of course they are not. What they are interested in now is signage. The Liberal Party have moved on to their next political bandwagon, and for that I do congratulate Senator Ronaldson. He understands a tabloid headline when he sniffs one, and on this occasion he probably has one. But the important point is that, despite the fury and the noise, Labor in fact has a very strong record in this area—and the Liberal Party, I might say, have a very strong record in this area too. Never before in the history of our Commonwealth were so many taxpayer dollars deployed so ruthlessly and, indeed, so effectively to a political task.

When one looks at John Howard’s PR state, the first pillar is government advertising. The second pillar of John Howard’s PR state was an institution called the Government Members Secretariat. The third pillar of John Howard’s PR state was members’ entitlements. The fourth pillar of John Howard’s PR state was the implementation of a fundraising regime that did its level best to protect Liberal Party donors from transparency. These were the four bases upon which the Liberal Party built its electoral machine and this machine operated for 11 years in this country. In this matter of public importance, we have an important debate being presented to this Senate—but, ironically, it is being put forward by those who know most about the subject and have most to hide. This is a subject that goes far beyond signs or stickers. What we in fact have here is an important public policy debate where the other side’s runs are on the board, and I would like to take you to them.

Firstly, let us talk about that feature of John Howard’s PR state, promotional advertising, because senators opposite do not come to this debate with clean hands. They may think everybody has forgotten about their record in this regard, but I can assure them that that is not the case and I will do my level best in the next few moments to remind the Senate and to remind the people of Australia about the literally hundreds of millions of dollars that those opposite destroyed, flushed down the toilet, by spending on television to support their partisan politics. Between 1998 and 2001 the Howard government spent $420 million supporting its GST policy—a tax which had not yet then been approved by the parliament.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You don’t get it. Your government broke the law!

David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I encourage members opposite to participate in this debate in, dare I say it, a reasoned and considered manner, because in between your rhetoric and your interjections, you are completely failing to address the issues at hand.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Your government is in breach of the l-a-w law!

David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Acting Deputy President, you look as if you are on the cusp of saying something.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was, Senator Feeney. I was going to ask you to address the chair and I was going to remind Senator Cormann that interjecting is disorderly.

David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Entertaining but disorderly. Between 1998 and 2001 the Howard government spent $420 million promoting the GST, a tax which had not yet then been approved by the parliament. Some $36 million was spent on the ‘Unchain My Heart’ advertisements which were, of course nothing more than Liberal Party propaganda paid for by the taxpayer. The entire nation was deluged for months by highly political television ads full of dubious claims about the taxation system then being proposed by the government.

As no doubt you are aware. Mr Acting Deputy President, I was during that time a campaign director for the Labor Party, so political advertising is something I know a little about. There can be no doubt whatever that the purpose of those television advertisements was not to promote in a non-partisan manner, it was not to inform in a non-partisan manner, but rather it was to elevate the policies and the politics of the government of the day. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on a political task. When we look behind the curtain of how these ads came into being and by what mechanism the government funded them, we see some interesting things. The Government Communications Unit, as it was then called, was a structure that operated from the Prime Minister’s office. It operated in a manner which was all about coordinating a whole-of-government communications strategy. But it was not being coordinated by Treasury; this was not a procurement mechanism. This was a group of Liberal Party politicians using the Government Communications Unit to deploy hundreds of million of dollars of taxpayers’ funds for a political task. It was an outrageous thing and it has been the subject of long and difficult debates.

Between 2004 and 2007 the Howard government spent a figure variously estimated at between $114 million and $120 million promoting its Work Choices legislation. It does remind me of that old adage, Senator Ronaldson, that nothing kills a poor product like good advertising. In the 15 weeks before the calling of the 2007 election, the Howard government spent $61 million promoting Work Choices and the so-called fairness test, or more than $4 million a week on Work Choices advertising in total. Seldom has so much money been spent on so many ads for so little political return. I do not want to dwell on the fact that they were not effective, but rather the fact that here we had a government that had established a structure that took command of the public purse and deployed it for political gain on a level and by a standard that had never been seen in this country before and, thanks to this government, will never be seen in this country again.

As well as these massive cash splashes of taxpayers’ money on promoting partisan Howard government legislation, namely the GST and Work Choices, the Howard government also recklessly spent millions of taxpayer dollars on their various other communications schemes. They spent more than $50 million trying to persuade people to buy private health insurance, a massive spend of public money for the benefit of private companies selling a product which most people do not see as value for money. They spent $36 million promoting their changes to child support arrangements. They spent $25 million marketing the Telstra 3 share offer. They spent $15 million promoting the Independent Contractors Act.

In the 2006-07 financial year alone, according to figures produced at estimates, the Howard government spent over $250 million on government advertising in total. In their 11 years in office they have probably spent well over $2 billion on government advertising. That is a $2 billion spend on a political task—not Liberal Party funds, not National Party funds, but taxpayer moneys deployed to political campaigns that were conceived in the office of the Prime Minister by politicians to achieve a political task. This was an unprecedented political act. It was, of course, something that even those opposite hang their heads in shame about.

But, as they say in the classics, that is not all. That was one important tier of Liberal Party incumbency. That was one important mechanism the Liberal Party used to spend taxpayers’ moneys on its re-election. But there is more. The Government Members Secretariat, the GMS, was of course an equally notorious instrument for the Liberal Party. It was established when the Howard government came to office in 1996. It was a unit run out of the Chief Government Whip’s office. ‘Why the Chief Government Whip’s office?’ you might well ask. Because there it was an arm of the legislature and it was immune from questioning at estimates. But that was nothing more than a cynical device. The real purpose, of course, was to operate as a unit at the whim of the Prime Minister of the day. What did these 11 persons, collectively earning $1.5 million, do as taxpayer paid public servants in the secretariat? Well, of course, they worked on Liberal Party campaigns, they worked on Liberal Party media monitoring and they worked on rapid response for the Liberal Party. There was a full-time campaign unit of 11 persons working in this parliament for 11 long years whose sole task, notwithstanding the fact that they were public servants, was to work for the re-election of the Howard government. Again, it was another cynical piece of a taxpayer funded apparatus.

Peter van Onselen and Wayne Errington pointed out in their 2005 study of the government members secretariat, which they called ‘the beating heart of the PR state’, that this unit was also implicated in allegations of dirt digging against shadow ministers and other Labor figures but said that those things were a distraction from the real importance of the GMS. They wrote:

Its importance lies in the way it connects the government’s national communications strategy with individual members of parliament, most notably those members in marginal seats. This allows government policy releases, advertising and other communication on behalf of the executive to be made timely and relevant to the grassroots House of Representatives campaigns that help win elections. The GMS is a prime example of the way that government and party communication strategies have become inextricably linked.

Now I have no objection to a unit that provides support, information and resources to government members of parliament. But this was a campaign unit.

The Government Communications Unit and Liberal Svengalis spent hundreds of millions of dollars on government communication campaigns and the government members secretariat had 11 persons, acolytes of the Liberal Party, deployed to a political task. Further, the entitlements of individual members were dramatically expanded over 11 years so that those opposite in marginal seats had more taxpayer dollars to spend on printing and more taxpayer dollars to spend on other important parts of campaigning. Throw in for good measure the transformation of our electoral donation laws, with a $10,000 cap applying to nine different jurisdictions effectively meaning that Liberal Party donors could donate $90,000 across the country and avoid disclosure. When you put that together, you can see that those opposite know more about the subject of propaganda and how a government can fund its own re-election than we on this side could ever hope to do. The important thing is that all of those features that I have described have been dismantled by this government, and those opposite now have the cheek to talk about signage. (Time expired)

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

I was reading last week that one of my colleagues said that the Building the Education Revolution had become a cheap political stunt. I think that he is wrong. This is a very expensive political stunt; this is a $15 billion fiasco. And every day, it seems, a new horror emerges. Can you imagine spending $15 billion and yet have all the important and relevant stakeholders—the parents, the teachers, the principals, the school communities, as well as the education union—thinking that this money has been poorly spent? Can you imagine spending 15 thousand million dollars and have the stakeholders thinking that it has been poorly spent? You would have to try hard, wouldn’t you? But that is what people are saying. So this has become a very expensive political stunt.

Why? We now know, after several months of this, is that these notorious templates being peddled around by state governments are all about giving to schools what state governments think they should have, and not giving school communities the control that they need and want. The Labor Party, particularly the Left in the Labor Party, quite like these templates and this whiff of central planning.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A command economy.

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

Yes. A whiff of the central planning that I know my friend Senator Carr enjoys so much. And perhaps Ms Gillard, reliving her days in student politics, enjoys that whiff of Stalinism and central planning.

We also know this: there has been overcharging. Already there have been anecdotal reports from throughout the country that the price of these buildings has gone up, not by 10 or 20 per cent but potentially by 50 per cent, over the last few months. The price of the buildings for school communities has gone way up. And what has happened? The Commonwealth government has had totally inadequate oversight of the process. They are hands off. ‘It doesn’t matter. Throw enough money and a job or two might be created. We don’t care if it costs a fortune.’ And we know that has been a bad spend, because they have not kept their eye on the cost of the buildings.

What is going to happen in the next few months is that the Auditor-General will bring a report down. It will be very interesting to see what the Auditor-General says. We have also seen bullying by state governments. State governments have been bullying school communities, because they want to use the money for their own objectives and their own priorities. None of this is a surprise, but this is what has happened over the last six months.

This in fact has so far been a very bad spend. It is not flexible; there has been overcharging; there has been bullying by state governments and worse: when this project was set up the government did not even ask tenderers how many jobs would be created by the tenders they asked for. Job creation ostensibly was important. Yet the government did not ask when approving tenders how many jobs would be created. That just shows the lie of the government’s processes. This is all about spending money and looking good politically. They did not even ask how many jobs would be created—not at all.

What about the education outcomes? Did they ask about those? No. They are going to spend $15 billion. Did they ask how this would assist the educational outcomes of Australian school students? No. I would have thought that better teaching and better teaching education and perhaps paying teachers more money might be a far better way of getting better educational outcomes than building more ‘Hon. Julia Gillard Memorial Halls’. Any educational expert would tell you that. But no, the government was throwing money and they did not even know how many jobs would be created. Anyway, the Auditor-General is going to look at this. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Last week, it emerged that there had been a budget blow out of $1.5 billion in this process. Ms Gillard said, ‘This is a bump in the road.’ A $1.5 billion budget blow out is a bit of a bump in the road; a mere bagatelle! If you have spent $300 billion in the last 12 months, I suppose $1.5 billion is change that you would find behind the office couch, isn’t it? Perhaps that is where Ms Gillard found it. Just a bump in the road!

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Chickenfeed!

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

Chickenfeed. One-and-a-half billion dollars: a mere bagatelle; a bump in the road! Who cares? If you are spending $300 billion, it doesn’t matter, does it?

And guess where $200 million of that money came from? It came from the budget for science and language centres for 141 of the neediest high schools in this country. The money was taken from them and given back to Building the Education Revolution, because the government’s own projections were wrong. The money has gone from really needy students to students who do not need it as much and has not been spent on education outcomes but for—apparently—creating jobs. This has become a fiasco, and it is getting worse and worse.

Now we know that, despite this farce, this litany of inactivity and the failings of the education revolution, the government believes that in the end it is okay to break the law and spend taxpayers’ money on large billboards for blatant electioneering, that it is actually okay to break the law and promote yourself and it does not matter so much that this program has been shown to be inflexible, that there has been overcharging in the tender process, that schools are not getting what they want and that it is spending $15 billion and all of the stakeholders think this is a farce and the money could be better spent. The government is not worried about all those problems. You know what it is worried about, don’t you? The billboards in the school grounds that are going to be polling places at the next election. That is what the government is worried about. That is its concern. It is not going to address all the other issues. No, the government will break the law and address that issue. That is what has become of the Building the Education Revolution.

This is one of the largest infrastructure projects in this country’s history of this sort ever, yet you have got stakeholders saying the money is poorly spent. I have never seen that before in Australian history. The government likes to use the acronym BER for Building the Education Revolution. I notice that in recent times schools have been saying that they do not call BER the Building the Education Revolution; they think BER stands for the Bloody Evil Revolution. I think that after last week BER stands for Bloody Expensive Revolution.

Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to respond to the type of nay-saying from those opposite with which we have become sadly all too familiar. However, when this government’s $42 billion Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan came to the Senate in February for approval, thankfully those nay-sayers were outnumbered. Those opposite wanted us to do nothing in the face of a gathering global storm. They wanted us to wait and see, to sit on our hands and to stand back—at least until some other nation had dipped a toe in the water to test the temperature. The tune we hear from those on the other side is whistle while you shirk—one they have hummed in unison before on ratifying Kyoto and dangerous climate change; on infrastructure, including broadband and schools; and on an apology to the stolen generations. The list goes on.

The signs coming from around the world in the second half of last year were ominous. The threat to Australia’s economic prosperity was considerable. But this government chose instead to act decisively and immediately to stimulate and support, to give the economy and the jobs it fosters the backing it desperately needed while a worldwide economic downturn sped towards recession. Evidence is mounting day by day that, had we listened to Mr Turnbull and his Liberal-National coalition and done nothing, Australia would not be in this healthy condition and we would not be weathering the storm as well as we are. In fact, Treasury estimates that the government stimulus action will underwrite more than 210,000 Australian jobs. Without it we would not be the best performing advanced economy in the world. Without it we would not have had the welcome and remarkable news of Australia having recorded positive growth in the June quarter to the tune of 0.6 per cent. Household consumption and spending grew by 0.8 per cent in the June quarter on the back of the government’s cash stimulus payments. This increase in spending contributed a crucial 0.5 per cent of a percentage point to Australia’s quarterly GDP growth. We can rightly be confident in our nation’s future, even though our economy is not yet in the clear and unemployment will still rise.

The Building the Education Revolution program, to which Senator Parry refers in his matter of public importance, is a critical element of the infrastructure charged $42 billion Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan. The funding from this plan is being shared by all schools—by government schools, Catholic schools and independent schools across all states and territories. When those opposite voted against the Rudd government’s economic stimulus measures they voted against improvements at every primary school in the country—against new classrooms, gyms and multipurpose halls. They voted against young children and high school students receiving new libraries, new gymnasiums and new school halls. They voted against science and language centres for our secondary schools.

I have been out to many schools. I have visited numerous schools in South Australia and every school has welcomed the Building the Education Revolution centres—the classrooms, the libraries, the school halls and the gymnasiums. The parent bodies have welcomed them as well. Those opposite voted against the National School Pride program, which provided funding for minor capital works and refurbishment projects at schools. In doing so, those opposite voted against investment in education. It did not come hard; it is something that they find easy. We know that. They were in government for 11 years and in that time education was underfunded. It is consistent with their record. In doing so, we also know that those opposite voted against jobs, against the ongoing viability of small businesses and against families. They voted against schools, the students in those schools, the school communities, the parents and the jobs that are being generated by these buildings. They voted against small businesses and they voted against families. They lost that vote, and thank goodness they did for the sake of our nation, our economy, our communities, our students, our young people and our jobs.

Of course, those opposite do not want to know about the good things to come from the government’s economic stimulus measures. That was evident today. They do not want to hear about the jobs created and the jobs saved, the facilities improved and the lives enhanced. They would prefer that we stop the investment, stop the building of infrastructure, stop the enhancing of communities and stop the creation and support of jobs.

It beggars belief that those opposite would only want to speak about the cost of what they are calling political advertising in the form of signage at schools that are benefiting from the Building the Education Revolution. Coming from the party of Work Choices and the Regional Partnerships Program, that really is a bit rich. In fact, the whole thing seems a little like sour grapes. I am advised that under the Howard government’s Roads to Recovery Program, around 70,000 recognition signs were put up to mark areas benefiting from this funding. These signs had to remain on display for a minimum of one year after the completion of the project. I will read directly from the Roads to Recovery requirements that one of the councils was given. It said:

A funding recipient must ensure that all signs erected as required by these Conditions remain in place for the duration of the project to which they relate and for a minimum period of one year commencing on the day on which the project is completed.

I am also told that approximately 6,000 recognition signs were erected for black spot projects. Also, the guidelines for the Investing in Our Schools Program—another Howard government initiative—required the display of plaques. Those guidelines state that schools will be required to affix a plaque, to be supplied by the Commonwealth, to all completed projects, where appropriate. ‘Where appropriate’ is interesting. I will get to that point. The guidelines then state that this includes, but is not limited to, new buildings, playground equipment, shade structures, new classrooms, landscape beautification et cetera. The size of the plaque should be commensurate with the size of the project structure to which it is to be affixed. Did this mean that schools that had five or six little projects—because there were a lot of little projects; we are not talking about big money with regards to some of these projects—would get one plaque? No, some schools had five or six plaques.

Our plaque requirements for the Primary Schools for the 21st Century and the science and language centre projects are for these projects only. They are not for the National School Pride projects. The Rudd government’s guidelines are absolutely standard requirements. The only difference between the current guidelines and the guidelines under Investing in Our Schools is that, under the earlier program, schools, as we already know, were required to fund the plaques themselves. I will quote from the Investing in Our Schools Program guidelines for state schools in 2007:

Costs for meeting recognition requirements should be included in the funding application.

As to the accusation from those opposite about money wasting on so-called political advertising I would remind the chamber that budget figures show that in 2007 the Howard government spent—are you ready for it?—$120 million advertising and trying to explain its draconian Work Choices laws. Those same laws, I am very pleased to say, are now dead and buried.

Not only have those opposite carped and complained about the government’s absolutely necessary and highly successful stimulus packages by attacking spending and signage but they have also accused the government of favouring Labor-friendly electorates. This is a bit rich coming from the coalition, which, while in government, oversaw the embarrassing program that has now come to be known as the ‘regional rorts program’. The audit report in November 2007 into this affair probably made the point well enough for me to establish the point again here today. Its analysis revealed:

Ministers were more likely to approve funding for ‘not recommended’ projects that had been submitted by applicants in electorates held by the Liberal and National parties …

This was shameless pork-barelling at its most blantant.

Australia has moved on from those days, thankfully. We are focused on improving the lives of Australians by improving our health and education systems, and by addressing climate change and the lack of infrastructure investment over the past decade.

The job of the economic stimulus is far from finished. Pulling the rug out from under our recovery now would slash the public and business confidence that has been such a crucial part of our stability. This would threaten small businesses, tradespeople, communities and families. It would impact significantly on our school communities; it would impact significantly on our students in schools. The suggestion is that we do not go ahead with building the libraries, the school halls, the gymnasiums, the language centres and the science centres. That is what those opposite are suggesting. We know that, in addition to threatening small businesses, tradespeople and communities and families, added up this would lead to higher unemployment. It would leave businesses in the lurch. We have chartered a responsible course for recovery and the return of the budget to surplus. We believe that now is the time to stand firm in this commitment and stay the course that we know is the right one.

Today in question time, and in some of their comments, those opposite referred to the Australian Electoral Commission and the signs out in front of school buildings. The Australian Electoral Commission media release dated 7 September states:

The AEC is also of the view that there is no current breach of paragraph 340(1)(e) of the Electoral Act in relation to election signs appearing within “6 metres of the entrance to a polling booth”. This is because the prohibition only applies on the actual day of polling in a federal election and that placing the signs on school fences does not result in those signs being within 6 metres of the entrance to a polling booth.

           …         …         …

The AEC considers that the measures announced by the Special Minister of State will address the issues raised about the signs and remove the risk of non-compliance with the Electoral Act.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cormann interjecting—

Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me repeat it for those opposite:

The AEC considers that the measures announced by the Special Minister of State will address the issues raised about the signs and remove the risk of non-compliance with the Electoral Act.

Yet those opposite sit there and continue carping on about it, and then talk about wanting to pull back on the stimulus package, pull back on the buildings in schools—on school halls, on gymnasiums, on language centres, on the infrastructure that is being put in place. I see one senator over there shaking his head, but that is what those opposite are saying—they are saying that is what we should be doing. To do this would impact significantly on the economy, would impact significantly on those school communities that are very much—and I have visited many of them—looking forward to this new infrastructure being built on their school properties and to the students and the local communities having access to up-to-date libraries, state-of-the-art language centres and state-of-the-art science centres. (Time expired)

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

I am quite happy to take up where Senator Wortley left off and read out the pertinent paragraph of the media release from the Australian Electoral Commission, which says:

The AEC has examined the signs for the “Nation Building – Economic Stimulus Plan” and formed the view that they are in breach of the requirements of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 …

That very clearly states it.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s right: in the first paragraph.

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

The first paragraph of the media release from the Australian Electoral Commission very clearly states the position of the AEC. For members of the government to come in here and try and work their way around that fact is quite extraordinary. It is very clear, even to the simplest of readers, that these signs are in breach of the requirements of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.

What we see here is another monumental stuff-up on the part of the Australian government. They have this continuing theme: they rush in; they do not consult; they do not consider the factors pertinent to a particular issue—it is all about spin, it is all about creating an impression and then making excuses when everything falls apart. This has happened time and time again. They make these big, bold statements, these broad commitments and promises to the Australian people—and more often than not, as we have seen on a number of occasions, they do not come to pass. People in northern Tasmania will remember Prime Minister Rudd’s promise to people in that region: not a cent of the funding for the Mersey Hospital would be spent in the south of the state. We know that did not come to pass. We heard during question time today about the promises made to employers and employees about the new workplace regulations and laws. They are obviously not coming to pass. We saw the computers in schools program, where failure to consult with the states saw the states jack up until more money was put in, because the government had not factored in the running costs—another monumental stuff-up, in education.

In their rush for self-promotion, as part of the Building the Education Revolution, the government have again exposed themselves, this time to the electoral laws. You would have thought that someone would have given consideration to the situation that was in front of them. They try to palm this off as a bit of advertising. They talk about what the coalition did. They fail to mention that they said quite clearly that they were bringing in a new regime; they were going to do things differently. Well, they are doing things worse than anyone has done them before.

We have talked about the Commonwealth electoral laws and the press release today from the Australian Electoral Commission. We asked in question time today whether the government had asked of any of the state jurisdictions whether this offended their electoral acts. The government refused to answer that question. But I have actually asked that question of the Tasmanian Electoral Commission. I have received a response that, if these signs are considered to be in breach, the Electoral Commissioner would be seeking to have them covered up or removed on polling day—a similar situation to that which will exist on federal polling day, when that occurs sometime next year. So, not only do the government have to deal with this for federal polling day; they potentially have to deal with it for state polling day. And now that the federal Electoral Commission has found that they are in breach of the act, there is not much doubt that the signs are political advertising—in fact, the government have even admitted that. They are putting 5,000 stickers out there to fix the stuff-up, 5,000 stickers to make these signs comply. It is compounded with respect to the Tasmanian electoral laws because the distance from a polling booth is not six metres, as it is under the federal laws; it is 100 metres. So it is a totally different situation, where a sign is offending if it is within 100 metres of a polling booth, under the electoral laws.

These are not just project signs; the government cannot get out of it like that. They have now admitted that they are electoral signs. I saw enough project signs in my 25 years in the construction industry to know what a project sign looks like. They acknowledge the owners of the property, the architects, the engineers, the builders. Yes, the funders are acknowledged as part of a project sign, but these jobs have both project signs and political advertising on them. That is how they offend the Commonwealth Electoral Act, and potentially the state electoral acts. That is why the government is going to have to go to such expense, having first put the signs up—and we have seen the costings on that: the costs for the 5,000 stickers; the costs of covering the signs up for the state election which will occur in Tasmania in March, and probably for the South Australian election on the same day. And then you have the situation of dealing with them during the federal election.

But it is not only that. I had a look at a document put out by the Tasmanian Electoral Commission, Information for Candidates, which talks about the conditions for political signage in local government regions. These signs potentially offend every set of local council by-laws in Tasmania. I will not go through them all; I do not have time. But I will go through some. In Break O’Day you are allowed to have political signage up for 42 days maximum. Burnie City Council says you can have signage up from the issue of the writs to two weeks after the election. The Clarence City Council says signage can be up no earlier than 60 days prior to polling day and it has to be removed within 14 days. The Dorset Council says signage should be no greater than 1.5 square metres. The Launceston City Council says signage can be up no earlier than two months before an election, with a maximum size of 900 by 1,200 millimetres. The Huon Valley Council says the signage should be no greater than one square metre, as does the Northern Midlands Council, the Meander Valley Council and Brighton Council.

So here we have 29 regions, all around the state, where the signs offend local government regulations. The government have done no consultation and have no respect for the electoral laws, federal, state or local—absolutely no respect. It is all about getting a bit of publicity and promotion. In their rush for self-promotion, they have taken no consideration of the impacts that this might have. That is what they are all about—they want a bit of publicity. They do not care how, who or why they offend; they just want to get the publicity.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. The Labor Party have used taxpayers’ money to fund their blatantly political advertising efforts. The first paragraph, as Senator Colbeck has correctly noted, of the Australian Electoral Commission media release put out today headed ‘National Building—Economic Stimulus Plan school signage’ says:

The AEC has examined the signs for the “Nation Building – Economic Stimulus Plan” and formed the view that they are in breach of the requirements of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 …

They have been caught out and caught short. They have not come in here and apologised to the Senate, to the parliament and to the Australian people. They are using over $7 million of taxpayers’ money. They are spending, firstly, $3.8 million on these signs that they are putting up at the front of schools to promote themselves—no doubt to try and gain an extra Labor vote at the next federal election—and, secondly, $3.5 million on the Hon. Julia Gillard plaques.

Senator Ronaldson and I asked related questions today in the Senate regarding these signs and we have not been given an answer from either responsible minister. I asked Senator Mark Arbib if and when these signs would be removed, and he refused to answer. I asked what steps are going to be taken to ensure that the state electoral laws have not been breached, and he refused to answer. Likewise, Senator Ludwig refused to answer a question from Senator Ronaldson. But they have been caught out. We are very thankful for the work of the Australian Electoral Commission as an independent entity in making it clear that the government stands in breach.

The figures applying to Tasmania are interesting. Out of the over $7 million in funding nationally, it is estimated that nearly $200,000 will be spent on signage in Tasmania. I want to commend Sally Edwards from the Examiner newspaper for the work that she did last week, particularly for her breaking news stories on Thursday and Friday. She cleverly took advice from some key stakeholder groups, the Parents and Friends Association and the Education Union. I want to confirm what they said. The Tasmanian Parents and Friends Association President, Jenny Grossmith, said that this sign spending was a waste. She said it was ‘wasteful spending’. She said: ‘Quite often we see programs that are delivering great outcomes for children that are often pulled because of a lack of funding, so it is always frustrating to hear of things like this.’ Admittedly, she referred to some Howard government funding with respect to flagpoles, but having flagpoles flying the Australian flag at schools is something I am very proud of, and I know everybody on this side of the Senate chamber has the same view. The Australian Education Union Tasmania President, Leanne Wright, said: ‘Signs should not take precedence over supporting students.’ In that regard, she is 100 per cent correct.

So the government has been caught out. This morning I called the Tasmanian Electoral Commissioner, Bruce Taylor, and definitely confirmed the views that Senator Colbeck referred to just a short time ago. He said that he is seeking legal advice from the Tasmanian Solicitor-General with respect to the exact position applying in Tasmania. Of course, we have an election on 20 March 2010. That is when it is scheduled for; that is the time that people are preparing for. It will be very interesting to see what that advice is. I have no doubt it will be similar to that of the Australian Electoral Commission, noting that it would be most unusual for these two entities to disagree. We know that the Commonwealth stands in breach at the moment.

But all this is on top of the shocking waste of money. The education revolution blow-out has hit $1.5 billion. Christopher Pyne has been, correctly, prosecuting a case and we know the Auditor-General is inquiring into these matters, but I think even more can be done. The Senate can and should do this because of the shocking waste of taxpayers’ money to date. The examples go on and on.

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Discussion on this matter has concluded.