BER bungles blow out by $1.5 billion

The Government's $42 billion debt and deficit package has had to be reshuffled to cater for a $1.5 billion blow-out in Julia Gillard's controversial Primary School building debacle - which is currently under investigation by the Auditor General, according to Shadow Education Minister Christopher Pyne.

"The schools stimulus debacle has been a cause of complaint and criticism from the start," said Mr Pyne.

"Months of reports of skimming by state governments, profiteering, duplication of existing facilities, and local tradies in country areas missing out in favour of government preferred tenderers from the city, and other waste and mismanagement have led to the Auditor General putting this program under investigation.

"Today the Government has confirmed the incredible waste occurring in this program by pumping in an extra $1.5 billion to prop it up.

"If the Government had stopped the waste and mismanagement, stopped the profiteering and stopped the state skimming, we would not have seen this humiliating blowout being announced today.

According to the Coordinator General's report "The original costing was based on 2007 schools and school enrolment data and assumed a 90 per cent utilisation rate of total potential funding. The utilisation of funding has been higher than originally anticipated."

"This is typical of this Government, and in particular Minister Gillard, who clearly has too much on her plate," said Mr Pyne.

"There has been a stream of cost blowouts and program failure in the Education Department, including the blow-out in Computers in Schools ($800 million to $2.2 billion), Trades Training Centres (from one for every secondary school, to one for every tenth secondary school) and yesterday's humiliating backflip over Youth Allowance.

"The Departmental Guidelines under which this program is run have also been significantly reshaped, in a concession to the problems that have been raised by the opposition, by schools and by local communities. Up until now the Minister was adamant that there was no problem.

"It is now time for the Prime Minister to recognise that Australia deserves a full time Education Minister who is able to get across the detail of their portfolio.

August 27, 2009

Media contact: Adam Howard 0400 414 833