Education cuts due to waste and mismanagement
25 Nov 2011
Media release Schools Minister, Peter Garrett has been forced to cut Labor’s teacher bonus scheme to try and pay spiralling Government debt - in part due to the blow-outs in the education portfolio, said Christopher Pyne, Shadow Minister for Education today.
“On the Government’s own figures there has been a $3.1 billion blow-out in the education portfolio since 2008,” Mr Pyne said.
“This is an extraordinary sum of money which could have paid the salaries of over 44,000 teachers, or funded the teacher bonus scheme for decades,” he said.
“$3.1 billion could have built around 100 new schools, or paid for thousands of hours of teacher training.
“Instead it was wasted paying for programmes that were also bungled in delivery.
“The school hall programme blew out by $1.7 billion, but billions were also wasted in management fees, rorts, rip-offs and state skimming resulting in an appalling lack of value for money.
“The computers in schools programme blew out by $1.4 billion, but there are still hundreds of thousands of computers left to be delivered for the Government to meet the December 2011 deadline.
“If the Government had any capacity to manage money and roll out programmes, then perhaps they wouldn’t be in this diabolical economic mess,” Mr Pyne said.
November 25, 2011
Media Contact:
Adam Howard
0400 414 833