4BC

SUBJECTS: Computers in schools programme; Government debt

E&OE………

Gary Hardgrave: You might end up with this problem if you’re Education Minister in 12 months.

Christopher Pyne: Well, Gary you’re absolutely right. The rort in the laptops in schools programme that hasn’t been exposed until recently is the Government secretly surveyed the number of existing computers in schools that were less than four years old and included them in their total target so some of these 300,000 computers could have been purchased in 2004; they’re now eight years old and the Government is trying to take credit for them and as John Paul-Langbroek your Education Minister in Queensland has said today the State Government in Queensland had to kick in $45 million in just the last three years to make up for the shortfall in the Commonwealth funding of keeping these laptops going.

Hardgrave: We’re getting complaints from everyday Queenslanders Christopher Pyne. Mums and Dads saying “I thought my child was going to get this. I voted for Kevin Rudd because I thought my child was going to get a computer. He didn’t get it.”

Pyne: No, he waived a laptop computer around as if it was the tall box of the 21st century, but the Government has seriously sold parents short right across the country, but also in Queensland and of course state governments have been expected to pick up the tab. In the budget about six weeks ago the Government announced they were going to stop funding any upgrades of software or connections for the next three years in the forward estimates leaving the state government hundreds of millions of dollars, $600 million short in spending on the laptops programme. So it’s been a complete shambles and the so called revolution has turned into a nightmare for parents in government schools and non-government schools across the country.

Hardgrave: There’s been lots of reports today; Victoria says its $265 million short, Queensland’s already kicked in $45 million, heaven knows what they’re expected to do over the coming years. Canberra has to pay $81 million over the four years in the ACT alone. The numbers just keep going up and up and up. There’s a lot of money caught up in making up for the failure of this policy.

Pyne: The waste just keeps growing and growing, Gary and I think the Australian public are well aware they’ve been sold out when it comes to the laptops programme. As you said it’s already blown out to $2.5 billion. It was supposed to cost $1 billion. The Government has wasted an extra $1.4 billion and in many schools in my electorate and across the country they’ve still got laptops sitting in cardboard boxes because they don’t have the facilities or the setup requirements necessary to get these laptops online. The students are very much the poorer because of the expectation built up, but no delivered.

Hardgrave: Peter Garrett, your counterpart in the Gillard Government says the programme has been delivered on time and within budget. I mean, come on, heavens above you’ve got to come up with some new rhetoric and 957,805 computers were purchased nationally, but you’re saying some of them are still in boxes.

Pyne: Some of them are still in boxes and many of them, especially the ones purchased in 2004 the Government is including in their figures, will simply end up as paperweights for schools because they simply won’t be able to use them. If they do use them, they won’t be able to connect to the latest technology and what the Government should have spent that $2.4 billion on is teacher quality, on a better curriculum, on principal autonomy and looking after kids with disabilities in both the government and non-government schools, which they’re still not doing properly.

Hardgrave: Ok, So that’s another way of spending the money. Bottom line here is this is going to be, hate the visuals but it’s going to be a festering sore. If in twelve months time there is an election and as the polls suggest, Tony Abbott becomes Prime Minister, fair chance you’ll be Education Minister, this is going beyond your desk.

Pyne: Well Gary we never supported the laptops in schools programme, because many teachers told us, many educators said to us, if we have that kind of money we would have rather spent it on teacher quality, on a better curriculum, on principal autonomy, on kids with disabilities, we don’t want to spend it on laptops. Many teachers said what we need is the teachers to have the laptops, not the students. For many of the students it’s a distraction, many of the students of course, they use their laptops but they don’t actually learn the skills necessary that we want them to have when they leave school, in maths, in science and in basic English.

Hardgrave: So where are we at though Christopher Pyne because here in Queensland, the Newman Government has found after Peter Costello completely ordered $100 billion in forward estimates that’s the kind of protected government expenditure that s got to be cut $100 billion over the next four years. Heaven hell what it’s going to be like in the Federal arena?

Pyne: Well I think State Governments around Australia will start jacking up with the extra spending they have been saddled with by the federal Government quick exciting plan to have laptops on every desk across Australia and they will simply say we are not going to fund that program we can’t afford to fund it we have other priorities of our own and the laptops will simply fade into the ether, because no Government will be able to afford either the up keep, or the purchase of new laptops. If the Government genuinely believed that these are the most important tool in the school, then they would re commit to that programme over the next four years. But I bet they won’t.

Hardgrave: (inaudible) I understand that they have increased the borrowing tab now to something in the order of $300 billion.

Pyne: $300 billion, $300 billion dollars.

Hardgrave: I was part of a Government that helped pay with the struggling tax payer meeting the costs of paying off $93 billion.

Pyne: Yes, that’s right. Where we are going to end up of course is that the Government, a future coalition government won’t have the resources for the laptops in school programme and we won’t be bound by previous governments bad decisions, somebody will have to bite the bullet and say enough is enough. I mean this is the most ludicrous part about what you’ve mentioned; they have increased the credit card to $300 billion dollars at the same time that they are saying they are going to deliver a surplus budget. Well the delivery of a surplus budget means you’ve got more money than you’re spending, which clearly isn’t true, why would you need to increase the credit car by $50 billion dollars.

Hardgrave: Yea I know, a lot of people are going broke in their own private world. Here is feedback from a listener (inaudible). The education revolutions are revolting; it’s costing parents buckets of money for the propriety software to run on the computers. (inaudible)

Pyne: Well this was supposed to be a free programme and parents in Queensland in particular were asked by the previous Bligh Government to front up with cash to keep those laptops going, actually to et them started. So the whole thing has been in shambles since the beginning and Peter Garrett has nothing to say about it of any significance that will help parents.

Hardgrave: Either way, the whole thing is a mess, nice to talk to you always.

ENDS