Transcript - 5AA - Morning - 17 September 2009

SUBJECTS: BER funding wastes; BER money going to closing schools

Leon BYNER:

I'll be talking to Julia Gillard about this this morning and I will be fascinated, as I'm sure you will be, to hear her explanation for this...but now I have Christopher Pyne, you're the Federal Education Spokesperson on the Opposition's side, what do you see is the problem here? I noted that The Australian newspaper has come up with a litany of examples where monies have been spent, we've even had callers today ringing our Breakfast Program telling us that, you know, it's good that we're spending money on education, fantastic, but surely you don't want to spend it in areas where ultimately in a very short passage of time, the school won't exist?

Christopher PYNE:

Well the problem, Leon, is that the Minister doesn't understand the value of taxpayers' money and her responses to us in Question Time is always the same, which is, 'so you're against spending money?', and in fact we're not against spending money on important infrastructure but we against wasting taxpayers' money and we are in favour of value for taxpayers' money and we are in favour of value for taxpayer's money we have uncovered examples of classrooms costing $850,000 for one classroom.

BYNER:

Well how does that work? You can build a mansion for that and pay for the land.

PYNE:

This is in Jerilderie and Susan Ley, who is the Member for Farrer, pointed out you could buy a four bedroom house with a swimming pool on 2,900 square metres of land for $315,000 in Jerilderie but the Department told them that would cost at least $850,000 for one classroom! Not even a multipurpose classroom. What's actually happened of course, is that Julia Gillard has been so determined to push firstly $14 billion and now we know it's blown out to $16.2 billion so there's been a $1.7 billion dollar blowout in the program, which Julia Gillard described as a 'bump in the road', and I said it was the sort of bump in the road that would shake your teeth out, she is so determined to push this money out quickly that the usual controls over spending have not been put in place. So, business is increasing their quotes, State Governments are skimming the money, some project managers are being paid $565,000 for six month's work to deliver 10 projects in Queensland, and the Minister's response to all this is that it's the States and Territories and the block grant authorities like the Catholic Schools or whatever...it's their responsibility. But I noticed the display signs outside primary schools don't mention any of those groups, they only mention the Australian Government as having been responsible so...Julia Gillard can't have it both ways, she can't get the credit but also try and push the blame off to others when things go wrong!

BYNER:

Well, Julia Gillard will be on the program in 10 minute's time, this morning. I see this is pretty serious stuff and I can understand that every Australian would applaud education infrastructure spending but in a situation like this where people are bumping up their prices, and the other thing I was told was that you've got the issue of you've got...you've got the Department of Infrastructure and Education skimming off administering fees for spending the money and then their decisions to spend appear to be less than wise, so one wonders what we're getting for our money, but then there's the other issue where we've got spending in infrastructure where the schools won't be there in anything up to two to seven or nine months.

PYNE:

Well that's true, there are schools in South Australia that have been granted money that are about to become super schools, in which case they will be closing down. Now, Julia Gillard says that this spending will be moved but some of this spending is on running tracks and toilet blocks. Now how are you going to move the toilet blocks or the running tracks? Julia Gillard will say that the Opposition keeps getting all these examples wrong. Can I just make the point that Julia Gillard, when she investigates the concerns we raise, goes back to the very people who are the source of the problems, so rather than speaking to the principals or to the governing council chairman or women and asking them about what the concern is, she goes to the New South Wales Department of Education or the Queensland Department of Education who are of course the source of the problem in the first place!

BYNER:

Now, John Hepworth who is part of a governing council of a school that's in receipt of the stimulus money, he rang me this morning to tell me that the Blocks Grants Commission that administers the money for private and non State schools, that virtually all of that money goes straight through to the school whereas if it's a State project, it gets skimmed off the top. Is that your understanding?

PYNE:

Absolutely. I mean, there's two fundamental points that John Hepworth would have made and one is that the private schools actually get to spend the money on what they want to spend it on and the public schools, the principals and the governing councils are told by the State Department, this is what you will spend it on. And that's why we're seeing schools with libraries being told they have to have a second library and schools with halls being told they have to have a second hall in the public system, which is outrageous! That the private system is allowed to build the things they want to build but if you're in a public school and it's about 67% of the students in Australia, you are told what you will have and this is why a number of school communities are rebelling against this and saying, no we won't take the money because what we're getting is not what we want or what we need.

(ends)