Transcript - Doorstop Interview - 25 July 2009
29 Jul 2009
Transcipt SUBJECTS: Auditor General begins full performance audit of schools stimulus package
Journalist:
The Auditor General is looking into what you describe as waste and mismanagement in relation to education funding what do you make of that?
Christopher Pyne MP:
This is a very significant announcement by the Auditor General yesterday. I note that at six o'clock last night the Deputy Prime Minister released this letter, but what they've announced is a full audit into the Building the Education Revolution, the Primary Schools component of the spending, which we call the schools stimulus debacle. The Opposition for months has been calling for the Auditor General to inquire into the Building the Education Revolution, we've been receiving a tremendous number for complaints from principals, governing council chairs, businesses and others about the waste and mismanagement and the lack of value for money taxpayers are getting in this schools stimulus spend. So we've asked the Auditor General to put some parameters down as to how the Government should spend this money. The Government has tried to stop that from happening, all through the process they have not asked the auditor general to step in. The Auditor General of his own volition has decided to have a full audit, he made some preliminary inquiries with the department of education, he thinks they have a case to answer in terms of waste and mismanagement, in terms of the need for a full audit, so that's what happened. We welcome it of course because it means that taxpayers might get the chance to have value for money with this $14.7 billion taxpayer spend on schools.
Journalist:
You're saying there is a case to answers... Are you confident that that will be brought out by the investigation...?
Pyne:
The Auditor General has a tremendous amount on his plate right now, so the fact that he has asked the preliminary questions, seen answers that he is obviously not entirely satisfied with and has begun a full audit. This is the first full audit of the most significant Government program since the Rudd Government was elected, that's how significant it is, Julia Gillard has been presiding over a shambles and unfortunately the Auditor General agrees with the Opposition that there needs to be an audit. If only we had done this months ago, we might have been able to save a great deal of money. The other question that this raises is whether the Government should slow down the spend, the rush to spend taxpayers money on the schools stimulus debacle, whether they should slow that down in order to waste a lot less money into the future. Wait for the Auditor General to hand down his inquiry, to set the parameters for the spending, that would seem sensible to me, if the Deputy Prime Minister wanted to accept that call, she could right now ask her department to slow down the spend until the auditor general has completed his inquiry.
Journalist:
Could the Auditor General put that himself to her?
Pyne:
Well he could, but that would be a matter for the Deputy Prime Minister and the Government, his inquiry will continue regardless, it will go on, quite apart from what the Government is doing. A sensible Minister would recognise that the Auditor General thinks this is serious enough for a full audit. A sensible Minister would ask her department to slow down the process so they could get it right, rather than get it rushed.
Journalist:
How much money do you say has been wasted from the beginning to this point?
Pyne:
The whole of the Building the Education Revolution they announced was $14.7 billion. We're hearing stories from businesses that their prices are being inflated by up to 30%, we've seen examples of quotations where the local quotation was for $250,000 for work, but the $800,000 central quotation was accepted, so we're seeing tremendous amounts of waste. We haven't been able to put a figure on it, the Auditor General will hopefully have more of a chance to drill down into the work of state departments and federal departments and make sure the parameters are there for us not to waste money, but it must be many many hundreds of millions of dollars that could be better spent, if the Government was prepared to slow down the process and put in place the right parameters for such a huge spend of taxpayers money.
Journalist:
This must be like a free kick for the Liberal Party, as it is effectively backing what you've been... complaining about for some time...
Pyne:
...We have been raising these concerns as have governing council chairs, as have school principals, as have businesses and commentators in the education sector. It has fallen on the deaf ears of the Minister and the Prime Minister, they have been prepared to keep saying, no everything is fine. The Opposition welcomes the fact that there will be a full audit, because it might mean we can actually get some fiscal rigour into the way they are spending our money, taxpayers money, we welcome that, but I'm disappointed it has come to this.
Journalist:
Will you be prepared to put up of shut up if the Auditor General (inaudible) findings don't bear out the results?
Pyne:
I'll be asking all my colleagues to send all of the information they have from schools, governing council chairs and others to the Auditor General so he can get a full picture. Of course whatever the Auditor General's recommendations are, we await them with interest.