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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-10-29 Daily Xml
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BUILDING THE EDUCATION REVOLUTION

Mr PISONI (Unley) (14:18): My question is for the Minister for Education. Can the minister clarify the situation with regard to BER funding for DECS schools with multiple campuses and whether decisions to fund them as a single entity for the purposes of the BER were made by the state or federal education minister?

In response to a question from the governing council of Eastern Fleurieu School, which is a multicampus DECS school which will be funded under the BER as a single entity, the minister advised:

Despite representations made by the department, the multi-campus Eastern Fleurieu School is classified by the Commonwealth as one school. It is therefore only qualified for one set of grants under the Commonwealth's Building the Education Revolution program.

Yet, when the federal member for Mayo, Mr Jamie Briggs, sought clarification from the federal education minister on the school's behalf, he was told by the federal education minister:

In the case of government schools, it is the relevant state or territory education department that provided advice to my department as to which schools are separate school identities and which schools are multi-campus ones.

So who knows their stuff? The minister or Ms Gillard?

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Unley will take his seat.

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH (Adelaide—Minister for Education, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for Tourism, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (14:19): Let us just put this in context. This is the $14.9 billion investment in school buildings that they opposed. This is the $14.9 billion investment in Australian schools—

Mr PISONI: Point of order!

The SPEAKER: Point of order, member for Unley.

Mr PISONI: This is about who knows their stuff. Is it the federal minister or the state minister who is right? Who is wrong here?

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Unley will take his seat.

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH: If members recall, the federal Liberal Party voted against spending $14.9 billion in Australian schools. As they voted against that $14.9 billion, they were also opposed to the $1 billion being spent in South Australia. So here we have an opposition that does not want the money spent on our schools and that is now complaining about—

Mr PISONI: Point of order, Mr Speaker. The minister is not answering the question. We have a situation where we have very detailed answers—

The SPEAKER: Order! The member—

Mr PISONI: —from government ministers to government backbenchers—

The SPEAKER: —for Unley will take his seat.

Mr PISONI: —and no answers to—

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Unley will take his seat. The minister must not debate the question.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: I rise on a point of order. Again I point out that the member for Unley, in his usual fashion, ended his question with a quite improper political message.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Sorry; what's your problem, member for Unley? I've got to say—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister will take his seat.

An honourable member interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Unley did do that, but I ask the minister not to compound the offence by imitating the member for Unley's bad behaviour. The minister for education.

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH: I thank the Speaker for his timely warning; I would not like to behave like the member for Unley. The BER funding package was a $14.9 billion investment in schools across the whole of Australia, and South Australia benefited to the tune of about $1 billion. This is a huge investment not just in every public school but in every private school in our state, and the amount of money going into these communities was spread across not just the metropolitan area but across regional areas as well.

The inference from the member for Unley is extraordinary, because he is suggesting that the state government, in supporting the bids by our schools for the fund that the opposition opposed (I just want to remind members of that), supporting the bids against that $1 billion investment in South Australia, that we should not tell the truth. It would be his assertion that we should say that these schools were not, in fact, treated as one school; they were treated as multiple schools. It may be the way he would behave in dealing with the commonwealth; I have to say that that is not the way our government operates.

This government has behaved in an exemplary manner, and that is why our school funding support for the BER has been so extensive.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Bragg!

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH: The leadership we have shown both in making sure that we could get these projects in on time and within budget has been enormous. We have really—

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Bragg!

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH: We have shepherded the whole system through the planning process with local government and given communities what they want. It is a pity that we could not get more money than we did, but if it had been left to the opposition we would have had nothing. This is a far better investment.

Mr PISONI: I have a point of order. I asked whether it is a state or federal decision about whether schools are multi or single campus, and how the allocations for BER are determined, and the minister will not answer the question. You have government backbenchers—

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Unley will take his seat. The member for Unley shouldn't try my patience today. The Minister for Education.

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH: It is quite apparent that there were rules set down by the federal government about how that money was distributed, and the Rann government in South Australia applied the rules along the lines that were set down.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH: We notified the federal government of all the locations of the schools, we notified it of the enrolment numbers, we notified it about whether they were area schools or primary schools or secondary schools. We had all the data available about the requirements in terms of buildings, and we told the truth. I really reject the notion from the opposition that we would want to tell the commonwealth anything but the truth. When the federal government asked if a school was one school for the purposes of our funding or multiple schools, however many sites, we told the truth. I would like to know if the member for Unley would like to fudge the matter and tell something other than we would, but this government does not operate in that way.

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister is now debating the question.

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