Senator MASON (10:28 AM) —In her speech on the opening of parliament, Her Excellency the Governor-General said:

Putting aside for a second the fact that what was supposed to be at the heart of the Labor Party’s agenda was in fact forgotten in the naming of their ministry following the last election, this concentration on education—the so-called education revolution—echos what Mr Blair and New Labour were doing 15 years ago and, indeed, there are echos going back to President Johnson and the ‘Great Society’ in the 1960s. It is quite common in the social democratic project to have education at the core.

The question really is: how has the government gone over the last three years with its—to use its words—‘core project’? How has the government performed? Senators might remember it all started with Mr Rudd and the laptop computers. Do you remember that, Mr Acting Deputy President? He stood up one day—it looked great on television—and said, holding a laptop computer, ‘This is the toolbox of the 21st century.’ It was great TV graphics. He said there would be a computer for every student from year 9 to year 12. He sort of said that, but then he spoke about access to a computer. Indeed, we wondered what the promise meant. But in the end, the government came to the party and said, ‘All right, we’ll provide a million computers so that every student gets one.’ There is a ratio of one to one—one computer for every student. What happened on this first part of the core project? The Commonwealth underbudgeted by about $2 billion. Far worse than that, it was only talking about the capital cost of the hardware—the computers. What about the installation, the maintenance, the insurance, the licensing and the software; who is going to pay for that? Guess who had to pay? State governments, private schools and parents ended up paying billions because the federal government had not thought about that—it did not look cool on TV—and in fact it cost four times as much as the hardware. For every dollar you spend on hardware, you need to spend about another $4 on other costs. So state governments, nongovernment schools and parents had to come up with somewhere between $2 billion and $4 billion to cover the so-called ‘laptop computer oncosts’. This was right at the start of the Building the Education Revolution.

How is the implementation going? As of last October 2010—the last estimates—out of one million computers promised, how many had been delivered? Only 345,000. I can accurately say, 34.5 per cent, about one-third, had actually been delivered. At this rate of delivery, even on the government’s own figures—and laptop computers become redundant after four years—given only one-third have been delivered after three, they will become redundant before they are delivered. This is a fiasco. It has received a lot of airplay but this was, in a sense, a principal commitment in the core objective of this government.

The other important aspect of laptop computers was not just the provision and delivery of them, it was also the internet connection. The other part of the promise that Mr Rudd made was to connect all laptop computers to fibre internet with speeds of up to 100 megabytes a second. Remember, that was the promise from 2007. So let me ask: how many laptop computers have been connected by the Commonwealth to fibre? Pick any number between zero and one million. The answer is none—zero, or as Mr Rudd would have said, zip. None has been connected by the Commonwealth government to 100 megabytes per second broadband, not one. But I am told at every estimates meeting not to worry. ‘Don’t worry, Senator Mason, because Senator Conroy has it under control. When the NBN gets going everything will be OK and all the computers’—even if they are redundant—‘will be attached to fast-speed broadband.’ By the time the NBN rolls out, the students who are promised fast fibre connection will be as old as me. It has taken a long, long time.

You know how generous I am—very generous. In my former life as a university lecturer, I commonly gave out marks to students and I was always very generous and well known to be generous. So I will give a scorecard on the first part of the education revolution. In terms of the laptops I have decided, after a lot of reflection, to give the government a fail mark—sorry, and that is being generous.

The next part of the education revolution was building school halls. Part of this was to provide stimulus to the economy, to answer the global financial crisis, and also because apparently new school halls meant better educational outcomes. We have never heard much about new school halls leading to better educational outcomes. That link has never been made conclusively. Putting that aside for the moment—as you know I am generous—we know that the building school halls project cost about $16 billion. It is the largest infrastructure project in our history.

The question really is: how could you spend $16 billion and have so many people unhappy? How could a government do that? There are several reasons. The first one is the lack of flexibility. These infamous design templates, which have a whiff of central planning, which I know my friend Senator Carr loves—the whiff of Stalinism; this soviet-era planning that he loves. Schools that wanted gymnasiums got libraries and schools that wanted libraries got gymnasiums. It was a shambles. The templates did not work.

Far more fundamentally, as the Commonwealth Auditor-General said, the problem with the entire project was this: the Commonwealth government did not have the technical expertise to adequately oversight state expenditure of Commonwealth money on schools. That is the heart of the problem—the Commonwealth government did not know whether they were getting good value for money or not. That, in a sentence, is the problem with the entire school halls project.

Senator Jacinta Collins —But what did Mr Orgill say about this?

Senator MASON —Let me get to Mr Orgill in a minute. That, fundamentally, is the problem—the government did not have the requisite nous, the requisite flexibility or the requisite expertise to ensure that Commonwealth taxpayers’ money was being well spent by state governments. The Auditor-General has said that. This has implications right across so-called cooperative federalism. It has enormous implications, not just in education but in health and elsewhere. This is an enormous administrative failure.

Let us look at the cost of school buildings built by state governments compared with nongovernment schools. We now know that costs have been inflated by price gouging and mismanagement, and that of course has cost billions. The building program is way behind, particularly in Victoria. We were told we had to wait because the market was overheating in Victoria, and now of course it has become inflationary. I always thought that stimulus projects were supposed to be timely, targeted and temporary. Remember that? That was the original test set by the government. Again, even on their own terms, they have failed.

The government dragged out poor old Mr Orgill, and what did he find in his first report? On page 22, schematic 4, we find that New South Wales government school projects cost $3,477 per square metre. For New South Wales Catholic schools the cost was $2,724 per square metre, and for New South Wales independent schools the cost was $2,148. The cost in New South Wales government schools is more than 60 per cent more per square metre than in New South Wales nongovernment schools. The independent schools are more than $1,300 a square metre cheaper. There is the same pattern in Victoria—government schools $2,850 per square metre; independent schools $1,841. That is a difference of $1,009 per square metre. In Queensland, government schools cost $2,743 per square metre; independent schools $1,736—a difference of $1,007 per square metre. The government is building schools in both Queensland and Victoria that are 50 per cent more expensive per square metre than independent schools, and more than 60 per cent more expensive than independent schools in New South Wales. That is a disgrace.

Mr Orgill, in his own report, said it was not just about cost per square metre; it was about quality and timeliness. Even though the New South Wales government and some of its bureaucrats tried to say that the quality in the Catholic and independent schools was not as good, Mr Orgill found that the quality across all sectors was very similar—the same. So quality is not a relevant differentiating factor. The only factor is time. It is true that in New South Wales the average state government project took 500 days to build while in the independent sector it took 600 days. It took 20 per cent more time to build independent school projects—about 100 days more, or three months—but cost 60 per cent more. In Victoria, the government school projects cost 50 per cent more than in independent schools and they were slower to build than in the independent sector. In Queensland, the independent school projects were completed faster and were much cheaper to build. So timeliness does not even get Mr Orgill and the government off the hook.

The bottom line for about 70 per cent of the schools in Australia—the government schools in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland—is absolutely disgraceful. How much did it cost? If those government school projects had been delivered at the cost delivered for independent schools, we would have saved the taxpayer, the community, about $2.6 billion. If they had been built at the same cost as Catholic school projects, the savings would have been about $1.8 million. I understand we are about to have a flood levy, and it is hoped to raise about $1.8 billion. If the government had secured the value for money that the Catholic and independent schools received from their school hall projects, there would be no need for this levy. The government did not have the oversight mechanisms in place to ensure that state governments secured value for money for their building projects, and that is an absolute disgrace. They knew about it, they were told about it, they were warned about it, but what did they do? Nothing. And, now we have spent about 75 per cent of the money, it is too late to secure value for money for these projects. It is an absolute and utter disgrace.

The other day poor old Mr Orgill had to fend me off in a committee meeting. He was uncomfortable, and I do not blame him—it is not his fault. It is the government’s fault, not Mr Orgill’s. I may have given the government a conceded pass on the building school halls program, but I have lost my generosity when I think that this crowd is about to impose a flood levy on the people of Australia that would not have been necessary if they had secured value for money for state school projects. They do not deserve any generosity in any way at all. All I can do is give the government a big F for fail there as well. It is absolutely disgraceful. It is perhaps the great-est financial mismanagement in the post-war era—and that is saying a lot. It has cost this country billions.

Let me go to the national curriculum—and I wish I had 50 minutes to speak and not just 20. Education is supposed to be the Prime Minister’s strong point, but everything she touches turns to sand. The national curriculum is not a bad idea. The government did well initiating it, and I accept that. It is a good idea because it can raise standards. It can mean world’s best practice. It can mean international benchmarking. I am not against the principle. But what has happened? It has been hijacked by the ideologues, and we have these overarching themes: Asia, sustainability and indigeneity. They are the three overarching themes in our national curriculum. Mr Acting Deputy President Hutchins, you might ask why we don’t have an overarching theme about the importance of liberal democratic institutions. I would have thought that was an important overarching theme. What about the impact of Judaeo-Christian ethics on our life here in Australia? I would have thought that was an important overarching theme. What about the role of science and technology in the material progress of mankind? I would have thought that was an important overarching theme, but apparently not as important as Asia or sustainability or indigeneity. It shows just how out of touch I am, obviously, to possibly believe that the importance of liberal democratic institutions might trump even that. How wrong I am.

The trendies have got involved and the ideologues have got involved, and what has happened? Support for the national curriculum has started to fall. Some states now do not want to introduce it. I know that New South Wales always thought that they had the best system. People like former Premier Bob Carr, who was very strong on education, are concerned that the national curriculum will mean lower standards in New South Wales. I was going to give a pass mark on the national curriculum, but I am not sure I can. I am not sure we should be adopting it. Mr Pyne certainly is not sure we should be adopting it. It seems it is not a good idea—certainly based on its implementation.

The government talks about vocational education and training. Remember the trade training centres? Remember all that? They promised one for each school. With 2,700 schools, there should be 2,700 trade training centres—potentially with some clusters. After three years, how many are up and running? Does anyone want to have a guess? Of the 2,700 that were supposed to be created, how many trade training centres are up and running? After three years, 48 are up and running. We were promised 2,700—another implementation process in shambles. That is the problem.

Senator Jacinta Collins —That is not what the Auditor-General said.

Senator MASON —Oh, yes, it is an absolute shambles. We have 48 out of 2,700. I do not have time to touch on higher education, but in conclusion let me say this: laptops were a failure in the cost of implementation and internet connection. The Orgill report highlights the gross failure and outright gouging of expenditure in state schools that is costing this country literally billions of dollars. In vocational education and training, 48 out of 2,700 schools have one of those trade training centres. This government has failed in what is supposed to be its core business.