All states must come clean on BER fees and costing
29 Apr 2010
Media release All state and territory governments across Australia should release Building the Education Revolution costings and management fees for public scrutiny, Christopher Pyne, Shadow Minister for Education said today.
"New South Wales has publically released costings and management fees showing charges in excess of 20%, well above the 4% cap supposedly insisted upon by the Minister for Education in the BER guidelines," Mr Pyne said.
"Yesterday the Queensland Government finally admitted there were examples of 12% management payments being paid to contractors, double what they had previously claimed," he said.
In the interests of transparency and accountability I call on all states and territories to make their costing and fees publically available, because the Minister, Julia Gillard either knows and isn't saying, or simply doesn't care.
This program has been allowed to degenerate into a national disgrace while the Minister has become the 'Harriet Houdini' of Australian politics - able to magically escape responsibility for the numerous education bungles on her watch. If the Minister isn't watching out for taxpayers' interests in the government then who is?
April 29, 2010
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