School Hall rip-off delayed

"The school hall rip-off, supposedly an injection shot to stimulate the economy, is now going to take as long as World War I to end," Christopher Pyne, Shadow Minister for Education said today.

Labor's big spending, big taxing federal Budget shows that the schools stimulus will now run for four years. This is truly another indictment on the Government's ability to manage a program and deliver on what they have promised.

Billions of borrowed dollars have been blown in the roll out; the program has been beset with scandalous examples of rorting, price gouging, waste and mismanagement.

A recent audit report found that just 18 per cent of projects had actually broken ground on time so it is no surprise that it is impossible for the Government to deliver on their promise of a new building for every primary school in Australia in three years.

This delay does present an opportunity for the Minister for Education. If this Government genuinely believed in ensuring value for money for schools, rather than just covering themselves, they could initiate a full judicial inquiry into the program, to stamp out the waste and ensure genuine value for schools.

If elected this year a Coalition Government will immediately launch a judicial inquiry into the school hall rip-off and redirect money directly to schools.

"This is a Government that says 'trust me' over the next three years to deliver a surplus, but their record shows they can't be trusted to deliver on time, or on budget," Mr Pyne said..

May 18, 2010

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