Senate votes to release costings

The Senate this morning passed a motion calling on the Gillard government to release by 23 November this year all the school specific project cost data for the "school halls" (P21, or Primary Schools for the 21^st Century) component of the Building the Education Revolution (BER) program.

"This is yet another call on the government to stop the cover-up and come clean with the facts about the waste of billions of taxpayers' money connected with this program," said Senator Mason.

Everyone in Australia knows by now that state schools in general did not get the same value for money from their projects as Catholic and Independent schools. The evidence is overwhelming, and has been supported by every federal and state inquiry held so far into the 'school halls' program.

"Yet the Gillard government continues to hide and obfuscate. If Ms Gillard really believes that every school in Australia received good value for money on their project, what does she have to hide?"

"After the defeat of the Bill to create a Judicial Inquiry into the BER in the House of Representatives, the Coalition is going about building a case to convince crossbench members and the Greens that a judicial inquiry is needed, and this is the first step," said Christopher Pyne.

"Julia Gillard accepted all the recommendations of Brad Orgill's interim report into the Building the Education Revolution in early August - but so far, almost three and a half months on, nothing has happened," said Senator Mason.

"If the Government delivers anything less than the full costing data, as recommended by their own investigative taskforce, then it will be proof they have something to hide," Mr Pyne said.

November 18, 2010

MEDIA CONTACT:

Mr Pyne's office, Adam Howard 0400 414 833

Senator Mason's office, Arthur Chrenkoff (07) 3422 1990