Transcript - ABC 936 - 29 June 2011

SUBJECTS: Tasmanian School Closures

Leon Compton: Christopher Pyne, good morning to you.

Christopher Pyne: Good morning.

Compton: I think you were just on hold while Wayne Swan was there talking about the BER answers and what the implications might be for recently funded school halls. Were you in Government would you be demanding that the state returns funding for schools slated for closure having just received BER funding.

Pyne: Well, what surprised me about Wayne Swan's answers was that he seemed to me that he didn't even know there were 20 schools being closed in Tasmania and that $13.5 million of federal taxpayers' money had been spent on them on BER projects. It seemed it was news to him when you asked him the question which surprised me. It's the biggest issue running in Tasmania right now and obviously I'm here to see first hand how federal taxpayers' money is being used. I'm going to Collinsvale this morning as you mentioned where 250,000 dollars was spent and if we were in Government there's no doubt at all that we would demand the money back from the Tasmanian State Government and as a consequence it would make their cost cutting measures much less efficacious for them and hopefully keep the schools open.

Compton: Your policies in part are the reason for the flight out of the state system while you were in Government and into of course these newer and smaller private schools that have been set up under the Howard years. Is the answer to the problems going on at the moment in fact greater investment in the state school system?

Pyne: Well, I think it's a very long bow to suggest that somehow the Howard Government is responsible for less students being in state schools.

Compton: I don't think that's a long bow at all. I mean, you invested heavily in smaller independent schools and their capacity to set up and they have done so. Parents are voting with their feet, but it's causing implications for the state school system.

Pyne: I don't subscribe to the them and us attitude towards state and non-state schools. I think all schools should be supported and built up including government schools. We have a very good Government school system. The issue we're dealing with today is whether 20 Tasmania schools which have been operating effectively in their communities, in some cases for 150 years according to Dick Adams should be facing the axe because of financial mismanagement of the state Labor-Greens government. That's the issue today.

Compton: What can you do at a federal level and particularly from Opposition about changing this state governments mind on these issues?

Pyne: Well, I intend to put maximum pressure on the state Labor Government and the Greens Education Minister Nick McKim to change their minds about these cuts. These are good schools doing good work and providing really important centres for the local community. There are 20 of these schools, in every one they have bright, shiny new school buildings paid for by the federal taxpayer.

In other states like Queensland where there were schools slated for closure the state government's didn't spend the BER money in those schools. They waited to see which schools would be amalgamated with other schools and then they spent the money after that. In Tasmania they spent the money willy-nilly and built BER programs in every school and I've written to Nick McKim asking him to show cause for why the federal government shouldn't ask for that money back. And quite frankly I'm disappointed Wayne Swan didn't put more pressure on the Labor Government in that interview he's just done with you.

Compton: What can you do to put pressure on him beyond writing a letter to hand money back where schools that have recently had money invested in them by the federal government but are ultimately controlled by the states to hand the money back?

Pyne: We will support the Labor MPs in Tasmania in the Lower House and the Liberal Senators in Tasmania in their campaigns to ask the Labor-Greens Government to hand the money back here in Tasmania or to keep the schools open. We'll put pressure on the Labor Government in Canberra from the Opposition to demand the money back or keep the schools open and I'll support the community. That's why I'm here in Hobart today and going to Devonport and Launceston because as the federal Shadow Minister for Education I'm hoping to draw attention to what the Tasmanian Labor-Greens government has done here.

Compton: Interestingly when we spoke to Christine Milne, one of your counterparts in Canberra in the Senate of course, she was under whelmed also by some of the decision making going on at the moment. Do you have allies; do you have any indication do you have allies in the Greens in the federal senate to act on this?

Pyne: I've got no doubt at all that most sensible thinking people will recognise that closing 20 schools in Tasmania will save so little money for the Tasmanian Greens government; that it would be much easier to make the schools work and to use that BER money wisely then it would be to close those schools and waste that BER money. There must be other areas of the Tasmanian budget where if cuts are necessary cuts can be made and the Tasmanian Greens government is choosing the lazy way out by simply closing schools, good schools that in some cases have been schooling Tasmanians for 150 years and schools that should remain open.

Compton: Closing schools is not unique to the Labor-Greens Coalition. State Liberals closed some 30 schools we're told when they were in Government a number of years ago. There have been earlier school closures under this Government. Aren't you giving communities a false hope under what is a normal process that all Governments, no matter their stripes face?

Pyne: No, the activities that a community can undertake when they're unhappy with a democratically elected Government are to make their voice heard. Taken to it's logical conclusion, if we adopted your suggestion, whatever the Government decided is simply acquiesced to and that's not how a robust democracy works. If they public aren't happy, they need to vent their unhappiness and that's one of the reasons I'm here, to provide a focus for that.

Compton: Appreciate you talking with us this morning.

Pyne: Pleasure, thank you.

ENDS