Transcript - Radio National Breakfast – 7 Sept 09

SUBJECTS: Stimulus spending; taxpayer-funded blowouts; Government's failure to meet election promises

(greetings omitted)

FRAN KELLY: Christopher Pyne, what answers will you be pursuing from the Government over the stimulus spending?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE MP: Well we want to know why the Government didn't put in place the necessary precursors to stop the waste and mismanagement in their stimulus spending. It stood out as very obvious to us that if you're going to spend that $14 billion on Primary Schools that there would be an immediate impact on inflation in that area because there wouldn't be enough workers, let alone resources to fulfil those contracts as quickly as the Government demanded. We knew then that business would have to push up their prices and that the Department should relax those rules in terms of the timetable so that the stimulus can be rolled out over a longer period of time. The Government didn't do that and as a consequence business has profiteered from the school stimulus debacle, the States have taken the opportunity to pull a number of their own infrastructure projects off the table and use Federal taxpayer's money for State Government responsibilities. There's been an enormous payment of fees to consultants and to project managers - as much as $500 for six month's work...in Queensland some project officers. So there's been an enormous amount of waste and mismanagement yet the Government's found the money for $3.5 million for plaques, 3.8 million for display signs outside schools which were found to be outside the rules. And generally it's an absolute shambles above all it's a Minister with too much on her plate.

KELLY: The Auditor-General is investigating the overall Primary School's scheme, following a request from you, I think, why not just leave it up to the Auditor-General to finish that and you expect that it will add to it's enquiry that there's allegations funds would add up to not being distributed fairly?

PYNE: Well, the Auditor-General is doing a comprehensive study of the so-called...Building the Education Revolution, some people call the School Stimulus Debacle we asked him to put in place the parameters for spending that you would have expected the Government to put in place at the beginning. That will take him some time, I don't think he'll be reporting til the end of the year. Meanwhile the Government continues to flush money out the door to every school in the country, regardless of the need of the school, regardless of what the school wanted. They've been given the Julia Gillard Memorial School Halls rather than, in many cases, the classrooms schools wanted and we're seeing some examples like...$250 000 spent on a one-student school. $250 000 spent on a four-student school. The Auditor-General will do their job but the Opposition has to do its job which is to hold the Minister to account and in this area, clearly there has been serious waste and mismanagement and as a result the Government will continue to borrow money to fund this waste and mismanagement which will eventually lead to higher interest rates and higher taxes.

KELLY: I presume from today and what you've been saying in Parliament for the last weeks is that the Opposition will be taking particularly the Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard over the next fortnight in Question Time over the next fortnight...has it got a bit personal between you two? Because of course the Deputy Prime Minister called you a 'mincing poodle' earlier this year. Has it got personal here?

PYNE: No, not at all. The...I've been in politics for sixteen-and-a-half years and I've got a pretty thick skin. I think Julia Gillard has a pretty thick skin from what I can gather. I simply play the ball. The ball is the waste and mismanagement in the School Stimulus debacle. Her failure to understand the needs of rural and regional youth in the Youth Allowance disaster. The Trade Training Centres not being delivered as promised and the blowout in computers in schools from $800million to $2.2 billion dollars. So it's simply a failure of policy on her part and the Prime Minister really needs to appoint a Full-Time Education Minister rather than a Minister who splits Education between three other serious responsibilities.

KELLY: Will the Coalition join the Greens in the Senate to force Treasury Head Ken Henry to come before a Senate Committee again? The enquiry into the stimulus spending?

PYNE: well without the Opposition's support, of course, it won't happen so...that's something the Opposition will need to consider today and tomorrow as part of our tactics and we'll take a number of our considerations to play in making those decisions, but we won't just, Fran, be focusing on the school stimulus debacle, Youth Allowance and so forth. The housing for Indigenous people in the Northern Territory has been an absolute shemozzle. Jenny Macklin, the Minister for Families and Community Services. There are a lot of examples of basic incompetence and not being met by the Government. And that lack of competence will cost taxpayers money and that is why higher taxes will eventuate...higher interest rates because of the Government's political solution rather than it's economical solution.

(ends)