Computers in schools

Essentially, what we have heard from the member for Petrie in response to this motion is that, firstly, lots of schools have some computers so we should not really worry about how many do not have computers and, secondly, the Labor government have spent lots of money and are even spending more so how could we dare to criticise. Neither of those are good responses to the core of this motion, which is that we have a substantial program here which has been maladministered and has not delivered on the commitments that were made. In 2007 there was a very clear promise made by the Labor Party, in seeking government, that $1 billion would be spent so that there would be a computer for every secondary student between years 9 and 12. That has simply not been delivered upon.

When this bold, shining vision first appeared some people were sufficiently prosaic to ask: 'That is interesting. What are the arrangements going to be for maintenance and support costs? What are the arrangements going to be under which software is provided for these computers? How is the operational expenditure going to be provided for the networking that is required for these computers?' But it seemed that those were mere details which were not to impede the grand vision. So we had a promise that was made and it quickly became evident that the detailed work had not been done to substantiate that promise.

How do we know this? One very interesting indication is to look at the second, now abandoned, limb of this program under which there was to be $100 million spent to connect schools with fibre. At the time, the then shadow minister for broadband and communications, Senator Stephen Conroy, had this to say:

The fibre project is based in industry estimates. The figure of $100 million is based on lengthy discussions with a range of providers and industry suppliers, the people who actually do it.

That was all right, then—they had done the detailed planning. So, mysteriously, when you fast forward to 2011 what do you find? You find that Dr Arthur of the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations appeared before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications in March 2011 to announce that none of the $100 million had been spent at all. They had done absolutely nothing in relation to the promise that was made in 2007. A little later we learned, and it was confirmed recently in estimates, that in May 2011 a decision was made to simply abandon that expenditure altogether. It seems that responsibility for the connectivity part of the program has simply been quietly shuffled onto the National Broadband Network. Therefore, we may then be waiting a very long time indeed for this connectivity to be delivered.

The question is whether Australian citizens, parents, students and communities have received what was committed to them by the incoming Labor government in 2007. When the commitment was made to deliver computers to one million students for $1 billion, could that have been achieved by the deadline of December 2011? I have to admire the touching faith of the member for Petrie. We may be at June and it may well be the case that the total number of computers delivered is so far behind the required rate that you would need to more than double the rate if you are to achieve completion of the program by December 2011, but she is keeping the faith and I have to admire that. She is holding onto her faith in the absence of any objective evidence that this rate of delivery is going to be dramatically accelerated. There is no evidence for that.

Sadly, what we have seen in every aspect of this program is that it is quite clear that what was originally committed was dreamt up probably on the back of a whiteboard. There was very little detailed planning done. The economics simply do not hold up. As the shadow minister has eloquently demonstrated, it became clear as early as 2008 and 2009 that the program was simply not able to stack up based upon its own economics. There has been a desperate attempt to throw additional cash at this to try to keep the show on the road, but the reality is that this was not planned properly from the start. There was not even a skerrick of basic managerial competence and Australian parents and students are being let down as a result.