The fastest school spending spree in history doesn’t add up
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When Kevin Rudd announced the $42 billion stimulus package on February 3, he didn’t mince words about the logistical challenges of delivering a new building for every single one of Australia’s 7500 primary schools:
Fast forward seven weeks and questions are starting to be asked about the implementation challenges and time-lines. Suddenly there is a feverish activity to get the first round of grants approved and construction finished by next January. Principals and school councils are nervous about pushing back against the process for fear of missing out altogether. State government bureaucrats are foisting templates on schools for new class rooms, gyms and arts centres. Kevin Rudd was also talking tough about any efforts to skimp on existing capital programs at his February 3 press conference:
This school modernisation program should be all about replacing state capital works programs. The states are financially stuffed and their Treasurers are in Canberra today begging Wayne Swan for a bailout – or at the very least a guarantee on state debt. Why on earth would you tell a school with 200 kids to spend $2 million without doing all the works that were already planned? It means some of the money is deliberately not going where it is most needed. Why not let a school astro-turf their parched oval to save money? It might not be a building but it is needed and would save water. Rather than voluntarily creating a logistical and bureaucratic nightmare, the Rudd Government should have created a giant $20 billion fund and then asked schools to bid for their most needed capital works programs over a two year period. Meanwhile, the borrowing program to fund this indecently hasty spending splurge continues to gather pace. Never before has the Federal Government raised $2.4 billion in five different debt issues over just eight days but here is how it rolled out:
The full list of Rudd Government bond issues is available here but surely if you’re going to break all previous records for new debt issues, the onus should be on spending the money as wisely as possible. Stand by for an avalanche of local announcements by politicians on the new school projects, but it is time for the national media to start asking questions about the execution of a program that the PM himself admits is the biggest national logistical challenge since World War 2. |
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6 Comments
It’s time for the national media to start asking questions about the execution of a program that the PM himself admits is the biggest national logistical challenge since World War 2, writes Stephen Mayne.
It’s time the national media started getting behind the PM and his governtment. Neo cons are dead in the water. Get used to it and get over it.
Stephen Mayne is well known for his neo con economic views; he simply doesn’t like the idea of government borrowing money. Fair enough, but he shouldn’t use school funding as a weapon in his war on an alternative approach to economics. The neo con mantra of reduced government spending has left almost all schools, the exception being wealthy private schools that don’t need the extra cash (but no doubt will take it and run), in a parlous state. There may be some logistical problems created by having to plan and implement short term building projects but I doubt that there is a principal in the country who would rather not have the chance of making significant improvements to his or her school. Kevin Rudd is making two vital contributions to this country: stimulating economic activity in the short term in a away that will have maximum multiplier effects and making a start on fixing the destruction of our country’s schools that the madness of the last forty year’s mantra of “government spending bad, anything else (including outrageous individual exploitative gain) good (apologies to George Orwell)!
The funding programs are not logistical and/or bureaucratic nightmares - I know I’m an independent school principal who also knows that trying to get fair funding through nonsensical accountability provisions invented by ideologues who hate the idea of giving government money to schools is the real nightmare . True, they have created more work but I really don’t mind. Even when the building is finished and having taken on the extra role of project manager, I know it will have been worth it for me, for the school and for the economy. Stephen may not agree on the last point but the approach he supports doesn’t have a particularly good record from our current view point, does it? A system built around unregulated money grabbing by a small number of supposed leaders and holders of knowledge and power will never provide for decent schools for all children - a few maybe.
Mayne is not a neo-con otherwise he would have a history of railing against rampant middle class welfare in the form of the taxpayer subsidies totalling billions annually paid to private schools.
I am a tad confused about the presentation of $3m dollars to all medium sized schools.
Some of them have falling numbers of pupils, with empty classroom but are being told they have to build new buildings - very confusing.
Could some of the money be used for the invisble computers?
At least under the Rudd plan, money is going equally to all. It is a long time since any handout has been allocated so fairly. Past practice was to leave it to Ministers to allocate politically, where the most votes could be gleaned.
2 year period? How stupid. Surely this is supposed to be the short/medium term phase of the stimulus package.. ie getting tradies buying gear, pouring concrete, wiring buidings and plumbing pipes - now. With the added bonus of it benefiting our schools. Individual school infrastructure projects (unlike roads, de-sal plants) can be mobilised quickly making it a very useful stimulus method. To me the rudd plan kinda makes sense. Cash bonus to cover the short term, school infrastructure works in the short/medium term and major works (rail, roads etc) in the medium/long term. I’m afraid Stephens article aint as convincing as I’ve seen in the past.