3777 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Thursday 8 November 2007 ______ The Speaker (The Hon. George Richard Torbay) took the chair at 10.00 a.m. The Speaker read the Prayer and acknowledgement of country. GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS (INFRASTRUCTURE REGISTER) BILL 2007 Agreement in Principle Debate resumed from 25 October 2007. Mr JONATHAN O'DEA (Davidson) [10.00 a.m.]: The Government Schools (Infrastructure Register) Bill would require the Director General of the Department of Education and Training to keep a register of government school assets, including all buildings and demountables. The register would comprise school status reports that outline the status of the capital assets of government schools and three-yearly school building plans for building and maintenance works in those schools. These reports would be tabled in the New South Wales Parliament and made available to the public on the departmental website. The announcement in this year's budget of an additional $120 million for school maintenance over four years was not surprising. It reflected the enormous damage created by the New South Wales Government in relation to school maintenance issues after years of neglect. In 2005 the Auditor-General identified a $115 million maintenance backlog. Professor Tony Vinson called for an additional $90 million in maintenance payments each year over two years. I also understand that in real terms funding from the New South Wales Government is still less than the 1999-2000 year level of funding to the Department of Education and Training for public schools and colleges. Last year the President of the New South Wales Teachers Federation said: Whilst the Federation welcomes the additional money, it is well overdue. The fact that it is over a four year period is disappointing. Why should children have to wait four years for overdue maintenance work which forms the maintenance backlog? Earlier in this debate the member for Macquarie Fields suggested that the bill proposed by the Leader of The Nationals would require some 44,000 pages to be loaded onto the education department's website at an annual cost of over $500,000. At first I thought that such a figure was ridiculously over-inflated but, given Labor's record of mismanagement, it is entirely possible that an inefficient education bureaucracy quoted such a figure. When I investigated where such figures might have come from I found the same figures quoted in a similar debate over 2½ years ago in the other place. Perhaps it is not surprising that the Government recycles the same old questionable figures. Perhaps it is also not surprising— [Interruption] The SPEAKER: Order! All members who wish to speak will be given the call at the appropriate time. The member for Davidson has the call. Mr JONATHAN O'DEA: Perhaps it is also not surprising that New South Wales Labor is still talking about paper-based approaches when most significant service delivery organisations in New South Wales have generally moved to electronic records and systems. I caution the member for Macquarie Fields, whom I believe to be a decent man, not to blindly trust backroom Labor hacks. I have no doubt that a Coalition government would deliver the target outcomes under this bill far more cost effectively and utilise technology to much better effect than this tired, old, lazy Labor Government. Mr Thomas George: Lazy, lazy, lazy! Mr JONATHAN O'DEA: Indeed, it is lazy. While private sector business operations continue to strive to do more with less, this Government continues to demonstrate a record of doing less with more. It is 3778 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 8 November 2007 clear that rather than spending money this year on a worthwhile initiative, such as a public schools register, the Labor Government has higher priorities—like spending up to a reported $500,000 on a new office suite for its New South Wales environment Minister. In contrast, the Liberal Leader of the Opposition, in his reply to the Budget Speech, committed the next Coalition government to allocate immediately $2 billion from a proposed state infrastructure fund for the renewal of this State's public schools, which was on top of the usual capital allocation for education. As the Leader of the Opposition said: Our obligation to future generations demands no less. We need to build better for tomorrow and not remain stuck in the past, resisting sensible change. Many Coalition members have either attended or sent their own children to public schools, as I do. Public education is an essential government service and its teachers and school communities deserve proper support and financial assistance from the Government and our parliamentary representatives. It was disappointing to hear the member for Fairfield, the Minister leading for the Government on this bill, make absurd, immature and, quite frankly, offensive assertions that Opposition members never support public education. As we shall see later, it is hardly surprising that the member for Strathfield repeated that silly claim. In contrast, I am happy to recognise that the Government cares about public schools. However, the Government's actions suggest that it cares more about itself than the proper management of public school assets. This Government is obsessed with spin rather than substance. Today Premier Iemma is a product of a school that no longer exists. This New South Wales Labor Government demolished Narwee High School just six years ago. If it keeps on its current track of this old school approach, the Government will self-destruct. The Premier and his Government are a liability and an impediment to the proper management of all public school assets in New South Wales. In addition to the Premier's alma mater, this Government has similarly demolished or tried to close other public schools, including Beacon Hill High School, which is located in the electorate of Wakehurst. That seat adjoins my electorate of Davidson and my local Labor opponent in the State election who was from Beacon Hill made clear statements against the school's closure. This is yet another example of empty Labor words with a lack of equivalent action by the Labor Party in government. Catholic and independent schools should likewise be wary of Labor's recent words federally, assuring them of support. In introducing this bill the Leader of The Nationals showed determination for a good education cause taken up earlier by the member for North Shore and now Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party. In his speech Mr Stoner properly acknowledged his Liberal colleague. Even the member for Strathfield recognised that in her speech and said: I acknowledge the Leader of The Nationals' moment of honesty, albeit sparse. At least he is not trying to pass off this bill as all his own work. She then said that she would prefer it if he had "a few ideas of his own". The sheer irony and astounding hypocrisy of her words is revealed when we look at a speech delivered a month earlier in the same debate by the member for Fairfield. He said: I acknowledge the Leader of The Nationals' moment of honesty. At least he is not trying to pass off this bill as all his own work. However, I would prefer if he got some ideas of his own. This was not just a minor incidence of technical plagiarism or general imitation; the speech of the member for Strathfield is littered with direct plagiarism from the earlier speech on this bill delivered by the member for Fairfield. Material of substantive length is copied virtually verbatim without attribution. Most of her speech in this twice-adjourned debate was a slightly reordered repeat of the speech delivered by her Labor colleague one month earlier. I emphasise that we are not talking about introductory comments or just a few sentences; her speech contains many large chunks of blatant and direct plagiarism. This speech from the member for Strathfield demonstrates a lack of care that is becoming a trademark of this lazy Labor Government. Mr Thomas George: Lazy, lazy, lazy! Mr JONATHAN O'DEA: Indeed, it is lazy. I further question her sense of judgment in wanting to copy the member for Fairfield in the first place. Maybe she is just a bad Judge. And anyone would have to be pretty desperate to model themselves on Joe Tripodi. We are hearing too many "me tooisms" from Labor with Kevin Rudd copying John Howard's policies. Here too is a political party so bereft of ideas that now they are plagiarising each other, with Labor's "me tooism" disease spreading internally in this lazy Labor Government. Christmas is not far away and, yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. However, despite the potential physical similarity, he is not Joe Tripodi. 8 November 2007 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 3779 Who really wrote the speeches that the member for Strathfield and the member for Fairfield delivered? It was probably neither of them. What is even worse is that the plagiarist, the member for Strathfield, is a former teacher and the current Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Minister for Education and she was speaking on a government schools bill. I asked my 10-year-old son what would happen if a school student submitted an essay or project that was mostly a direct copy from another student in the same class. He told me that they would receive the same grade—a fail. What sort of example is this Labor Government setting to our New South Wales schoolchildren? In September 2003 the then New South Wales Minister for Education and Training, Dr Andrew Refshauge, responded to a question about plagiarism, and said: The potential for plagiarism to cause serious damage is enormous and must be headed off.