The one-pupil school isn’t getting any money after all

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Question Time Live: 16/03/2010

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09 Sep 05:50am

Filed under: Chris Pyne, Education Revolution, Julia Gillard, Question Time, Stimulus Package

Drifiting off during Question Time yesterday it was tempting to wonder what Evesham State School looked like and what its one student might do with a $250,000 library all to herself.

Had some attention lately

What if the one student at this school is some kind of genius who needs to read 35 books each afternoon Good Will Hunting style?

Well, after contacting Evesham State School in remote central Queensland it turns out it hasn’t received a cent of the fabled $250,000 and, according to its principal and teacher, it won’t receive any of it.

For those who don’t know about it this school it has become the foundation of the Coalition attack on Julia Gillard over misdirected stimulus spending.

Evesham State School in western central Queensland with one enrolled student apparently received $250,000 worth of funding for a new library.

For the record, I didn’t think Julia Gillard handled this issue particularly well on Monday.

The Coalition’s Education spokesman Chris Pyne went on the attack over the issue again yesterday demanding the Government show the cost benefit analysis that “justified this wasteful spending.”

But the strange thing about the supposed stuff-up is that according to the school’s principal and teacher, Rosemary Winterbotham, Evesham hasn’t received a cent and now thinks it won’t receive any.

“We haven’t received a cent of that money . . . and I don’t think we’re going to. The whole thing is a massive beat up. This has nothing to do with the school,” Ms Winterbotham told The Punch.

Ms Winterbotham wouldn’t comment as to whether she had been told by the Government that the school was no longer going to receive the funding.

The Deputy Prime Minister said the school was currently undergoing an evaluation as to whether it would be merged as a means of justifying the apparent grant, but according to Rosie it’s not entirely clear that’s going to happen either.

“Yeah I don’t know if that’s going ahead,” she said.

According to Rosie the drought in the area has left the school with a sole student, reportedly a girl in year three.

“We run a very normal school and do our best to provide a normal education for the student and the student is doing very well.

“Two years ago we had 14 students but because of the drought a lot people have left,” she said.

Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull yesterday announced that it would refer the schools spending to the Senate’s education committee on top of the Auditor-General report into the program:

“We will seek today to refer this schools stimulus debacle to the Senate Education Committee to examine line by line the Julia Gillard Memorial Assembly Hall program, to identify the waste and mismanagement, and to hold the Government to account as it spends tax payers’ dollars.”

Well fair enough. But the net effect in this instance, and others where the funding decision was patently ridiculous, is going to be that the federal and state governments will make sure these schools don’t actually receive any money.

So the Coalition will struggle to point to wasted spending, only bad allocations that were later withdrawn. Of course if media and opposition hadn’t drawn attention to these decisions in the first place then maybe the money would have actually been spent.

But the likelihood of exposing a school where one student has a 20,000 book library, an Olympic pool and state of the art hand-ball court because of stimulus largess are going to be pretty slim, leaving the Coalition in a position where it has wasted everyone’s time and money on another inquiry.

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23 comments

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- Kelly says:
  
  09:07am | 09/09/09
  
  Rudd Labor continually have to back track any decisions they make. They never seem to do their homework.
  
  Reply
- st says:
  
  10:03am | 09/09/09
  
  Leo, you’ve changed your tune in one day. What happened? Did Gillard kidnap your pet cat Fluffy? If the Opposition didn’t keep the pressure up and highlight these gross deficiencies then that kid at evesham would be dancing around a new library with the teacher celebrating the taxpayers largesse Broadway style. Gillard has no idea what is going on, the teacher has no idea who applied for the grant, the whole thing is a complete debacle and needs investigating. The Opposition is right! I hope you get Fluffy back.
  
  Reply
- Greg says:
  
  10:02am | 09/09/09
  
  Hang on, the media and the opposition got the facts wrong, but you still think both were right to draw attention to them? Is this the media’s job now, make inaccurate statments, and then justify them after the fact as being important because they “drew attention to the issue”?
  
  Did anyone think of interviewing the school’s principal and teacher before publishing a story?
  
  Reply
- Bob says:
  
  10:06am | 09/09/09
  
  Um, Kelly ... Maybe you need to polich you reading skills (or learn to supress your ideological urges to vomit inane comments)
  
  Reply
- Julia says:
  
  10:30am | 09/09/09
  
  Oh. That’s not fun at all. I was enjoying the idea of a one-pupil school getting $250k.
  
  Reply
- Chris R says:
  
  10:43am | 09/09/09
  
  I think it’s pretty important that the Govt. is held to account for its BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF TAXPAYER-FUNDED SPENDING!!
  
  Reply
- John (NT) says:
  
  11:28am | 09/09/09
  
  This is a story about nothing. If the school undertook an evaluation as to whether it would be merged (and pased the criteria) then it would be eligible for the grant. If it did not merge then it would not be eligible. Simple.
  Great journalism, bring on more jacko or kyle stories.
  
  Reply
- pc says:
  
  11:31am | 09/09/09
  
  As Greg at (9.02) mentions Chris Pyne (the prince of mince) didn’t bother checking his facts before attacking a poor regional school. That is in fact how you should have headed the article Leo. Government accountability is a serious task and the opposition have no credibility, thus the media’s role becomes even more important. We know you dont like Julia, Leo. But that is not holding her accountable. I know you hope to find many stories of wasted stimulus spending, even stories about stories of stimulus spending that never in fact occured, it means you dont have to talk about real schools and real jobs benefiting from the stimulus.
  
  Reply
- Max Gross says:
  
  12:58pm | 09/09/09
  
  Pardon my boredom but I’ve put up with more than a decade of Howard Era (error?) fear, smear, pork-barrelling and bullsh*t which, as far as i’m concerned, grants young Kev due licence to do pretty much whatever he wants.
  
  Reply
- Alex says:
  
  02:28pm | 09/09/09
  
  The coalition has been caught out again…. but excuse me if I am wrong, but didn’t the Australian actually run with this story first again? First it was Utegate and now it is LibraryGate.
  
  Reply
- pc says:
  
  03:17pm | 09/09/09
  
  Alex, are you fishing for compliments about the Oz? I am intrigued. I often read the Oz - usually with a pretty heavy heart and just an example from the first page of the weekend australian on aug 29-30, there was an article by Lenore Taylor. Its position was made political from the first sentence.
  
  “Australian readers coud continue to pay high prices for books, as the Rudd government faces increasing internal pressure to maintain restrictions on overseas book imports.”
  
  My heart sunk a little further. It was the first sentence I read and I knew it was only going to get worse. It wasnt even an op ed piece. This has been getting worse since, as far as I can tell, 1994. Im pretty sure on the same page there was an article about utegate that managed to be so convoluted it didnt convey the real story which Grech, was guilty of the crime he’d wanted the Ruddbott accused of and there was likely a conspiracy of somekind. I understand the Oz is about Ruperts influence as well as making money but at least in the States there is no mealy mouthed pretence of no fear or favour - of course fox says that but they are a joke arent they? - their ratings have peaked - they will probably remain at the same level for a long time - its their demographic destiny. That isnt to say that I want the Oz to be like FOX, I dont, I do think there are examples of conservatives that do make arguments and dont pander to Islamophobia and reds under the beds, David Brooks of the New York TImes for example. The problematic war on terror, catastrophic war in Iraq and then the GFC have made all punters more wary of some of the trash that comes their way and its a message that media - all parts of it, have to lift their game. (Sorry I hate those cliches too, see its contagious.) Journalism is about the public interest. Thats it. Entertainment is great but I think the public, despite a lot of confusion about issues such as climate change and the gfc, understand the difference between real plans and heckling. And the need for real journalism and its difference from sunday afternoon chocolate and t.v sessions. I will still read the Oz because I want to know what people think. But I also know that the truth alone will not beat the liars and the shirkers. That needs action.
  
  Reply
- Leo Shanahan says:
  
  04:52pm | 09/09/09
  
  @Alex, yes the Australian ran the story on the one student school first. Funnily enough the same reporter also spoke to the principal yesterday. While the principal told me they’re not getting any money now, she told the Oz reporter that they had never even applied for the funding. A fact that Chris Pyne ran with today in question time, as well as her mention in both stories that she didn’t know anything about an amalgamation. Gillard also seemed to be accepting that the school isn’t going to be getting any cash now, as is Pyne. It’s pretty clear there’s confusion on both sides as to what is actually gonig on here, but I’m not sure how long the Opposition can hammer Gillard on this if the money’s not actually being spent.
  
  Reply
- iansand says:
  
  05:23pm | 09/09/09
  
  The school didn’t apply for money and isn’t getting any. And this is a scandal? What am I missing here?
  
  Reply
- Leo Shanahan says:
  
  05:56pm | 09/09/09
  
  @Ian, you’re missing the fact that they were allocated the money in the first place. So whilst the school says they didn’t ask for it and now don’t think they’ll get it, they were allocated it under the policy. It’s unlikely the money would have been pulled if there wasn’t any attention brought to this fact in the first place and it raises questions about the way the program is being rolled out. Still the Oppn drilling on this specific case can’t get them much further.
  
  Reply
- pc says:
  
  06:42pm | 09/09/09
  
  Leo, “So whilst the school says they didn’t ask for it and now don’t think they’ll get it, they were allocated it under the policy. It’s unlikely the money would have been pulled if there wasn’t any attention brought to this fact in the first place and it raises questions about the way the program is being rolled out.”
  
  From the people that bought you “There are wmd’s in Iraq.”
  
  and “Lehmann Brothers is doing great. Buy Buy Buy.”
  
  and the even more spectacular, “Global warming is not real. You may feel a hot sensation. Do not be alarmed, it has nothing to do with the temperature.”
  
  Comes their greatest hit yet. “So whilst the school says they didn’t ask for it and now don’t think they’ll get it, they were allocated it under the policy. It’s unlikely the money would have been pulled if there wasn’t any attention brought to this fact in the first place and it raises questions about the way the program is being rolled out.”
  
  Reply
- iansand says:
  
  07:06pm | 09/09/09
  
  Leo - If I read that rather poorly written Australian article correctly the money was allocated by the Qld State government conditional upon some sort of review of whether the school continued to exist. The timing is not clear. I’m still not sure why anyone thought that was scandalous.
  
  Reply
- Leo Shanahan says:
  
  07:27pm | 09/09/09
  
  @Ian yep you’re right, the difference in my article was that the principal was pretty certain it wasn’t going to happen full stop. But the Government still haven’t come out and said this. I didn’t the Australian article was poorly written by the way, but thank you for at least engaging with the topic, unlike our brave friend “pc” who apparently thinks it tantamount to engaging in a grand right wing conspiracy to bother look at how the Government is spending our money.
  
  Reply
- Charlie says:
  
  07:56pm | 09/09/09
  
  pc: Don’t forget wonderful things like $1 billion spent on buying old vietnam era Navy helicopters that never worked and the Rudd government finally cancelled because Howard’s government couldn’t admit the scale of the disaster years ago. In comparison a couple of Billion dollars spent on school buildings sounds like a brilliant idea.
  
  Reply
- iansand says:
  
  08:07pm | 09/09/09
  
  Leo - The timing is critical. The timing as set out in the article is obscure. I may be a humble obscurantist lawyer, but where I come from if a critical element is not clear, to borrow fellow traveller Tory’s expression, FAIL.
  
  Reply
- iansand says:
  
  08:12pm | 09/09/09
  
  And I forgot - why is it the obligation of the gummint to say it won’t happen. If I were the gummint I would say “What yo’ talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?”
  
  Too much of modern Oz politics is about stunts, not substance (and the Press Gallery aids and abets the offence).
  
  Reply
- pc says:
  
  09:36pm | 09/09/09
  
  Thanks for mentioning me Leo, I’m just having a little joke and giving you a hard time. Youre a real sport about it too. I dont think there is a conspiracy between you, Rupert and the Liberal Party, on this. There doesnt need to be, you already know what he wants you to say. Get your google out and try - anticipatory compliance - that should explain everything.
  
  Reply
- urbananarchist says:
  
  11:44pm | 09/09/09
  
  Sadly, we seem to be enduring the longest running election campaign in history. Based on my scan of recent media, this school story seems to be the small tip of a very large iceberg of Ruddard campaign stunts that we have endured since the 2007 election. The Ruddards are still in election mode and only interested in staying in power. Parents of primary school children are the easy targets. The Ruddards might have realised the euphemistic “working families” mantra has totally alienated the one in four people living in single households and married couples with no children. But that hasn’t stopped them blindly going after employees with shares (and having to back pedal), clobbering an oil/gas producer (that employes hundreds of people) with a multi billion dollar retrospective tax, and setting up a car finance scheme without doing the homework. And now they are planning to pour millions of dollars into a taxpayer funded outfit to lobby the government on things I do not (aka the national preventative health agency) or need - and certainly not from a bunch of unelected unaccountable so-called experts who have only ever made money out of telling people how to live their lives. The Ruudards should stop campaigning and start governing for all Australians - not just those who agree with them and live in marginal metropolitan seats.
  
  Reply
- he has a good point says:
  
  10:16pm | 03/11/09
  
  Will you be angry if i don’t agree?
  
  Reply