Bats in the belfry or political double speak?
Where was the Minister for Education’s mind when she made comments below to a journalist on visiting Ballina Public School to highlight the Government’s BER funding commitment?
The following verbatim statement was released by the Minister’s office after Ms Gillard visited the electorate of Page in northern NSW, accompanied by the local member Ms Janelle Saffin.
We publish the particular media exchange in full and without amendment (The Hon Julia Gillard, 2010).
Prior to receiving questions from the media the Minister had commented on a range of education and other political issues.
JULIA GILLARD: Okay, so do we have any questions?
JOURNALIST: Minister, can I ask did you give any thought to visiting the school just over the electoral boundary, MacLean High which has been making huge news locally given the problem with the bats?
JULIA GILLARD: I try to get to as many schools as I can. There are around 9500 schools in this country so I try and visit as many as possible. I’m here with Janelle today having visited two schools in her electorate. Yesterday I was in Melbourne and had the opportunity to go to three schools so we’ll see what we can do in the future to visit that particular school.
JOURNALIST: But what about the prospect of leaving the bats where they are and perhaps building a new school to put an end to the problem? Is that something you would consider?
JULIA GILLARD: As a Federal Government what we’ve done is provided the Building the Education Revolution money, the biggest school modernisation project the nation has ever seen, it’s given every primary school and every secondary school access to National School Pride money for basic repairs. It’s given our primary schools access to the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program so that they can have new halls, new school libraries, new classrooms like the project we’ve been talking about today right here and as well it’s delivering more than 500 Science and Language laboratories around the country.So that’s been our focus as we modernise schools and support jobs during the global recession.
JOURNALIST: Didn’t scare the bats away though.
JULIA GILLARD: Well, what of course it’s doing though is transforming education in this country and I understand that the most important thing for a child’s education is having a great teacher and we’re investing more than half a billion dollars in great teaching. But we can enable those great teachers to do the most if we are there working in partnership with schools delivering the new facilities that they need and crave for.
The media interview continued with the Minister commenting on issues other than education.
Either the journalist had not been listening to Ms Gillard’s preamble or was entirely disinterested in the Minister’s effusive comments outlining the government’s education initiatives.
Clearly the journalist wanted to raise the vexatious local issue of the bat colony that has invaded nearby MacLean High School.
What was the Minister thinking when she gave such a ridiculous, unrelated answer – not once but three times – to a local issue that clearly involves student safety noting the very publically acknowledged link between bats and the deadly Hendra virus?
Apart from neither addressing nor answering the journalist’s question the Minister’s so narrowly focussed answers on the government’s education line shows she will never deviate from spruiking the government's mantra about its BER program.
The Minister’s more free-wheeling parliamentary debating style reveals Ms Gillard as a positive, highly focussed and critically effective minister in the Rudd Government.
When she faces public questioning on issues for which she has neither been briefed nor it appears is unwillling to answer the Minister becomes wooden, predictable and mono-focussed.
It appears from her illogical answers to quite legitimate local questions the Minister was unable to deviate from the government's spin doctine.
The Minister’s apparent refusal to accept or respond to individual, specific school conditions stands in stark contrast to the government’s philosophy which seeks to reveal definite school need especially via the MySchool website and BER funding allocations to specific schools which the Minister was busily promoting with her visit to Ballina Public School.
Does Ms Gillard’s contrasting approach represent double standards by the Minister or is everyone else simply going batty?
Doorstop transcript from the Ballina Public School by The Hon Julia Gillard, 16 February 2010. http://www.deewr.gov.au/Ministers/Gillard/Media/Transcripts/Pages/Article_100216_171946.aspx
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