Armchair_Politician wrote on Dec 24
th, 2013 at 6:31am:
Kat wrote on Dec 22
nd, 2013 at 1:04pm:
Armchair_Politician wrote on Dec 22
nd, 2013 at 1:00pm:
If the ALP under Swan's time as Treasurer hadn't been so wasteful and had some self-control over borrowing, these cuts may not have been necessary. Simple as that.
They weren't. They're not.
Simple as THAT.
Good grief, you're delusional! See how much the school halls program was rorted? The government was in many cases paying contractors 125% higher than normal, halls were built where new toilets were badly needed and some of those halls were either too big or too small, canteens were unusable. That's just ONE example.
The THREE enquiries (Brad Orgill and the Auditor General) into the BER found about 1.5% of complaints had merit.
One Headmaster said his BIL could do a cheaper job. BIL was asked to tender a quote—was $1m HIGHER!
The BER kept people in work, helped to keep us out of recession. If you would do some reading—Public School standards for construction were much higher than those for private schools. One example I remember reading was that (in NSW anyway) that windows had to be a certain distance from the floor, so no all–glass windows that might be cheaper and quicker to put up. You might remember right at the start that a walkway collapsed—at a private not a public school. Recently some playground equipment collapsed hurting a couple of kiddies—you need very high standards to build stuff for kids!
Heh—the BER was often derisively called the School Hall Program—the schools that got halls use them for all sorts of things and derive a nice income from renting them out to private parties for balls and that sort of thing. The schools generally were happy.
Now—if you want REAL waste just look at the Regional Partnerships program under Howard. During the 2007 election campaign the Auditor General released its report into how the Nats wasted and rorted $40BILLION dollars! That money could have fixed some major highways or built the NBN! Maybe we should have a RC into that?