After the revolution

What will be the long term legacy of the federal government’s school-building revolution, asks Ian McShane in Inside Story GOVERNMENTS place great emphasis on self-promotion, especially when it comes to announcing high profile public works. But no government has yet discovered which mysterious property in signs fixed to taxpayer-funded constructions seems to render them invisible to the public but a provocative eyesore to political opponents. So it is with the signs on school fences announcing the Commonwealth government’s $16 billion Building the Education Revolution. The symbolic content of the program is clearly important to the Rudd government, and it has been prepared to wear sustained criticism from the opposition over what the BER guidelines perhaps unwisely term “branding and recognition.” Under the guidelines, the signs must remain in place until March 2011, after the next federal election. The deputy prime minister and education minister, Julia Gillard, must be invited to the opening ceremonies of all new facilities. To synchronise this tour of duty with her significant parliamentary and other ministerial responsibilities, opening ceremony dates can’t be altered once locked in by her office. Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne has been a persistent critic of the program’s publicity. He claimed a victory when the Australian Electoral Commission ruled that displaying the signs within six metres of school premises when they are being used as polling stations would contravene the Commonwealth Electoral Act. The government also accepted the AEC’s advice that authorisation may be required for the signs. Pyne claimed a victory, too, when the Australian National Audit Office announced in July that it would undertake a performance audit of BER... Read the full article Photo: Keith Binns/ iStockphot