Page 2909 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 October 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Cook and Lyons Primary Schools
MR DE DOMENICO: My question without notice is to the Minister for Education, Mr Wood. Is it the case that, after receiving a cost estimate for reopening Cook and Lyons primary schools, the Minister instructed the then Secretary of the Department of Education, Dr Eric Willmot, to prepare another document which showed reopening costs of less than $500,000? Is it further the case that Dr Willmot told the Minister that he was not prepared to present any financial document which he knew to be false?
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, this history will be further detailed shortly after question time. To answer your question, and simply to repeat what Ms Follett said, the first bid for reopening Cook and Lyons schools was unsustainable. In the normal course of events the Chief Minister, as I said in this chamber yesterday, said no. I examined the document very carefully with the officers. For example, items were there for a new boiler, painting, carpets and a range of other matters, that I will detail later on, that had nothing to do with reopening a school.
Mr Kaine: Didn't you need them any more? If they needed maintenance, they needed maintenance.
MR WOOD: You obviously were not alert to this long and honourable departmental tradition of putting what you can into bids to see how much you can get out of it. That is why your budget was overblown. We sought, we needed, costs appropriate to reopen those schools and to get them back into the system. We did not need a new boiler to do that. In fact, the boiler is still there and is functioning quite well. We did not need painting. We did not need those items. So, I went back to the secretary of the department - this was part of my further examination of the papers - and said, "Well, you cannot do that. Give me the figure that will get us that school opened, the justifiable figure for doing that". That was the figure that emerged, the figure I gave yesterday, of $657,000.
To put a time line on it, I believe that my letter to the Chief Minister was on 15 June. On 17 June I had further advice from Dr Willmot. I had advice from Dr Willmot, let me repeat, as to how he could do that - surprise, surprise - without those other items. That was the path we followed. The schools were opened. They have been functioning successfully now for over a year and they have been functioning under that budget that we properly established. What you have seen is an example of good government.
MR DE DOMENICO: I have a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. I ask the Minister: Where did the figure of $500,000 come from?
MR WOOD: What figure of $500,000?
Mr Kaine: The one that the Chief Minister is talking about.
MR WOOD: The figure is clear enough. The final figure was $657,000. In the Estimates Committee one of the members still in the Assembly, I think, quoted about $700,000, as we talked in round figures. The all-up cost was $657,000 and that was not ultimately determined for a little while yet. Rosemary Follett said $500,000, plus $100,000 from my interjection. That seems to me to get fairly close, in very round terms, to the figure that was used.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .