THE $16.2 billion Building the Education Revolution scheme, one of the signature policies of the Rudd and Gillard years, has been condemned as an international case study of legislative and bureaucratic failure.
A paper by three Australian academics published in the International Journal of Public Administration says the Labor-era stimulus program of building multi-purpose school halls, science labs and libraries highlights the pitfalls governments need to avoid when rolling out large-scale public expenditure programs.
It finds the BER did not “adequately capture” value for money and produced “fiscal lag’’ because its objectives to pump prime the economy with expansionary stimulus happened too late and was at odds with the Reserve Bank’s restrictive monetary policy.
More than five years after the height of the global financial crisis, The Australian can reveal there are still eight public and private school projects to be completed in NSW and one non-government project in Victoria.
“In line with ‘legislative failure’ … it can be argued that the BER program’s economic stimulus purpose was limited, given that the rollout actually occurred after the worst of the impact of the GFC had already hit the Australian economy,’’ it says.
Mr Lewis, who worked for Canberra University as a visiting fellow
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/labors-ber-reforms-a-case-study-of-failure/s...
