Building the Education Revolution

There is one key thing that I would say about the "Building the Education Revolution Implementation Taskforce: Final Report" that was released yesterday - and it is this.

"The Murdoch press is continuing its grubby campaign against truth and facts and is doing its best to misinform you. If you want the real story around the Building the Education Revolution - then you will need to go here for the final report - and here for the media release".

I have just finished reading the final report and it is very illuminating. I have reproduced recommendation 4 below - in an attempt to highlight a few of the significant findings.

"Twenty years ago, the Productivity Commission published a major report into the construction industry. At that time, the four major issues limiting productivity improvement were: industrial relations, planning consents, Australian participation and project management.

The Taskforce believes the major issues confronting the construction industry today are different. The BER program has been notable for negligible industrial disruption, and we have observed the benefit of the BER streamlined planning approval process.

We have however witnessed deficiencies in the quality of workmanship, in project management, in public works capacity and in the framework of private certification.

Australia confronts a significant infrastructure and maintenance spend over the coming 20 years. The Taskforce recommends that the Productivity Commission update its work on the construction industry".

These are big issues - if our construction industry and our state governments haven't managed to deal with them over the past 20 years then perhaps we need to find others who will.

And perhaps we also need to find a media that will identify and report on the real issues - instead of their usual fluff and bubble.