gillard in the crosshairs

[sprintcyclist]

she's in trouble

TONY Abbott has called for some of Julia Gillard's responsibilities to be "taken away'' because she has not properly supervised the government's $16.2 billion schools building program.
And the Opposition Leader said the government had been "played for suckers'' by some companies under the Building the Education Revolution scheme.

Mr Abbott told ABC radio the Deputy Prime Minister was overburdened by her multiple portfolios of Education and Workplace Relations and as Acting Prime Minister during Kevin Rudd's absences.

"I think at the very least Julia Gillard should have some of her responsibilities taken away. Plainly she has too much on her plate. Plainly, she has not been able to adequately supervise this program along with all her many other duties,'' he said.

"I mean, she's the Minister for Workplace Relations; keeping the unions under control, the newly aggressive and militant unions under control in Western Australia is a big job.

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"Running the country in Kevin Rudd's frequent absences overseas is a very big job.

"She has obviously taken her eye off the ball with this program and it seems that Australians are very considerably the poorer as a result. So I think that she needs to reconsider her workload.''

The Prime Minister today removed responsibility for Defence Personnel from minister Greg Combet in a pre-Easter reshuffle to give him more time to clean up the home insulation program mess.

On radio today Mr Abbott also hinted that companies benefiting from the BER program were taking the government for a ride.

"I think that these companies were very happy to take the work. It wasn't as if there was (a) ton of work on at the time and I think frankly they've played the federal government for suckers here,'' he said.

Mr Abbott made his remarks shortly before his education spokesman Christopher Pyne told The Australian Online that all school hall rip-offs under the BER should be published on the internet, like school results on the My School website.

"If it's good for the goose it's good for the gander and Julia Gillard should require the states to publish their school hall rip-off costings immediately,'' he said.

"That will give us a full knowledge of the extent to which taxpayers are being ripped off.

"The reason we know about NSW is because their school hall rip off costings have been published. All the other states are hiding theirs.''

Mr Pyne said Ms Gillard could no longer be believed when she said that there were isolated examples of waste after The Australian reported this morning that some corporations had levied up to 20 per cent of project cost in fees under the $16.2 billion program