PM avoids media in marginal Sydney seat

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has avoided the media as she visited school principals in one of Labor’s most marginal federal seats.

The prime minister and Education Minister Peter Garrett spent an hour taking questions from school principals at Georges River College in the southern Sydney suburb of Penshurst.

Despite it being International Women’s Day, Ms Gillard made little mention of the occasion even though the event was, ironically, being held at the school’s Girls Campus.

Federal MP Daryl Melham, who holds Banks by a slender 1.5 per cent margin, reminded the audience of about 100 people that he was approaching his 22nd anniversary in politics.

But the real attention was on Ms Gillard, who answered a web question, read out by the local MP, about whether private school fees would go up.

“I know there are people out there out who are trying to raise all sorts of fear campaigns,” she said.

As the cordial event wound up at 6pm (AEDT), the prime minister quickly mingled with school principals before making her way to a waiting Holden Caprice.

She had earlier repeatedly praised individual principals for their “very good questions”, but the waiting journalists had no such chance to grill her.

Mr Garrett politely gave reporters two minutes of his time, where he promised to have the ideas in David Gonski’s education report legislated by year’s end.

The review recommended that education funding be boosted by $5 billion but the minister reiterated the government’s “commitment” to returning the budget to surplus in 2013.

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