Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hindmarsh for his question and know that he is deeply concerned for all the schools in his electorate, both government and non-government. This government gave the Australian people three very important commitments in education. We said to the non-government schools around the country that, if elected, we would deliver funds to them on the SES formula and with the indexation arrangements applying at the time. We have a bill before the Senate, the Schools Assistance Bill, which does just that: $28 billion of resources for the next four years. That bill also delivers on our election commitment for transparency: transparency measures are in the bill for non-government schools, and identical transparency measures have been agreed to for government schools at the recent Council of Australian Governments meeting. Thirdly, that bill delivers on this government’s commitment to the Australian people to deliver a national curriculum. The bill is currently being held up because the Liberal Party is opposing that section of the bill which delivers the national curriculum.

See this speech in context