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

A great quality school education is a foundation stone for opportunities in life. That is why this government has delivered a transformational reform agenda on school education and matched it with new resources. We have almost doubled the amount of money going into school education. We are working on teacher quality, national curriculum, transparency, trade training centres, reform to empower principals and reforms to reward teachers. We have also embarked on huge capital improvements to schools such as Building the Education Revolution, trade training centres and computers in schools. We are proud of that agenda.

We care passionately about every child in every school and the retort of the opposition to this after the election campaign was ‘Cut school funding’ because that is what they stood for in the election campaign. We too understand that, in order to give people opportunities in life, we need a vocational education and training sector that is ready for modern challenges and is a truly national system. That requires reform and it requires resources and we have been driving reform and providing new resources to vocational education and training. The opposition slogan in this regard in the last election was ‘Cuts to apprenticeships’. That is what they stood for.

We too have been driving a reform agenda in universities so that they can be properly resourced and properly structured for the modern age. We know that the opposition stands for neglect of universities. We believe in opportunity for all. We understand education is the critical foundation stone to that and we are getting on with the job of delivering the education revolution as a result.

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