Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Capricornia for her question. The fact is that this government is delivering in education to make sure that every school in Australia is a great school and that every child, no matter where they live, gets a great education. That is why we have almost doubled spending on education—some $63 billion—compared with the opposition’s record in their last four years: to make sure that we can deliver good education to students right around Australia.

In particular, we have the national partnerships, a $1.5 billion investment in low socioeconomic schools, benefiting some 1,600 schools with additional resources to make sure that there are opportunities for those students to get the quality teaching they need. Additionally, the partnership on numeracy and literacy, another national partnership initiated by this government, is ensuring that we have a half-billion-dollar investment in schools that are specifically focused on issues of numeracy and literacy. That is really important, because if we do not provide that investment in schools for numeracy and literacy then students will not be able to develop the skills and capacities through their school career to make use of into the future.

Again, there will be an investment of some $2.5 billion over 10 years in trades training centres. We have approved over $1 billion of this investment, which will see some 288 projects benefiting over 927 schools around Australia in trades training centres. That is a significant commitment by this government and it makes sure that those students who might consider a trade vocation have the opportunity to do it whilst they are still at school. Again, there is a commitment of more than $2 billion over seven years to get computers into schools for years 9 to 12 by the end of next year. Already 345,000 computers have been delivered, with funding approved for more than three-quarters of a million computers.

Then there is the Building the Education Revolution, a $16 billion investment. We have 23,738 projects right around Australia, in all of the states, and in particular around half are to be delivered to regional and remote Australia with some 99 per cent started and 70 per cent completed.

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