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 that important follow-up question. In Capricornia, some 8,650 families are expected to benefit from the schoolkids bonus. That is a lot of families who know what it is like to meet those additional education costs for their kids. Now, because of the budget that has been brought down by this government, they will have the opportunity to do that. It is not only 8,600 or so families in Capricornia but also 280,000 families in Queensland who are also expected to benefit.

The government understand how important education is. We know that every young Australian student who has the opportunity to be at a school that has good facilities provided by this government, access to computers provided by this government, teachers with good quality training provided by this government, and a national curriculum delivered by this government will benefit. In the electorate of Capricornia, 13 schools have benefitted from eight trades training centres and more than $20 million from us. That is 13 schools who have benefited under national partnerships from the investment that we have made in making sure that there is teacher quality in schools, support for teachers as they teach kids, and improvements and additional effort on literacy and numeracy. All of these significant investments are happening not only in Capricornia but right around Queensland, because this government understands the importance of education.

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