Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, I understand the embarrassment that they face opposite because of what they are doing with education. They have scrapped the school start bonus in Victoria. These are Liberal-National governments. The bonus was designed to help parents out to meet the cost of uniforms and the expenses of taking kids to school. The National Party, of course, do not resist their senior partner. They are the little lap-dogs there, because it is directly in regional areas that these offences on TAFE are happening. I think it was the Minister for Higher Education and Skills in Victoria, Peter Hall, who said that TAFEs were a little empire-building program—an empire-building program that is cutting the skills shortages and delivering education in regional areas where people live.

In 2003 the Victorian government did a parliamentary inquiry into how to keep kids in regional areas, because they are the future of the communities. It found strongly that educational opportunities in local communities were the key to that. That is why we have been doubling the investment in education infrastructure. That is why we have the Building the Education Revolution program, which has delivered in every single school. In my area we have an $11½ million trade training centre. That is delivering right across the bushfire-affected areas and surroundings to keep those kids in their communities and stop them having to travel to Melbourne.

But the Liberal-National government in Victoria see fit to cut that, and in fact they have even cut the school bus routes between rural communities. It is an absolute joke that they can sit there and talk about education while at the same time they have cut $481 million out of education and stopped the schools rebuilding program. In fact, Minister Hall has been to a school in my electorate, Sunbury College, three times to do an emergency audit on school facilities. I said before and I will say again that you can go 100 times but just going and visiting is not going to fix the problem. You actually have to inject the funds to fix the maintenance issues that are regarded as urgent. Woodend Primary School is another one that was listed to be rebuilt under the former Victorian government. The LNP got into power and cut it. The school has no proper disability access. In fact, the pole for the basketball ring fell down—fortunately, during the school holidays—because it had rusted through and because the Liberal and National parties have stopped school maintenance and investment in infrastructure. Again we see the big smile there from the member opposite. I will not name him, because we know how precious he is. They think it is funny. It is not funny.

Mr Tehan interjecting—

I would refer you to what most people do, but it would be unparliamentary to swear.

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