Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My Christmas cards are much fewer than that, I can tell the honourable member opposite. I seem to have fewer and fewer friends these days, as I get grumpy and grumpier! But here, Speaker, are the responses to date. They are the genuine thoughts of people in the electorate. Honourable members know how hard it is to get members of the community to respond in instances like this, so the O'Farrell government needs to take a check on this. The people of the Banks electorate are not happy with its state government.

What is the cost to our schools of this slash-and-burn approach from the New South Wales government? Potentially it is the loss of over 1,300 teachers, 2,500 teachers aides, 128,000 teacher professional development days, 116,000 computers for schools—and the list goes on. This is totally unacceptable.

Then the New South Wales government, which was bleating about its poor budget position, was found by the New South Wales Auditor-General to have made budget errors. Total revenues were close to $600 million higher and total expenses were over $400 million lower than forecast. I have been here for 22½ years. The honourable member opposite, who is the father of the House, has been here much longer than that. I am sure he has not seen a billion-dollar error in budget figures that has been exposed in such a short time.

Those figures were used to justify the cuts, particularly to education. Those cuts are no longer warranted, given that the Auditor-General, someone in effect within the government process, has exposed it. An expected deficit of $337 million in the middle of June became a surplus of $680 million by the end of June. The O'Farrell government needs to reverse its disastrous decision to slash $1.7 billion from the education budget in New South Wales. We should be investing more money in our schools, not less. If we want students to have a great education and be able to get a great job when they leave school, more investment is required. The New South Wales Liberals need to admit their mistake, end the cuts and sign up to our plan for better schools.

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