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

I welcome the opportunity to respond to some of the false claims and other questions put to me by the shadow minister. In relation to the way in which we have committed ourselves to a national plan for school improvement based on indexation that the Commonwealth will apply of 4.7 per cent and seeking to secure three per cent in indexation as a commitment from states, the fact is that the indexation that we are committing for the future and the decisions that we have made are based on current state budget decisions and estimates. They apply the existing method for calculating indexation, and it shows very clearly that over the coming years indexation will fall to around three per cent. This means less money from the Commonwealth for all schools. That is the basic fact here that the shadow minister continues to ignore.

On a range of other questions that the shadow minister has put to me, I am happy to provide some additional detail for his edification. I refer him to my press release, titled Pyne letter fails the fact test. I am sure he had an opportunity to consider that release at the time that it was released, which was late May—

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