Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

is trying to help. It is $272 million for the Northern Territory that the former Minister for Education, now the Leader of the Opposition, ripped away in the pre-election fiscal outlook. This government is not only keeping the commitments it made before the election to have the same funding level as Labor of $1.6 billion; we have gone further. We are putting an extra $1.2 billion into school education. I can understand the embarrassment of the Labor Party—because they think education is their issue. It must really stick in their craw that it is the coalition government that is spending more money in school education over the next four years than Labor would have had they been re-elected. If Labor had been re-elected, schools would be $1.2 billion short on the funding they expected over the next four years. If Labor had been re-elected, there would be no national school funding agreement. But I have delivered a national school funding agreement. I have delivered what the Leader of the Opposition was incapable of doing. I have delivered an agreement that includes every jurisdiction—state and territory, Catholic and independent—

Opposition members interjecting—

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