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

One of the members opposite just said, 'Has he even mentioned loadings?' I think if they check the Hansard record they will find I have mentioned it several times already in this answer. If the member for Parramatta knew anything about how the model worked, she would have been too embarrassed to move her point of order, because, of course, the Commonwealth pays the money to the states and territories. The states and territories distribute it to the students and to the schools. This was the model under Labor, under the Howard government, under the Rudd-Gillard government—which apparently never happened—and it is the model under the Abbott government. It is called block funding to states and territories and to the Catholics. The only schools that are directly funded by the Commonwealth are independent schools, and even that money flows through the states first and then to the independent schools. The whole problem with the opposition's position on this is that they do not understand the model. They do not understand the education system. It is very complicated, I grant you, but when the member for Parramatta is given a question by the Manager of Opposition Business in the House she should check it herself. Because by the very fact of putting $1.2 billion in that the Leader of the Opposition ripped out, we are securing the funding for all other states and territories. If Labor had been re-elected, there would have been no conditions, loadings or base funding support for Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory, because Labor was giving them a great big fat zero.

Opposition members interjecting—

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