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

I am not surprised that the opposition are so loud and confused about this particular issue. They have been confused about independent public schools from the beginning. The previous prime ministers, Rudd and Gillard, were in favour of independent public schools. The current Leader of the Opposition says independent public schools are privatisation, indicating his fundamental misunderstanding.

This is not the only issue of confusion for the opposition on school funding. They supported $2.3 billion of cuts to higher education when they were in government. They proposed the cuts ostensibly to pay for the Gonski model for school funding. Then they took $1.2 billion out of the school funding model in the pre-election fiscal outlook. So they not only robbed Peter to pay Paul; they then mugged Paul afterwards in order to get the money from him as well. That is how confused this opposition are. They took the money from Peter to pay Paul and then poor old Paul never got it. They made sure in the pre-election fiscal outlook that they were taking it out of school funding. That is how confused, hopeless and pathetic this opposition are.

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