Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The performance of the Abbott government is summed up by one fact and one quote. The quote is from the now Prime Minister on 28 November 2012:

… I am committing a future Coalition government to creating one million new jobs within five years …

The fact is this: in the first six months of the Abbott government, 63,000 Australian full-time jobs have been lost. That is the reality of the situation—the quote, the reality. Today an additional 5,000 hardworking, dedicated Australians are being shown the door at Qantas.

On 5 December Qantas lost their investment-grade credit rating. Since that time they have been screaming out for some form of government assistance. We have all seen Qantas management walking up and down the hallways of Parliament House in the last three or four months. They have been seeking some form of government assistance and commitment to a national carrier. What response did they get from this government? The same response that Holden got, the same response that the workers at SPC Ardmona got—not a thing. They did not get one whimper from the government about the importance of Qantas as a national carrier. In fact, they got the complete opposite—just as Holden were goaded into leaving Australia, Qantas have been goaded into taking on their staff or getting 'their house in order', as the Prime Minister and others opposite have said. The implication is that Qantas will drive down the wages and working conditions of their employees as a condition of getting this government to do anything to assist our national carrier.

I say to those Qantas workers, to those who are uncertain, particularly those in my community, where many of them reside, that Labor does not blame them. We have sympathy for them and we are thinking about them. Labor will fight to ensure that Qantas has a future in this country, that Qantas has its board in Australia, that Qantas does maintenance in Australia and that Qantas remains our national carrier. That is our commitment to job creation and to the workers of Qantas, unlike those opposite, who will not lift a finger to help our national carrier.

When it comes to education, our nation's education system is failing our kids. We have all seen the results from the fall in standards in education. Labor developed a new model for funding schools—a needs based model to ensure that those kids that are falling behind, many of them in country areas, in low socioeconomic areas, kids with disabilities, get the support that they need through our education system. It was a thorough study undertaken over many years comprising consultations with academics, experts, teachers, principals, parents and students. It was the Gonski reform model. What was the commitment of the Abbott government prior to the election? It is in this quote from Tony Abbott:

… as far as school funding is concerned, Kevin Rudd and I are on a unity ticket.

That is what the Prime Minister said. What did the Minister for Education say? On 29 August 2013 he said at an education forum:

We have agreed to the government's school funding model.

What is the reality? The reality is they have completely undermined that needs based system of funding by not ensuring that the states put additional money into the Gonski reform package, by not ensuring that the states are committing to a needs based funding model. In my home state of New South Wales we have seen, to his credit, the education minister stand up to Tony Abbott and to Christopher Pyne—stand up to the education minister and say, 'It's not on.' He understands that if you are going to improve results, if you are going to improve student outcomes in New South Wales, you need to be investing in education, and they have committed to putting more money to funding the Gonski reforms—unlike the education minister, who said to Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory: 'It's okay. You don't need to put more money into education. You don't need to invest in a needs based model.'

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