Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bennelong for his question. In more good news from the Abbott government, I can inform the House today that New South Wales has signed up with the Independent Public Schools initiative. Now New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Queensland, the ACT, Victoria and South Australia have all signed up to the government's Independent Public Schools initiative. We are delivering on more election promises made before September 2013. The only state that has not signed up is Western Australia and, to their great credit, it is because they have gone further than any other state and they want to be able to continue to go further than any other state in school autonomy and, amazingly, they want to pay for it themselves, which is a unique thing for a state or territory government and I welcome it. But New South Wales signed up today, which means we are spending $70 million on independent public schooling, delivering on the promise we made before 2013 to expand autonomy across schools.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

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