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

In the very short time that is available to me I am happy to answer a couple of the member for Gilmore's questions. I am sure the Minister for the Environment will not mind if I finish this particular answer, although I will not take five minutes. The first point is that I do want to acknowledge the extraordinary efforts that the member for Gilmore went to to ensure that the universal access national partnership agreement was continued by this government, having been defunded by the previous government. We are putting $843 million in the budget into the universal access national partnership. For the first time ever it has been indexed at the consumer price index. Labor did not increase it at all from year on year; we are increasing it through the CPI. It is the responsibility of the state and territory governments to provide this level of education in preschool for four-year-olds, but we do recognise that the Commonwealth can assist parents and children—four-year-olds—to access 15 hours minimum a week of preschool, under universal access to preschool, through a subsidy to the states and territories, which we are paying to the states and territories to deliver this on behalf of the Commonwealth.

I do not know if you were in the consideration in detail earlier, Member for Gilmore, but, to put it in perspective, in 2008 in Queensland there were no students enrolled in preschool for 15 hours a week at all. In 2013 that had risen to 95 per cent. In Tasmania there was six per cent in 2008, but in 2013 there was 97 per cent. So this has been a successful program, and I am pleased to be part of a government that intends to continue to fund it. We found the money and we fixed it to make sure that the students of Australia, the four-year-olds of Australia—

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