Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

You have to give the member for Port Adelaide some credit—10 out of 10 for effort. He tried to whip himself into a frenzy. He started with six members here listening. It was so important! This was the most important issue of the day! He managed to have six members of his own team here for a while. Then they raced up to 10, and finally they had 12. Twelve thought it was so important; the rest raced over for a coffee. This is your MPI. We know what it is. We know it is just a massive scare campaign. So I feel sorry for the member for Port Adelaide. This poor man is the incoming President of the Australian Labor Party. What has happened to your once great party?

I am very pleased to be here, enjoying the matter of public importance debate, to reassure the Australian people that the government is not cutting funding for health and education. All we have seen is an irresponsible scare campaign by those opposite, scaring students, teachers and families. That is so typical of this modern Labor Party—never let the facts get in the way of a good story, hey? Budget figures tell the story. Do the numbers go up in the budget? I am just checking. Oh, there is silence over there. The numbers go up in the budget every year. The funding increases every year.

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