Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Turnbull Liberal-National government has failed to properly invest in education and it has failed to ensure that Australians are ready for the jobs of the future. On this side of the House, we know that education makes a real difference to people's lives. For individuals, it opens the door to jobs and opportunity, and for our country it builds prosperity and a secure economy. We all know that education is the key to preparing our children for those jobs of the future, and the Turnbull government has failed over and over to provide those opportunities.

At all levels of education—whether its schools, universities or TAFE—this government has repeatedly cut and repeatedly failed. Rural and regional students are hardest hit by these cuts. In regional Australia we blame the National Party for these cuts because National Party choices hurt, and cutting funding has hurt the regions.

Before we look at the cuts, let's remember back to the last election, with all those Liberal Party and National Party candidates running around promising there would be no cuts to education. During the campaign they were all out there saying they were on an 'absolute unity ticket when it comes to school funding'. That was their pre-election promise. In my area, all the National Party candidates were out there saying that. As soon as they got into government, what did they do? They cut that funding. So it turned out to be another broken promise, another lie, in the lead-up to the election. It shows that they just cannot be trusted.

The fact is that this government has only one policy when it comes to schools, and that is to rip $30 billion of funding out of our schools. I said that National Party choices hurt—$30 billion really hurts, especially in the country. Let's have a look at the history of the Abbott-Turnbull government's failure to properly invest in education. In the 2014-15 budget, they had that $30 billion funding cut to all Australian schools over the next decade. This not only destroys the needs based funding model; it also fails to even keep up with historic trends in the cost of education. Let's look at exactly what these cuts mean. They mean an average cut of $3.2 million per school, which is the same as sacking one in seven teachers; less individual support; fewer subject choices; less support for students with a disability; cuts to literacy and numeracy programs; and less training and support for teachers.

Yet at the same time as we have these cuts we are also seeing Australia's educational rankings falling backwards. According to OECD data, in the year 2000, only one country outperformed Australia in reading and maths, and in 2006 only two countries outperformed Australia in science. But today 16 countries outperformed Australia in maths, nine countries outperformed Australia in reading and seven countries outperformed Australia in science.

The fact is that education is not just a policy about equity and fairness; it is also a policy for economic growth. Only Labor has a plan to properly invest in education. Our plan, 'Your Child. Our Future', represents the most significant improvement and investment in education in Australia for two generations. We believe that every child should have the same chance of succeeding at school no matter their background, no matter where they live and no matter what type of school they go to—government, independent or Catholic. 'Your Child. Our Future' means the Gonski funding and reforms will be delivered on time and in full, and this reverses the Turnbull government's harsh cuts. 'Your Child. Our Future' will see an additional investment in our education system of $4.5 billion over years 5 and 6 of the Gonski reforms and $37.3 billion over the decade, a massive investment.

This investment will see every child in every school funded on the basis of need, and a permanent improvement in the schools system. The plan ensures a strong focus on every child's needs; more individual attention for students; better trained teachers; more targeted resources and better equipped classrooms; and more support for students with special learning needs. When I look at my electorate of Richmond, every student in every school will get the support they need to reach their full potential under our plan. That is important right across the country, but especially in regional and rural seats. They desperately need to have funding such as this.

All of this is in incredibly stark contrast to the Liberal-National cuts to education, which have had a very severe impact in the regions. I will just talk about my electorate for a minute. The school cuts in my electorate of Richmond will rip $176 million out of the electorate over the next 10 years—a huge amount—meaning children in regional areas like mine will not get the opportunities to meet their full potential. When it comes to regional Australia, only Labor will invest in schools. The Prime Minister, his Liberals and his Nationals will just cut.

At the next election, once again there will be a very clear choice when it comes to education: invest in our children and our nation's future with Labor—we understand the importance of investing in education—or you will just get more of the same cuts to education under the Liberals and Nationals. The fact is that National Party choices hurt, particularly National Party cuts to education.

See this speech in context