Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Dollar for dollar, on the same page. You have heard it all before. That gutless backflip cannot be forgiven, and nor will it be forgotten. If we do not get the fundamentals right at our schools, how can we aspire to a future that is innovative and agile? All this talk about being innovative and agile and letting the ideas boom, while you are underfunding, defunding and breaking your commitments, is deceitful, as far as I am concerned. It is clear that the Turnbull-Joyce government do not really care about our education system. We all heard their hollow promise before the 2013 election: 'No cuts to health, no cuts to education'. We saw it on billboards. We saw it on corflutes. We heard the then shadow education minister, Mr Pyne, say it. They talked about improving teacher training, then ripped $80 billion out of the education system. Sorry—

See this speech in context