Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I cannot help but reflect on that contribution from the member for Hughes. He bragged about the power of markets and the importance of price signalling but he is a man who has comprehensively rejected applying a market signal to combat climate change. He is a man who is mired in, at best, inconsistency. I will leave his contribution there—and that is doing a favour to the fine gentlemen opposite. Tempers have been known to run ragged in the chamber, and sometimes we use intemperate rhetoric. I must admit that I am occasionally guilty of that, so I choose my next words very carefully. The coalition's education policy is a crime against our children because it is robbing them of their future.

You need only look at the budget papers. The member for Hughes asked where we got this figure of $30 billion from—did we pluck it out of the air? No, we did not; it was in your own budget papers. The 2014 budget was the tombstone on the careers of the member for Warringah and the former member for North Sydney—although the member for Warringah is like a zombie reaching through the dirt and trying to come back. The 2014 budget papers brag about '$80 billion of savings' across the health and education sectors—those were the exact words. Unfortunately, $30 billion of that is in the education sector. That hit has been extreme. In my own region, that hit has been extreme. There has been nearly $900 million ripped out of Hunter schools. There has been a $162 million impact on the schools in Charlton, almost $3½ million in each school in my area—money that is so desperately needed to give our kids the best start in life.

That is why I say without any attempt at hyperbole, without any attempt at exaggeration, that the coalition is robbing our kids of a future. They are committing a crime against future generations by denying them the best education funding possible. And that is why I am so proud of Labor's policy. I am so proud of a policy that puts needs first. It says: 'We're ending the sectarian debate. We don't care if you go to a Catholic school, a state school, a Christian school an independent school or whatever, we'll fund our students based on need.'

Mr Hawke interjecting—

I do not care if they go to a private school, a Catholic school or a state school. We will fund them on need, and that is the way it should be. I am proud of our policy. I am proud of a policy that only has weightings for five specific categories that increase the needs for those students. I am incredibly proud of our Gonski reforms that will revolutionise education in this country. It is a compact between this generation and future generations. It is a compact that says education is not just a private investment, it is about the public good, and that we advance Australia by investing in our kids' education.

I am also proud of the fact that we will fund it by putting a price signal and changing incentives on things we actually want to reduce in this country. By applying a further price signal on cigarette consumption—the member for Hughes might want to listen to this—we discourage smoking and we also raise revenue to fund education. By changing tax incentives that are skewed toward speculative activity in the housing sector to divert investment into productive investment in new dwellings rather than speculative housing bubbles, not only do we improve housing affordability, not only do we make housing more achievable for our kids, not only do we get rid of an outrageous tax break in the 50 per cent capital gains tax concession that says that gains from capital should be taxed at half the gains from your own labour—an outrageous move put in place by Peter Costello—but we use the funds raised to invest in our kids' future.

That is why I am proud of Labor's policy. That is why I will be campaigning every day on our policies that improve our society and that give our kids the best chance. Those on the other side stand for nothing more than dodgy tax practices and cutting $30 billion from the future of our kids.

See this speech in context