Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I have been in this place seven years and I have heard all sorts of weird and wonderful things, but I am hard-pressed to think of a bill that has attracted so much sanctimonious claptrap from both the government and the opposition, frankly, as what I have heard during this debate. Mercifully, the debate on the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2017 has been punctuated with some quite powerful and accurate speeches. I am pleased the member for Melbourne is here. I think his speech was spot-on, and I am hopeful that my colleague the member for Mayo is going to follow soon as well.

What I have just said is harsh. There are a lot of good people in this place and both sides have a lot of good ideas. When I say that I have never heard so much sanctimonious claptrap it is because both the government and the opposition are either unaware—I cannot believe they are unaware; perhaps they are just ignorant—or sidestepping the fact that when David Gonski first came out with his recommendations he came out with a figure of our education system needing an extra $5 billion a year—each and every year. In fact, $5 billion was a 2009 figure. If we were to index that for inflation, we should now be talking about the need, the pressing need, the legitimate need, for our schools in this country to be getting an extra $6.5 billion each and every year. But what have we got? We have got the Gonski-lite that was introduced by the Labor Party under Prime Minister Julia Gillard—$15.9 billion over six years, which is $2.65 billion a year—and now we have the LNP proposition of $18.66 billion over 10 years or $1.86 billion a year. It is self-evident to everyone in this place that both the LNP government and the Labor opposition are nowhere near delivering Gonski. It is disingenuous for the government and the opposition to come in here and be so sanctimonious and have this cat fight about who is delivering the real Gonski. Frankly, no-one is delivering the real Gonski—no-one at all, and this at a time when in this rich and fortunate country we can afford to deliver the real Gonski. We can afford an extra $6.5 billion a year for our schools and for our kids. It is all about priorities.

Let's put $6.5 billion in perspective. When I look at the budget that was released in recent weeks, I see that expenditure in this forthcoming financial year, fiscal 2017-18, is estimated to be $459 billion. So, in a country and at a time when we can find $459 billion to spend, we cannot find $6.5 billion to spend on our schools. What is wrong with the priorities in this place? We have a federal budget that is approaching half a trillion dollars a year and we cannot find $6.5 billion. We can find enough money to double our submarine fleet, even though we cannot find the crew for the existing six. We cannot find the money that David Gonski determined we need to fix our schools now and, in particular, to provide the standard of education that all of our children need, including those with special needs. At the end of the day, a lot of kids will get by well enough but there are kids with special needs, those with learning difficulties, and those gifted children—all of those children in our community—who need a bit of extra money. The money is there in the budget this year, yet this parliament, this government and this opposition do not think it is a high enough priority. Surely, we know in 2017 of the importance of education. Of course, it is a building block for this country now and into the future. It is an essential building block for us to succeed in the knowledge future economy. Apart from all of the advantages that education brings our children, it allows them to prosper, to get better jobs, to earn more money, to be happier and to be healthier. We spend so much money on so many things, but we cannot find $6.5 billion a year, starting this coming financial year, to achieve all of that. Instead, what we have in here is what I have described as sanctimonious claptrap and pointscoring. Unfortunately, education and this so-called Gonski has become a political plaything—an opportunity for one side to score points against the other, and an opportunity for that side to then score points against them.

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