Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition must be looking at a different reference point to me because I am reading here from a newspaper report today which quotes the State School Teachers' Union of WA President, Pat Byrne, conceding that Western Australian schools would get a better deal under Gonski 2.0 than under the current system, with funding for public schools in the state to increase 6.8 per cent a year over the next decade compared with 4.7 per cent under the status quo.

The issue for the honourable member is her own consistency. She has campaigned for years for needs based funding. She has cited David Gonski for years. She has railed against the coalition and said that we do not accept the Gonski reforms. She said that she 'gave a Gonski' and we did not. Now we have a school funding proposal which is endorsed by David Gonski and the members of his panel, and we have David Gonski's vision of national, transparent and consistent needs based funding endorsed—and that is the difference.

We are delivering on that commitment. Labor has abandoned needs based funding and it is standing in the way of Australian schools getting $18.6 billion of additional funding over the next decade—and getting it in a manner that is fair, getting it in a manner that is transparent, getting it in a manner that is needs based, and then moving on to the next stage of Gonski's work, which is to look at how we can ensure that our students get the best value in terms of quality teaching and educational outcomes out of that funding. That is what we should be focused on.

I recognise the Labor Party wants to play politics with this. I recognise there are many players with many vested interests, but I can say this to the opposition to be very clear: the only vested interest we have are the children of Australia.

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