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

I thank the member for his question. I thank him for his commitment to ensuring that all Australian students and all Australian schools have the benefit of generous needs based funding—consistent and transparent right across the country. The Labor Party promised that. They talked about it but never delivered it. Twenty-seven secret deals—all inconsistent! They talk about a schools policy. They do not have a schools policy. They have a mishmash of inconsistent deals entrenching disadvantage. The only need they answered was political need.

If members opposite had the integrity and the conviction that they claim to have, they would be supporting this reform. They would be supporting this reform in the same way that David Gonski is, that Ken Boston is and that one leading educationalist after another are around the country. The time has come to end all the special deals, to end the secret deals, to end the inconsistencies and to have one consistent national needs based platform for funding Australian schools. That is what we are delivering, and we are delivering it for the first time. This is record funding for schools. It is record funding for every sector—government, Catholic, independent right across the board. Every school in the member for Dunkley's electorate benefits from it—over $330 million of additional funding over the next decade. That demonstrates our commitment to the values that we espouse of ensuring that every Australian has the best chance to get ahead.

When it comes to values and consistency, we see none from the Labor Party. Yesterday, we saw the Labor Party's response to John Setka's extraordinary threats where he threatened to track down inspectors of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, follow them to their homes, threaten them in the street, threaten their children. He was threatening violence to government officials in an extraordinary way at a rally to which the Leader of the Opposition had sent a letter of support. This is to a rally that he knew his party guest, John Setka, was going to be speaking—a man with dozens of convictions and a criminal record as long as your arm. The Leader of the Opposition backed him in. Today, will he condemn him? No. A mild rap over the knuckles with a wet lettuce. That is the best he can do. He fails the character test with Setka as he does with education. (Time expired)

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