Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

They're getting quite exercised by this. Apparently it's alarming to hear that half of the world out there is in that small business private sector. It's going to come as big news to them to learn that, if they were engaged in trade or commerce themselves and the Australian Consumer Law applied to them, misleading claims like that would be unlawful. They would be breaking the law if they were a business engaged in trade or commerce and making claims which were found to be misleading. It's really a sign of the times. Labor are now running on empty, it appears. They are so bereft of something new to complain about that they are falling back on those lines they used to fail to deliver here last year, trying to maintain this sense of confected and unending outrage.

I'm going to take just one moment to jump into some of the state figures to prove why this is so misleading. I want to go to the Queensland numbers. I know those opposite want to talk about South Australia, but total funding to the state of Queensland under this government's schools funding increases. It goes up each and every year. For state schools it is $1.6 billion this year. That's a bigger number than last year. And the amount goes up—up, not down—each and every year from now until 2027. By that stage it will have increased by about 50 per cent, to $2.4 billion in total. The exact same logic applies to the independent and the Catholic schools sector in Queensland where the federal government, rather than the state government, is the predominant funder. So it's going up every single year, not down.

The same is true in South Australia. Mr Deputy Speaker Irons, what can you tell me about these numbers—$1.1 billion, $1.2 billion, $1.3 billion? They're going up each year, not down. Those are the funding figures under this government's schools funding for schools in South Australia.

In conclusion, these are the same old, tired lines from Labor—'misleading', as ABC Fact Check says. The only difference now is trying to link some of those lines to minor parties in South Australia. That's the only new bit here. I wonder: is something happening in South Australia soon, perhaps? It possibly suggests how poor Labor polling is in South Australia in the lead-up to the state election. I'm sure everybody noted how many of the Labor speakers here today were indeed from the state of South Australia. Well, sorry, Labor Party. I'm going to let the minor parties defend themselves, but I suspect they'll have some views quite similar to mine. All this episode shows is why the crossbenchers shouldn't trust Labor. It shows why South Australians and Queenslanders shouldn't trust Labor. It shows why teachers, parents and students shouldn't trust Labor. Their credibility on this issue of cuts is at an all-time low, like the boy who cried wolf.

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