Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to join my colleagues on this very important matter of public importance. It's interesting to hear the member for Brisbane opposite talk about how this is all a scare tactic and a scare campaign. The real speech he would have loved to have made is: 'Let's privatise every single school. Let's sell them to off to multinationals and let private industry, business and commerce run them.' That's the guts of what those on the other side would really like to see.

On this side of the House, we have a long tradition of supporting education—from the Whitlam era, and even before then—and we continue to do so. We did so in 2012, when we came up with the Gonski report et cetera, and implemented a great system that would have seen fairness in every school and every school's funding based on its needs. I recall very well during the 2013 campaign how those opposite were jumping up and down saying: 'Us too! Us too! We're supporting this. This is exactly what we're going to do as well. Nothing to worry about, Australian public voters, we will be doing the exact same thing as the Labor Party.' They said this about many other things, which they also reneged on once they won the federal election in 2013.

Education is another example of where those opposite say one thing before an election and then do something completely different. In South Australia, state schools will be losing $210 million in the next two years alone—$210 million! We're here to condemn this government for reneging on this and for taking money away from some of the poorest schools in South Australia, including some in my electorate. If you have a look at the sectors nationally and compare the figures provided by the Parliamentary Budget Office—the PBO—and the National Catholic Education Commission, you will see government schools will lose $1.88 billion, Catholic schools will lose $250.6 million and independent schools will lose $53.5 million. It's a total of $2.19 billion. And 86 per cent are cuts to public schools—86 per cent. That is a shame. Some of the schools in South Australia are literally losing more than $1 million in funding. Public schools cop a massive 86 per cent of the cuts nationally.

In my electorate, there are two schools that come to mind: Glenelg Primary School is down $731,000, and Thebarton Senior College is down $863,000. These are schools that do very important work. They take in kids with disabilities; they have special programs to assist children who have learning difficulties. Taking away $731,000 from Glenelg will make a big difference to those students, and it will make a big difference to the way that school operates. As we heard the member for Makin say, the only way these schools can survive is by putting up their fees; therefore, parents who are in some of the most vulnerable areas, in some of the poorest areas, of our suburbs will be paying more for school fees. Maybe I should let that sink in.

There is another school in my electorate, the School for Vision Impaired, which does some magnificent work assisting children with vision impairment. It's getting a cut of $24,000. That lot on the other side may think that $24,000 is not a lot, but for a family and a child trying to deal with vision impairment, this could be the difference between receiving and not receiving the latest Braille books or an iPad to help them learn in already difficult circumstances. That shows how low this government will go.

Henley High School in my electorate is suffering a cut of $1.2 million—the largest cut faced by a school in the electorate of Hindmarsh, and the seventh-largest cut of 511 schools in South Australia. Henley are doing some great work with STEM. They do intense learning in STEM subjects, in science, technology et cetera, and all of that will be affected by these cuts.

Cowandilla Primary School, which I'm very proud to say is my old primary school, will have $403,000 cut from it. It's a great school. We visited there recently with the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bill Shorten. We looked at their STEM program, and some of the great work they're doing with young students. This is a school that has had, for many years, a great tradition of working with new arrivals—from kids that had come straight off the boat in the sixties, right through to today. This cut will have a massive effect on a school that needs every single cent to help it cope with students that have difficulties with learning and with many other things. (Time expired)

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