Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australians are just horrified that you come to this great building to try to hear two great, positive messages for the future of the country, but all you get from the Labor Party is scrounging around for a scare campaign. They are a party that can only re-elect themselves from opposition with a scare campaign. They'll scurry around like mice, looking for one. It's got to be schools, universities or hospitals—that's right. They are fixated on health and Medicare and simply unable to reform the health system. Do you know what? That mob over there wouldn't know anything about hospitals except the visiting hours and where the coffee cart is. They are a party that barely understand education and will fight religiously for money but not for quality.

I'll tell you what: this side of the chamber understands that, to keep up with the rest of the world, you actually need a school system providing the best possible services, and there's a whole lot more about that than money. It's called quality care—something that the great Labor Party forgot about in 1948. It's quality of education. I can see an edgy sort of school principal there shifting from side to side. Yes, that's right. Teachers shouldn't be doing pick-up duty. Teachers shouldn't be doing playground duty. Teachers should be resourced so that they don't have to take their work home at night, unpaid, and do marking on their laps when they should be with their kids. We'll fight for quality for teaching. We'll fight for great outcomes, measuring performance over the journey of a student and not by a snapshot. This is a state Labor government which is out of ideas on health, is out of ideas on education and has nothing to offer our great nation.

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