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

It's always a worry when a speech ends with calling the other side a disgrace. It's a slightly overused word in this chamber. In reality we have a good economy and increasing revenue for the nation. Taking hard decisions means you can invest in the social services Australians want. If we said to the average Australian on the street or sitting in the gallery today that funding last year was $6.8 billion going to $7.3 billion going to $7.9 billion going to $8.6 billion—that would be an increase, not a cut. But, of course, we've got the constant narrative from the other side of politics saying that, in every area of social policy, we're making cuts. They are sort of reverse cuts, where the money's actually going up but the other side are calling them cuts. It's mildly entertaining, I think, for people listening in, because it almost seems like the two parties are speaking different languages. The reality is that, when it comes to social policy, the Labor Party feel they always have to overpromise, and then, if they get into government, they find an excuse where the economy prevents them from delivering. The excuses come at the last minute.

What happened when Julia Gillard was busily promising not one, two or five but 27 different funding models for different school sectors, where every child got a different amount of money depending on what sector they attended or what state they were growing up in? There was a complete loss of control of the whole sector. What she did was like any old bozo walking down the street who sees you coming out of your workplace and says: 'How much is the boss paying you? I'll offer to double your pay.' Then he disappears, and you go back in and say to your boss, 'Thanks for halving my pay.' That's exactly what the Labor Party did. They vanished without trace. They made invisible promises that were completely unfunded.

There's a tiny issue about how government works that is lost on most Australians: in the four years going ahead, you've got to be able to find the money, if you make a promise; but after four years you can say anything, and it doesn't matter, because you don't have to budget beyond four years. What did Julia Gillard do? She brought in the big D9 tractor and pushed all the Gonski promises that went through the roof out to years 5 and 6. That was handy—not because she'd never have to deliver them, not because she'd never have to find the money, but because she knew, when she lost government a couple of weeks later, that her mob over here, fed and led by the union movement, could go on about cuts for the next 10 years from opposition.

Well, it's an unhappy place over there, isn't it? It's an unhappy place where you've got one person who knows how a school works and where the most that the rest of you know about school education is where the tuckshop is! When you guys walk in, you go straight to the principal's office, shake a few hands and then walk out before you get asked uncomfortable questions by parents. You guys would not know a learning progression if it slapped you in the face. You guys wouldn't know school reform if it was laid out in front of you. None of you have postgraduate education skills. None of you have ever enrolled in anything beyond a basic bachelor degree in union rubbish. What would you guys know about a learning progression? What would you know about student centred education? Nothing!

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