Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the shadow minister for her question. Can I just reiterate again—and this comes from someone who attended a public school for part of their public schooling, a state school; so this is something which I take incredibly seriously—Commonwealth funding for state schools was $6.8 billion last year. It will be $7.3 billion this year, $7.9 billion next year and $8.6 billion the year after that. When it comes to the bilateral negotiations with state and territory governments, as I said last Friday at the Education Council meeting, I look forward to beginning those negotiations as of now, and I look forward to concluding them as soon as I possibly can. I've already had very good discussions with New South Wales, very good discussions with the Northern Territory. I made an offer to the Queensland state minister, Grace Grace, whom I'm sure the shadow minister would know, to fly to Brisbane and begin negotiating with her at any time that she would like as well.

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