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

If there is one thing that it is certain that the Labor Party will do if they form government it is that they will tax the life out of the Australian people. They will spend like drunken sailors and they will place a debt burden on future generations of Australians the likes of which we haven't seen.

What we've seen here today from the member for Corio are exactly the type of lies that we saw during the last election campaign. Australians know that we have put record funding into education. We've put record funding into child care. We've put record funding into schools, whether they be state, Catholic or independent schools. We've put record funding into higher education. We've put record funding into health and we've put record funding into infrastructure. We will make the case strongly at the next election. You over on that side might be measuring up the curtains, but I can tell you we're going to put up one hell of a fight and we are going to make sure we retain government.

Let's have a look at school funding. What are the facts? The government will boost our investment in public schools from $6.8 billion, which is what it was in 2017, to $7.4 billion this year, to $10.8 billion in 2023 and to $13.7 billion in 2029. There are no cuts. That is an increase year upon year, making an absolute mockery of what they on that side were saying. Let's have a look at what we're doing for Catholic schools. It's exactly the same—$6.3 billion invested in 2017, $6.6 billion in 2018, $8.6 billion in 2023 and $10.2 billion in 2029. For independent schools it's the same—$4.4 billion in 2017, $4.7 billion in 2018, $6.6 billion in 2023 and $8 billion in 2029. That is an increase year upon year, making an absolute mockery of this idea that somehow when you invest more and more each year the Labor Party can call that a cut.

What about health? Health is exactly the same. The government will invest $130.2 billion in public hospitals, an increase of $30.9 billion, with record funding each year for each state and territory. Our government's funding for public hospital activity will increase from $99.3 billion between 2015-16 and 2019-20 to $132 billion between 2020-21 and 2024-25. Commonwealth funding for public hospital services will more than double from $13.3 billion in 2012-13 to a record $28.7 billion in 2024-25. Commonwealth funding for Victorian hospitals has increased from $3 billion per year in 2012-13 under Labor and will increase to over $7 billion in 2024-25, at the end of the new hospital funding agreement.

The pattern is also clear in Medicare services. Investment in Medicare services to Victoria has increased from $4.6 billion under Labor to over $5.5 billion under the Liberal-Nationals government. And the same is true when it comes to medicine. The last Labor government reversed the policy of the coalition to list all medicines approved by the independent PBAC. In fact, they deferred the listing of seven medicines due to their financial mismanagement.

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