Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let's have a look at the latest numbers or what the numbers are because the numbers tell the truth. You may not, but the numbers tell the truth. Labor's last budget—how much did they spend on public school education, Madam Deputy Speaker Vamvakinou? Well, the answer is $13.7 billion in the 2013-14 budget. And what do you think the coalition has spent in the latest budget—the 2018-19 budget? If you listen to members of the Labor Party and the untruths that they tell members of the public, you'd think there'd have been all these cuts. You'd think we'd cut it from $13.7 billion.

An honourable member: What is it now?

Good question; I'll take that interjection: it is $19.3 billion. We have increased funding 41 per cent. This year the government is spending 41 per cent more on education than when the mob in the Labor Party was in office with the Greens. And yet we have members in this parliament that walk around their suburbs and say, 'There are cuts: the government's cut funding to education.' They are telling bald-faced lies. It's a 41 per cent increase, and I would hope that, if we're going to have an election campaign about education, we can at least have some honesty in this debate.

The facts are: the coalition government has increased funding to 41 per cent more than Labor. You know what? We've also done that while bringing the budget back to surplus. Any government can come in here and spend money and run up big budget deficits as the previous Labor government did. So, even that $13.7 billion—40 per cent less than the coalition is spending—was with a huge budget deficit. So, we've got the budget back to surplus and we're spending 40 per cent more on funding for public schools, and yet we have these mistruths, untruths and lies being told time and time again. Well, I tell you what: if you want to keep this game up, every single member of this coalition is going to stand up and call you out for a pack of liars every time you stand up and say funding's been cut. The numbers tell the truth. 40 per cent more under this coalition government, and there's more to come if we get re-elected.

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