Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think the facts speak for themselves. In Labor's last year in office, Labor put $13.7 billion of funding into schools. We put $19.3 billion into funding in 2018-19. That is, as my friend the member for Hughes said, a 41 per cent increase in school funding between Labor's last year in office and the current year. If you look at when these school funding reforms started, in 2016 we put $16.1 billion, in 2017 it became $17.5 billion, in 2018 it became $18.7 billion, in 2019 it's scheduled to go to $19.9 billion and in 2020 it's scheduled to go to $21.5 billion. There is a fabrication on the other side that somehow our side has cut education funding, when the truth is that no Commonwealth government in the history of the Federation has spent more money on education for government schools, Catholic schools and independent schools than our government.

There were interjections earlier in the debate about 80 per cent of funding going to non-government schools. I have to say that, under the Whitlam government, the Hawke-Keating government and the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd catastrophe, the Commonwealth has always been responsible for the lion's share of funding of non-government schools. It's the state governments which are responsible for—what are they called?—state government schools. That's their own responsibility.

We are entering into larger funding arrangements for state government schools as we are continuing to fund non-government schools, because we believe in parental choice. We believe that it doesn't matter where a parent decides to send their child to school, because it's parents who know what's best for their kids, it's parents who know what's best for their families and it's parents who should choose where they send their children. If they're going to send their child to a government school, it should be a great education. If they're going to send their child to a Catholic or an independent school, it should also be a great education. That's the purpose of our government's funding arrangements.

I'm lucky in Berowra that I have 51 fantastic schools, from the tiny Middle Dural Public School, with only 23 students, to Cherrybrook Technology High School, with 2,500 students—the largest public high school in the state. I have Oakhill College, the largest Catholic school in the state, with 1,600 students, and many fantastic schools in between. I have among my number both Cherrybrook Technology High School and Cheltenham Girls High School, which have had some of the best results of any comprehensive high school in the HSC in New South Wales. I have selective schools in my electorate or just outside of my electorate, such as Normanhurst Boys High School and Hornsby Girls High School. I've got primary schools in every suburb and town of Berowra. I am very proud of them.

I'm particularly proud of what our government is doing to help these schools. Across all 51 schools over the next decade our government is investing one billion bucks extra. It is a one billion buck bonanza because we have been able to manage our economy properly. You cannot deliver increased funding if you cannot maintain and manage a strong economy. That's what we have done. We've basically seen a $30 billion increase in school funding over the period. We're able to do that because we're bringing the budget back to surplus. Do you remember a surplus? It's not something we have heard uttered in this place for about a decade.

The Labor Party just want to continue to get us into debt and to continue to spend away. They also in this space want to mislead parents about what's really happening in their schools on the ground. The parents in my constituency know that, whatever choice they make, they will get a well-funded quality education that meets the needs of their family and their children. That is the most important thing.

I think we've had a rather arid debate. The member for Lalor's motion is exactly a continuation of this arid debate about school funding. We have been talking about funding for a decade when the real debate needs to be about quality and standards. We keep being beaten in tests by Kazakhstan and Slovenia. They are not countries that we regularly compare Australia with. We continue to be beaten by them because we are not focusing on the key things that make a difference in our education—teacher quality, curriculum and encouraging students to aim for excellence, to challenge themselves and to be unafraid to fail. They are the things that will be the building blocks of a stronger and more prosperous Australia in the future, not whether you can carve up a pie in a different way. That is the fundamental problem with what Labor want to do. They've no plan to grow funding and to grow the economy. They've only got a plan to carve up what's already there—take something from somebody who has already got something and give it to someone else. That is the Labor way; it is not our way. (Time expired)

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