Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on recent developments around education, employment and workplace relations legislation, and the implications of these developments?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much to the member for Ballarat for her question. I know that she cares about the future of education in this country.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What are you doing about the MBA strike?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for O’Connor is obviously off on a different topic. He so frequently is. In the last 24 hours, what has happened in this House and in the Senate is as follows. The Liberal and National parties have voted to punch a more than $1 billion hole in the budget, despite the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer consistently saying that they are concerned about debt and deficit. They, of course, now must recognise that they have voted to punch a more than $1 billion hole in the budget.

In the last 24 hours, members of the Liberal and National parties have voted to disadvantage country students. In the last 24 hours, members of the Liberal and National parties have voted to make life worse for small business and to tie them up in red tape. And perhaps the last one will not surprise people quite so much—in the last 24 hours, the Liberal and National parties have voted once again in favour of a return to Work Choices.

On the first of those two, on the bill before the Senate about student financing, which came back to the House today, the Liberal and National parties in this House voted for changes to that bill that would cost more than $1 billion. There are no matching savings. The shadow minister will say that he did have some matching savings, but, of course, he never had matching savings in the order of more than $1 billion and we would not join with him in the gross inequity of permanently cutting scholarships for Australian students, including a rip-off of $162 million of scholarships out of the hands of country kids. And in this House this morning, members of the Liberal and National parties voted to disadvantage country students. They voted to disadvantage country students by voting effectively to rip out of their hands scholarship money. Why did they do this? They did it to put in place a transition issue for kids who live at home.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Stone interjecting

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Obviously, the member for Murray, who is calling out about this, does not understand what she voted for. I will explain what she voted for. She voted for new transitional arrangements for kids who live at home. She voted for new transitional arrangements for kids who may well live in households of incomes over $300,000 a year. They may live in a city within walking distance of a university. She has voted for amendments for transitional arrangements for those kids to get full youth allowance—that is what she has done, justified in the name of country kids but nothing to do with country kids.

Of course, by standing in the way of this legislation, what the Liberal and National parties are voting for is no scholarships next year, because the Liberal and National parties have already voted for the abolition of the current scholarship scheme. What they are now refusing to vote for is putting in place the new scholarship scheme. That is, they are voting for no scholarships for kids next year.

Do members opposite realise what this will mean? In the electorate of the member for Sturt, 1,393 kids will miss out on scholarships if the coalition has its way. In the electorate of the member for Swan, 1,606 kids will miss out. In the electorate of the member for Herbert, 1,215 will miss out. In the electorate of the member for La Trobe, 751 kids will miss out. In the electorate of Wentworth, 1,121 kids will miss out.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Deputy Prime Minister is telling the house that the Youth Allowance bill has been defeated. It has in fact passed the Senate and therefore what she is saying is misleading.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There is no point of order.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s already passed, so what are you talking about? It’s passed the Senate.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I warn the member for Sturt.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The question that is before this parliament now is whether members of the Liberal and National parties will follow the foolish direction of the member for Sturt and engage in these rip-offs of kids in their electorates—that is the question. I understand that the Leader of the Opposition is a busy man and I understand that he has probably not taken personal carriage of this matter, but it is time for him to do so because he cannot, as Leader of the Opposition, defend a $1 billion black hole in the budget and he cannot defend ripping scholarship money out of the hands of 150,000 students around the country.

At the same time, the Leader of the Opposition may want to direct his attentions to what the Liberal and National parties are doing to destroy the prospect in this country of a national workplace relations system, a reform that the former Prime Minister, John Howard, set as an ideal for a long period of time. Why? Because the former Prime Minister, John Howard, was right that a national system would be better for small business. But yesterday in this parliament the Liberal and National parties came in here to smash and destroy the prospects of a national workplace relations system, presumably because they want to see small business tied up in red tape.

The Leader of the Opposition and the Liberal and National parties need to explain this conduct—a $1 billion black hole; country kids disadvantaged; small business tied up in red tape. It is time the Leader of the Opposition took personal carriage of these matters, or is the truth that the Leader of the Opposition already has personal carriage of these matters and, given his weakness and his struggle with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, he needs to find a few bones for the hard right of his party, like making sure they vote against a fair workplace relations system and vote to bring back the Work Choices rip-offs? Is that what it is all about? It may well be, but Australian small businesses and country students should not pay the price of the Liberal leader’s weakness. The Leader of the Opposition should take personal charge of this and fix it. He will be judged by his actions over the coming few days.