Russell Matheson (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education. How is the government working to address poor results for Australian school students and what legacy did the minister inherit when coming to government in September last year?

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

I thank the member for Macarthur for his question. I can tell him that we are addressing the poor results of Australian school students that we inherited from the previous government. We did it, to begin with, by putting the $1.2 billion back into the school funding model that the Leader of the Opposition took out in the dying days of the previous government. So that Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland would be treated fairly, we put $1.2 billion back into the school funding model, which means that we are actually putting more money into school education than Labor would have if they had been re-elected. We are also moving to address the key issues that affect the outcomes for students—parental engagement, teacher quality, a robust curriculum and more autonomy for principals—because the research indicates that they are the most important determinants of good outcomes for our school students, with the most important being teacher quality. I can assure the House that we are listening to the PISA results that were released last December, which showed that under Labor we recorded our worst ever results in all fields of science, maths and reading and that Australia under the previous government was ranked lower than it has ever been ranked for school results.

I was asked what we inherited. We inherited a litany of wasteful programs. The computers in schools program was supposed to cost $1 billion; it cost $2.4 billion—just pin money for the Labor Party and a mere accounting error. It was a $1.4 billion blow-out. It gets worse than that, Madam Speaker: under the Building the Education Revolution—everything under Labor had to have a historic name or be revolutionary and be the biggest ever—$16.4 billion was spent on school halls. There was no research to indicate that spending $16.4 billion on school halls would improve the outcomes for our students and yet the estimate is that between $6 billion and $8 billion of that money was wasted on overpriced school halls. The University of New England said:

The BER program basically ticks all the boxes of what not to do. From mismanaging massive amounts of taxpayers' money, delivering (or not delivering) infrastructure that fails to meet even the most basic tests of quality of usefulness…

That is the legacy of the previous government. We are moving to fix that. We are focusing on things that will improve the outcomes for students in tonight's budget and, best of all, we are putting the money back that Labor ripped out in the dying days of their government.

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The government promised the Australian people before the election: 'You can vote Liberal or Labor and you will get exactly the same amount of funding for your school.' Will the Prime Minister repeat his government's promise now? If not, how can the Australian people trust anything that he says?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If it is a broken promise, it is only because we are spending more. We are putting back the $1.2 billion that members opposite, led by the now Leader of the Opposition, ripped out of the forward estimates in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook statement. There we are: they ripped off $1.2 billion and they ripped off Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Griffith will desist!

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are very touchy, Madam Speaker.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order, Madam Speaker: the question referred not to overall funding but to specific individual schools and whether that promise will be repeated.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will end up spending more over the relevant forward estimates period than Labor because we put back in the $1.2 billion that Labor ripped out. This is a government which was elected to fix the debt and deficit disaster that we inherited, and fix it we will. It ill becomes members opposite to complain about the fire brigade when they are the fire. They are the fire; we will put it out.