Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before the last election I visited Dapto high school and I asked them: what would the Gonski reforms, if fully implemented, mean to a school like this in my electorate? They were well prepared for the answer. They said that around $1.4 million in extra funding would flow to their school, the equivalent of about 16 extra teachers, which would enable them to have special needs teachers in every faculty, enable them to improve their teaching and their facilities for their autistic students, enable them to upgrade their facilities and enable them to provide more resources for their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students as well as other at needs students. You can imagine that when they heard that the now Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said before the election that the Liberals were on an absolute unity ticket with Labor when it came to school funding they drew some confidence from that statement. Frankly, that confidence has been dashed because what we have seen is millions of billions of dollars' worth of cuts to schools. In New South Wales, $9.5 billion worth of cuts.

Mr Tudge interjecting—

The member for Aston may not believe me, but he may believe the National Party member and Minister for School Education in New South Wales, who says:

Schools in regional areas, as well as disadvantaged and Aboriginal students, will be the hardest hit.

He lists a catalogue of implications and cuts as a result of this broken promise. (Time expired)