Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sometimes I think that government members and the frontbench are living in a very different universe to the rest of Australia. Their own budget papers said that there would be $30 billion cut from schools. This is not rhetoric; this is what is in their budget papers. Yet this government is trying to deny that this is going on. Every single day they stand up and say that there are no cuts. It is just false.

In my own area of Bendigo it is estimated that $200 million will be cut from our local schools, meaning our local schools will struggle to buy the sports equipment that they need and will struggle to have the equipment they need for science classes and for maths classes and to make sure that all the students in Bendigo have the same opportunities as those in the city.

We are not seeing a commitment from this government to put the money back. Instead we have seen a leaked document, from the Prime Minister's own department, that says they want to charge the parents more. They want to whack fees on public school students. They want to make public school students and their parents pay more to access education. It would be a very dark day in this country if we go down that road and go back to the 1940s and 1950s and make public school students pay for their education. Education is a right. This government should back public education and fund it properly.