Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Kids have been going back to school across Melbourne's west this week, but this is not the only relief for parents in my electorate. Last week's announcement of Labor's 'Your child. Our Future' policy will also be a load off the minds of families across Melbourne's west. All parents want their children to do the best that they possibly can at school. As a Labor MP, I want every child in Melbourne's west to have the same chance of succeeding in their studies as a child anywhere else in Australia, and I know that the member for Lalor, in the adjoining electorate next to me, shares this vision.

It should not matter how wealthy a child's parents are or whether their family speaks English at home or whether the child has a disability; our schools should be able to respond to the individual needs of our children and give them what they need to reach their full potential. That is what 'Your Child. Our Future' is all about: building an education system that turns the tide on the growing inequality in Australia and ensures the future economic prosperity of our nation.

'Your Child. Our Future' would implement and fund the Gonski education reforms on time and in full. Every child in Australia would benefit from the needs based education funding delivered by this package. The policy would deliver an additional $4.5 billion to our schools over 2018 and 2019 and a total of $37.3 billion over the next decade. This funding would allow for a strong focus on every single child's needs, more individual attention for students, better trained teachers, more targeted resources and better equipped classrooms and more support for students with special learning needs. Needs based school funding is particularly important for areas like Melbourne's west, with large numbers of students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds and from non-English speaking homes.

Labor's 'Your Child. Our Future' policy is particularly welcome relief given the scale of the cuts to schools funding implemented by the Turnbull government. Before the election, the Liberals promised 'no cuts to health or education'. They promised that they would 'match Labor's school funding dollar for dollar'. But, since the election, Malcolm Turnbull has continued to trash the Gonski needs based education funding reforms and cut $30 billion from our schools. Over 10 years, Malcolm Turnbull's cuts mean that over $160 million will be ripped out of classrooms in my electorate. These cuts are equivalent to sacking one in seven teachers, a cut to the average school of $3.2 million and about $1,000 less support per student per year. The impact of these cuts is very real—enough to employ around 160 extra teachers every year for the next 10 years in my electorate alone. These cuts will impact every classroom in every school across Australia, and schools and teachers needing the most assistance will be the hardest hit.

Without investment in our schools, TAFEs and universities, Malcolm Turnbull's talk about innovation and the future economy is just that—talk. You cannot fund an education system or an innovation system on buzz words alone. At the next election, there will be a clear choice when it comes to education: invest in our children and our nation's future with Labor or more of the same cuts to education under Mr Turnbull and the Liberal Party.