Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Last night, the Senate passed a motion demanding the Minister for Education and Training immediately release the government's plan for school funding. When will the Prime Minister end the uncertainty and come clean about just how badly schools will be hit by his $30 billion of cuts?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We were contemplating education and its significance in the closing the gap speeches today. One of the most telling statistics that we drew from that report, amidst many disappointing ones, was that the employment gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians does not exist—in fact, employment percentages are the same—where Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians have a tertiary education. So it is a great reminder that education is transformative. We know that a quality education provides a lifetime of opportunity. We are investing more money in school education than any government in the history of the Commonwealth. We are getting on and fixing another one of Labor's extraordinary messes in the field of education.

Under their failed VET FEE-HELP scheme, thousands of vulnerable students, including many Indigenous students, were ripped off by dodgy providers and that led to a blowout from costing $325 million in 2012 to $1.8 billion in 2014 and $3 billion in 2015. This was a Labor Party scheme they set up and it resulted in the taxpayer funding courses like diplomas of energy healing—and this was not applicable to South Australia; this was not an engineering degree—flower essence therapy and Chinese medicine treatments for dogs and cats. That was what the Labor Party did with taxpayers' dollars on education.

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

But you're in government.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are the government and we have fixed your mess. What we are doing now is ensuring that our school education funding results in better outcomes. The other question we have to answer is why is it that we spend more and more each year on school education but results get worse?

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

And, of course, the member for Sydney says, 'Spend more money.' That is the only answer: she wants to keep on doing the same thing when it is obvious it is not working.

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Sydney has already been warned.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are working with the states, who obviously run all the schools, to ensure that we get quality teaching, better outcomes and better value for the educational dollar. We owe it to the children, we owe it to their parents and we owe it to Australia's future to ensure that we get the right outcomes, the quality outcomes, from our massive and increasing investment in school education.