Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Media reports state that the Parliamentary Budget Office has confirmed that the government is cutting $3.1 billion from Catholic schools. The Department of Education and Training data shows the government is cutting $4.6 billion from Catholic schools. Prime Minister, which figure is correct? And does the Prime Minister seriously expect parents with children at Catholic schools to believe that fees will not go up?

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

I thank the honourable member for his question. I refer him to the answers given by myself and the minister representing the Minister for Education and Training. I recap: the funding program in our education package that is before the Senate at the moment involves an extra $18.6 billion investment in schools over the next decade. Funding for students in our schools will increase by an average of 4.1 per cent every single year from 2018 to 2027. It will be a 3.5 per cent increase for students in Catholic schools overall and 4.1 per cent for students in independent schools. The scheme is fair, it is transparent and it is needs based. Honourable members opposite know that Dr Ken Boston—and I hope it does not produce too emetic a reaction on the part of those disappointed in Dr Boston's apostasy—told the truth. He said the Labor Party was a corruption of the Gonski model. He knows that Labor failed to deliver on that promise. They did not focus on the needs of the students, as we have; they focused on the needs of their own political objectives—27 secret deals. We are delivering more funding fairly, transparently and needs based across the nation. Every system—state, territory, Catholic and independent—is getting more funding per student across the board based on need. That is what Labor used to be committed to, but they are not any longer. Their hypocrisy and their political gamesmanship is leaving the children of Australia behind.

As I said in my earlier answer, the funding war should end. It is about time the Labor Party focused on the kids, focused on their needs, getting the funding right for them and then ensuring they get the first-class education they deserve. That is our commitment. Labor's approach on this has failed Australian children and let them down—an exercise in hypocrisy and abandonment of future generations' right to get a first-class education.