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. Is the Prime Minister aware that, when speaking about the government's $22 billion cuts to schools, Senator Back warned, 'Please don't make me vote against the government in my last week in the Senate'? Isn't it the case that any changes the Prime Minister wants to make to his school cut package have nothing to do with the children and everything to do with appeasing the members for Warringah, Menzies and Dawson, Senator Back, Senator Abetz and Senator Hanson-Young?

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

Every element of our school funding package is focused on the needs of Australian children. The member for Sydney may shake her head, but David Gonski says it is and Ken Boston says it is. One school leader after another recognises that transparent, consistent, needs based funding is what we have delivered. It is focused on the needs of the children. That is a commitment to ensuring that we get the funding we need.

We are spending $18.6 billion over the next 10 years, but we are doing more. We are going forward with another Gonski review to ensure that we identify what measures will ensure that we get the best use of that funding to get the best teaching and the best educational outcomes. We have been spending more on schools, but results have not been improving. That is something we have got to address. The money is there, the commitment is there and the needs based funding is there. Labor's politics will not distract us from delivering for Australian children. Our children deserve better. We are delivering the needs based funding that they deserve. Labor should deliver support for that because for years they masqueraded as supporters of needs based funding—and the member for Sydney more than any of them. They did that for years and now, as ever, whenever there is an intersection between politics and principle, Labor goes for politics. Our children deserve better.