Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I originally wanted to rise to my feet to talk on penalty rates and how 7,400 people who work in retail, hospitality and the like will be affected by penalty rate cuts come 1 July—$77 a week out of their pay packets. These are the sorts of people who can least afford a pay cut in this country, and that is what they are facing on 1 July, on the same day that these guys want to put in a millionaire tax cut and are still trying to push through $65 billion in tax cuts for big business.

Now we hear in the Senate that the Tasmanian independent Senator Jacqui Lambie has apparently cut a deal with the government on Gonski, on education funding. This is just another slap in the face for Tasmanian kids because the vast majority of Tasmanian kids are educated in public schools. This is not Gonski for public schools; it is Conski. It is absolutely terrible for public schools. Funding goes down for public schools under this plan—it does not get its fair share. There is no fair funding deal under this plan.

Under this plan the Liberals' policy means one in seven public schools gets their fair funding level of the Schooling Resource Standard by 2027. Under the Labor plan they would have been there by 2019. This deal is a con for the kids who attend public and Catholic schools in the seat of Lyons and across Tasmania. Jacqui Lambie should hang their head in shame.