Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the importance of needs based school funding that is fair, transparent and consistent for all students, including in my electorate of Dunkley?

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

I thank the member for his question. I thank him for his commitment to ensuring that all Australian students and all Australian schools have the benefit of generous needs based funding—consistent and transparent right across the country. The Labor Party promised that. They talked about it but never delivered it. Twenty-seven secret deals—all inconsistent! They talk about a schools policy. They do not have a schools policy. They have a mishmash of inconsistent deals entrenching disadvantage. The only need they answered was political need.

If members opposite had the integrity and the conviction that they claim to have, they would be supporting this reform. They would be supporting this reform in the same way that David Gonski is, that Ken Boston is and that one leading educationalist after another are around the country. The time has come to end all the special deals, to end the secret deals, to end the inconsistencies and to have one consistent national needs based platform for funding Australian schools. That is what we are delivering, and we are delivering it for the first time. This is record funding for schools. It is record funding for every sector—government, Catholic, independent right across the board. Every school in the member for Dunkley's electorate benefits from it—over $330 million of additional funding over the next decade. That demonstrates our commitment to the values that we espouse of ensuring that every Australian has the best chance to get ahead.

When it comes to values and consistency, we see none from the Labor Party. Yesterday, we saw the Labor Party's response to John Setka's extraordinary threats where he threatened to track down inspectors of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, follow them to their homes, threaten them in the street, threaten their children. He was threatening violence to government officials in an extraordinary way at a rally to which the Leader of the Opposition had sent a letter of support. This is to a rally that he knew his party guest, John Setka, was going to be speaking—a man with dozens of convictions and a criminal record as long as your arm. The Leader of the Opposition backed him in. Today, will he condemn him? No. A mild rap over the knuckles with a wet lettuce. That is the best he can do. He fails the character test with Setka as he does with education. (Time expired)

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. Yesterday, the Prime Minister could not answer when asked to confirm that Fregon Anangu School will lose over $100,000 next year compared to actual funding it received in 2015. The Prime Minister later added to his answer but refused to compare funding to 2015. So I ask: what is the difference between the actual funding that Fregon Anangu School received in 2015 and what they will get next year under this Prime Minister? They are going to get $100,000 less, aren't they?

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

I thank the honourable member for her question. I refer her to the answer I gave yesterday about the increase in funding allocated by the Commonwealth to that school. I am sorry that she was not in the House to hear it, owing to a her transmissions of regular interjections being interrupted by an objection.

I have inquired of the minister. There has not been, I am advised, any reduction in the amount of funding per student allocated by the Commonwealth in respect of the school at Fregon. The honourable member knows that the My School site shows the amount of Commonwealth funding that a state decides to allocate to a particular school, not the amount of money the Commonwealth determines should be given to the state in respect of that school.

I am glad the honourable member is listening. There are two figures here. Firstly, the Commonwealth have to assess the needs of the school and determine the amount of funding, and we are doing that now thoroughly, transparently and consistently. If the money goes to a state government or, indeed, to a Catholic school system, it goes in one block and that system—be it a state, a Catholic or another system—is able to allocate it as they wish.

The point is that the funding amount in My School is determined by the state government. It is the amount of Commonwealth funding that it allocates. I repeat: the amount of funding allocated by the Commonwealth per student for Fregon is increasing—it is increasing on the basis that is set out in the estimator. The state of South Australia has, apparently, chosen to allocate more Commonwealth funding to that school and presumably less to other schools, otherwise their total funding package would not add up. That is the answer. It is very clear. The Commonwealth's allocation of funding to that school has been consistent and growing.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Members will cease interjecting. I think the last one was the member for Mackellar—I might be doing him an injustice. The member for Lalor and the member for Braddon were interjecting consistently through the answer. I warn them.