Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A couple of weeks ago world leaders gathered to renew financial pledges for the Global Partnership for Education, aiming to ensure that every child has access to quality education as a birthright. The final figure reached at this meeting was $2.3 billion. It is certainly a big number and worth commending, but it falls well short of the target set to allow the GPE to reach 870 million children to change their lives and our world for the better. Australia pledged $90 million to the GPE over three years. It saddens me that Australia is becoming less generous with each replenishment. This latest pledge is a far cry from Australia's four-year pledge of $270 million in 2011, which was cut to $140 million in 2014 by the Abbott government. I was proud to be part of the Gillard Labor government when, in 2011, Australia was one of the top two donors to the GPE. In 2018, we, a very wealthy country, will likely drop out of the top 10. Shame.

Deep cuts to our aid budget in recent years are having a tangible impact on our support of vital global mechanisms like the GPE. I have said in this parliament before that international aid, especially when it supports education, is the single greatest enabler of our world's next generation. As a former teacher and now as the parent of two school students I see the importance and impact of education firsthand, as well the challenges faced by those who do not have access to quality education. A quality education is not treated as a human right, but it should be. A quality education is not treated as a global investment in preventing entrenched poverty, but it should be. Australia has the capacity to do so much more.