Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Thursday the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and shadow minister for education and I met with teachers, parents, staff and students at St John's Catholic Parish Primary School in Dapto. This is a school with a long history in the Illawarra, dating back to 1839. This is a school that gives local Dapto kids a great start in their education. I'd like to thank the principal, Andrew Heffernan, for taking time to meet with us. I'd like to thank the school leaders—captains Isabella Toohey and Alexei Valentinetti, and vice captains Ruby Bain and Jack Cox—together with teachers Jeff DeBattista and Kate Thomas. I'd also like to give a shout-out to the parents and friends committee president, Therese Ly, who took time off work to meet with us that morning.

We heard firsthand about the impact of Malcolm Turnbull's government's funding cuts on the Catholic school community in the Illawarra. The government is cutting $17 billion from schools, exactly the same amount of money it is proposing to give to banks in tax cuts. Over the next two years alone, Catholic schools like St John's in Dapto will be hit with about 13 per cent of the cuts the Prime Minister is imposing on the education system. What parents, teachers and students are after is funding certainty. They're not getting it from this government. Teachers, students and parents right across the Illawarra, particularly in schools in Dapto, deserve better from this government, and they are not getting it.