Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like many first-generation Australians—children of migrants—I am profoundly grateful every single day that my parents chose to make their home in Australia. I'm grateful to them for the stable and loving home they gave me and I'm grateful to this nation for the first-class public education I received, because it changed my life and it changed the course of our family's life for generations. I see it as one of my most profound responsibilities to pass on those same opportunities to subsequent generations of Australians: to my own children and to children just like them—millions of children, right around Australia.

That's why I was so very happy today to join with principals, teachers, parents and the wonderful Australian Education Union at the front of Parliament House to make a case for fair funding for our public schools. We know those opposite have cut $14 billion from growth in public school funding. They've agreed to fund Catholic and independent schools, and we join them in supporting the restoration of funding for Catholic and independent schools. But it's public schools that teach two out of every three Australian children, and it's public schools that now face these $14 billion of cuts. But Labor will restore every single dollar.