Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Hansard source

That is most helpful and greatly appreciated. I think that lays to rest these accusations of bias, which are totally and strongly rejected by the minister. I would like to say that there is a range of other issues from the speeches in the second reading debate that should be addressed, but there are not—that is the truth; they were very ordinary speeches. There was a bit of discussion on the tuition voucher and I thought that may be worth some comments. I make the point that this is one of a range of measures introduced by the Australian government to ensure that all students achieve a satisfactory level of literacy and numeracy. I would have thought that that would have been widely welcomed.

My summing up on this matter simply is this: I urge the Labor Party to go back to basics, to not accept registered letters from teacher unions posting their policies out to them, to listen very carefully to parents, to embrace concepts of choice, to welcome the increased funding which this government is putting towards schools and to work with the government in the very important area of Indigenous schools and education. I commend the minister. I am delighted to have had this opportunity to complete the second reading debate on this bill. I congratulate the minister and indeed the government on putting forward these measures. Naturally, we will not be accepting the second reading amendment.