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

No, we listened to you, Senator, and we understand the passion with which you come to this issue. No-one disputes that passion, and no-one disputes the serious problems there are in the area of Indigenous education. What are wanting are the highly politicised ramblings that go on as though the Labor Party had no responsibilities to develop a coherent policy on this. You had a policy at the last election and it went very badly. People thought it was a very ordinary and very poor policy. I do not know: Senator Wong probably was not responsible for that, but I urge you, Senator Wong, to learn what happened in the last election, listen to the people, listen to the public and frame your policies accordingly. Do not frame them because you have been given instructions by teacher unions.

All the time I have been in this parliament, the Labor Party get their policy in the post. It is written by the teacher unions and then they release it, and then the rest of the community throw up their hands in horror. So I have to say I thought the contributions were very ordinary indeed. I am sorry to say that, because as senators know I am a senator who likes to listen and to learn, and I learnt so little from those contributions.

The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006 was passed in the other place on 1 March 2006 and was introduced by my colleague Senator the Hon. Helen Coonan on 2 March 2006. The measures in this amendment bill address the immediate needs of school communities throughout Australia by providing increased Australian government funding.

If you listened to all those contributions from the other side of the chamber, you would never have guessed that there was increased funding being made available. This bill will enable more funding in 2006 to directly benefit schools and students. So what happened? The Labor Party attacked this bill. It is a very ordinary performance. Let me just make this very obvious point: under this government, schools across Australia has been funded at record levels. The government seeks to improve outcomes from schools—