Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I had not intended to speak either, but Minister Carr has also provoked me into rising to my feet. I am sure the manager of government business will be speaking to him on this matter. I rise to put on the record again the fact that the Greens will be supporting the government’s position and opposing this amendment.

But I also want to say to Senator Carr that his words will come back to haunt him—every single phrase he has used about trust, about sanctions, about treating, in this case, schools in an ideological way and as hostile institutions, about autonomy, and about one size not fitting all when it comes to schools. I would remind the minister that the Prime Minister has made it very clear in the media that he has threatened the states and education unions by declaring that future federal education funding will be conditional on information about the performance of individual schools being made available to parents. That is just as prescriptive, just as ideologically driven, just as hostile and just as provocative as exactly everything that you accuse the opposition of having done in relation to universities, and now the government is about to do the same to schools.

I put the minister and the Senate on notice that when the government introduces these bills all of Senator Carr’s phrases will come straight back to him, including Minister Gillard’s phrase when she said that this government was about taking the foot of the Howard government off the neck of universities. I say that they are about to again put the foot of the Rudd government onto the neck of schools. I want to indicate that everything that has been said here today will be like the boomerang—it will be coming straight back, Senator Carr.

Question put:

That the amendments (Senator Mason’s) be agreed to.