Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

While education should be the priority of all governments, clearly some in this country would rather pick a fight with the Commonwealth than meet their responsibilities. It is a very cute strategy that is being pursued in Victoria, and now followed by a number of other states, where we see an attempt to try to blame the Commonwealth for the cuts that those state governments have imposed. We see in Victoria that they have already tried to blame their teachers—and they have failed. They have taken the teachers' union to court and they have failed.

Now, they are looking for new ways to cover up the fact that they are cutting the budget. The fact remains that in Victoria the cuts have been in excess of half a billion dollars. Then they tell us that they want to keep the old Howard government model of school funding. But they should be very careful of what they wish for, because when you couple the funding cuts that Liberal governments have imposed— (Time expired)