Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

'Minister' will be fine. Taxpayers' money was spent on these programs instead of on real education reform, and that is because of waste. Just throwing a lot of money at a problem does not mean you are actually going to fix it, and when we look at educational outcomes in this country over the whole period of time that this government has been in power we can see that money definitely has not fixed the problem. The air bubbles, thought bubbles and media releases to tackle the perceived educational issues have not actually fixed them. If the government is serious about improved learning outcomes for students, the rhetoric has to end. We saw that in MYEFO the government actually cut money out of education. So there are missed opportunities throughout this federal government's tenure. With the Prime Minister being the former education minister and purporting to have such a strong and passionate commitment to education, I am befuddled as to how we can have so many botched schemes.

As a Nat, I am predominantly concerned with the close to a million students—young Australians—studying at private and public schools throughout our nation. Over 687,000 of our young Australians outside our capital cities are studying at public schools. So I am excited by the thought of a highly equitable and effective education system being delivered to our students attending public and private schools, and I note we have some fine young Australians up in the gallery watching this debate at the moment. I talk specifically about the Gonski legislation before us. The lack of detail in this bill is incredible. There are aspirations galore but not a shred of detail on how it is going to happen and what metrics are going to be used in certain sections of the legislation. The areas that we are targeting are areas of disadvantage, and the coalition is so supportive of ensuring that the taxpayers' dollar is well spent and spent in areas of need, on students that are experiencing disadvantage, but we do not know what the metrics are. But the AEU, in evidence before the Senate inquiry into the bill, were very confident that it is all going to be fine. But, from my perspective, this government has form in not getting it right in education and not getting it right for regional Australia. So, when I talk about the over 600,000 young Australians attending government schools outside capital cities, I want to ensure that the loading mechanism in the Gonski legislation actually delivers for them. Given this government's poor track record on the youth allowance debate and its inability to draw lines on a map that result in effective public policy, you can sense the concern of many stakeholders in this debate. Similarly, there is no idea about the other loadings. We have only just come with a definition of 'disability', and this is for a funding model that is going to fund our schools next year. It just does not wash, and it is so very typical of Labor. (Time expired)