Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

If there ever was an address to this place that demonstrates just how out of touch those in the opposition are then we have just heard it from Senator Cameron. I thought the days of seeing things through the prism of class warfare was a thing of the sixties. That was 50 years ago. Get up to speed, Senator Cameron. It is extraordinary that you still actually seek to characterise things through that prism. That is really a sad reflection on you and a sad reflection on the senators who sit on the opposition benches.

If I could make a couple of observations. What we are seeing today with this matter of public importance is the most breathtaking hypocrisy that we have seen for a long time, and that is saying something having sat through the protestations of the government—originally a Rudd government and then a Gillard-led government and then a Rudd government again—and their claims that they were investing in the future of our young Australians. How wrong they were.

If I could just come to the facts here because we actually seem to have missed the actual facts of the situation. We know what they are. I suggest that most Australians do. The opposition are intent upon peddling misinformation in this debate. The first thing is, former Treasurer Chris Bowen himself, in line with the Charter of Budget Honesty, demonstrated that $1.2 billion was being cut out of the education fund. Former Treasurer Chris Bowen admitted that Labor had cut $1.2 billion out of school funding just weeks before the election. Just weeks before the election he conceded that they had done that because there was no agreement cut with the states of Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

He conceded that the then government did cut funding. But we do not hear any of this today. Oh no, it is all protestations about what we are doing in fixing up the mess that we have inherited from the more recent Rudd ALP-Greens alliance government. What we are not hearing and what we have not heard today is the fact that we are now dealing with the national education funding model that is in the best interests of all young Australians, given the extraordinary and an incompetent fiscal scenario that the former government bequeathed to us.

One of the other things we have to deal with here is increasing the debt ceiling so that we have sufficient resources to deal with the appropriations and budget determinations. Just coincidentally, those on the other side forget who has bequeathed this legacy to Australians.

Senator Cameron interjecting—

I have to suggest to you, Senator Cameron, that the Australian public are not fooled and they will not forget who has put the country in this situation, which is why the protestations and interjections that we continue to hear—

Senator Cameron interjecting—

With great respect—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President—notwithstanding how difficult it was, I gave Senator Cameron the courtesy of allowing him to make his address in silence. It is a courtesy that he finds it very difficult to extend to others. Perhaps he should take a leaf out of other people's books in extending some decent and common courtesy in this chamber. Notwithstanding that, what concerns me about this debate is that all we hear about is the effect that increasing money has on a particular outcome. All we are hearing today is about the dollar value and the bottom line.

The very fundamental difference between the coalition government and an ALP opposition or government is this: we do not believe that the actual dollar amount is the only thing that will increase standards. As we have seen from international independent reports that have compared the numeracy and literacy standards of Australia with like-sized countries and economies, notwithstanding the protestations from the other side of the chamber, the literacy and numeracy standards of our young men and women have declined under the ALP-Greens alliance regime. But we do not hear about that. All we heard about was the very—

Opposition senators interjecting—