Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) and the Assistant Minister for Education and Training (Senator Birmingham) to questions without notice asked by Senators Singh and O’Neill today relating to funding for foreign aid and disability education.

In particular, I would like to highlight the fact that Senator Cormann did not rule out cuts to health and education. He could have done so, but he clearly chose not to. He has left the door wide open to further cuts to health and education. This is already on top of the broken promises that were made after the last election where the Prime Minister said at the time that there would be no cuts to health and education. No cuts to health, no cuts to education is what he said. But we know now that he has broken that promise, like so many others, with $30 billion of cuts to schools, the scrapping of the Gonski reforms and the abandoning of needs based funding.

That needs based funding goes to the heart of the question asked by Senator O'Neill when we asked specifically about the effect that this government's funding cuts to education is having on students with a disability. We know today the effect of those cuts, and it is clearly reported in The Australian, among other media outlets. Principals have made it very clear that they are facing an urgent crisis in schools because of this government's cuts to education when it comes to providing the needs based funding to students with disability. But it is fine for Senator Cormann because he is looking after the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Despite any assertion elsewhere, that is clearly what he is doing as a protector of that minister. Forget about every other policy area. That is the one that he has perhaps used the Prime Minister's captain's pick of today.

Let us just have a look at what Senator Cormann is protecting. The government promised not to touch the aid budget before, and we know how it treats its promises. We know that in the health space. We know that in the education space. But last year in October the Minister for Foreign Affairs said there would be no more cuts to foreign aid. But in December we know what happened. Senator Cormann knows clearly what happened. There was a $3.7 billion cut from the aid budget in the mid-year economic update. So Minister Bishop may act outraged, but it is she who signed off on that cut. It is she who signed off on the deepest ever cut to the aid program in Australia's history. This minister has confiscated $11 billion from Australia's aid budget. So whilst we already know the deep and hurting cuts in health and the deep and hurting cuts in education, we know that already there have been very deep and hurting cuts—the biggest in Australia's history—in our foreign aid budget. She may mock the Treasurer, but she cannot roll her eyes while shirking her responsibility for these cuts that have already occurred in the foreign aid budget.

The Australian Council for International Development has said that if there were any further cuts to the aid program it will not be credible, it will not be effective. We have known that for some time. The minister knows that, and she knows Australia has got the weakest and the most depleted aid program in Australia's history. Hence her being so alarmed at the Treasurer's attempt to make an even deeper cut, and hence Senator Cormann coming to her rescue. Senator Cormann has not come to anyone's rescue. He was quite happy to have $11 billion cut out of the foreign aid budget last December. He is quite happy, as he has given in his answer today, to not rule out any further cuts to health, to not rule out any further cuts to education, and we know what effect that is having right now on students with disability, let alone all the other students who need decent quality education in our country, which only comes from decent funding of those critical government services. Labor of course contributed to official development assistance funding in every budget. We have a high record when it comes to foreign aid funding and when it comes to health and education, because our core values demand it. That is what we believe is the right way for Australia, not this government's awful— (Time expired)