Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator O'Neill, I have actually been to a school in the last couple of months. I am sure you have too, but you did not refer to any evidence on the ground in your contribution. I went to one in Bundaberg during the state election campaign with the state member, Stephen Bennett. During 2014 that school received hundreds of thousands dollars more to provide more disability services. That was rolled out through what we here call Gonski, but in Queensland I think they call it the Better Schools program. It was focused on providing disabled students with more services, more resources and more teacher time. That amounted to $1.2 billion this year alone in funding for disabled students. Is that enough? I do not know. Perhaps we always need more money to help disabled children. But, Senator O'Neill, what I have a problem with is that we had a bipartisan agreement to do more on the NDIS and to put more money—