Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Gallacher for the question, because it gives me an opportunity to make sure that this Senate is fully cognisant of the facts in relation to school funding.

The coalition government not only matched Labor's commitments to school funding in the forward estimates dollar for dollar but bettered them.

Senator Cormann interjecting—

We bettered them to the tune of $1.2 billion, as my friend the finance minister interjects. It is very clear that we have delivered through the budget cycle every cent that was there when we came to office, plus $1.2 billion more. Why is that the case? That is the case, of course, because those opposite, in one of the clever accounting tricks that they love to play, in the run-up to the election took all extra funding out for the state of Queensland, took all extra funding out for the state of Western Australia, and took all extra funding out for the Northern Territory. They were going to try to run a school system and school funding arrangements from the federal government level in which they funded some states vastly differently to how they funded other states. We put the $1.2 billion back in. We put it back in to ensure that every school student in every state, no matter where the boundaries on the map were drawn, was getting fair support from the federal government in the future.

So, Senator Gallacher, you can come in here and ask about what we have delivered in relation to the budget for schools; we have delivered more than you had left in the budget. We have delivered some $69.4 billion in funding over the four-year period, an increase of more than 27 per cent over a four-year period. That is a vast increase in school funding, delivered by the coalition government, delivered in excess of what we found in the budget when we came to office.