Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Education and Training (Senator Birmingham) to questions without notice asked by Senators Gallacher and Dastyari today relating to school funding..

I want to take note of these and speak to some of the inconsistencies and myths that were presented by the Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham, in answers to questions that he gave moments earlier.

But before doing so, I do also want to note that yesterday I had the privilege of being able to take my daughter to her first day at school. While many of us are going to debate over the next year how we can better fund our schools, how schools should be funded and what needs to be done to make sure we have the best possible education system, we should all be incredibly proud of the numerous teachers, principals and volunteers who make our education system as fantastic as it is.

But, while we have a fantastic education system—particularly in my home state of New South Wales—it can and it should be improved. I think it is disappointing that the minister—Minister Birmingham—outlined and actually undercut comments made by the National Catholic Education Commission, which said that the failure to properly fund the future years of the Gonski model will have the result that:

… fees will increase, schools could close and the quality of education will be compromised.

Ultimately, the government has been trying to set up a straw man argument, and the straw man argument is this: that it is all about funding—that the Gonski model and the Labor proposals that we put forward over the past year, and also the entire process over the past several years, has simply been about funding. Funding is an important component of it. Funding is the start. You cannot have a better education system if you are not prepared to pay for it. But what the Labor proposals have been saying, and what the Gonski model has addressed fundamentally, is: how do you make sure you make the most of more funding, how do you get the best bang for your buck and how do you work towards a more equal, a more fair and a more equitable system? You cannot achieve that if you do not start with a base of better funding for our education system.

Before the last election the Liberals promised—and this was Christopher Pyne, who was the shadow minister at the time—