Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise with some fury at the nonsense that we have heard from those opposite this afternoon—not just the contribution of the member who is about to leave the chamber but the outlandish misrepresentation from the minister himself. The minister no doubt stood at booths in Adelaide in the lead-up to the last election and distributed hand-outs, smiling at people all the while and saying they were on a unity ticket with Labor, that you would get exactly the same investment in funding the future of education in this country in response to the Gonski review to make sure that students got a fair go. They stood there with banners beside them that said they would match the Labor Party commitment, which was a six-year commitment. They would match it dollar for dollar.

Yet day after day we hear this quivering nonsense from them that money does not matter. It is ignoring the clear reality that is evident to every single parent who rocks up at school, opens their eyes and sees that there are needs unmet in every single school across this country bar a few very privileged schools. That is what the Gonski investigation found out, and that is why the commitment was made by the Labor Party last week to fund years 5 and 6, which had fallen off a cliff under those on the other side of the chamber. They have abandoned that commitment that they made to the Australian people. What we see day after day is that those opposite say one thing but they absolutely do another. This is a perfect example of a party that simply cannot be trusted with the truth, cannot be trusted with dollars to invest in the future of this nation and cannot be trusted with education because their miserly view of education is at odds with the facts at every single turn.

When Labor were in government, we recognised that there was an urgent need for excellence and equitable school experiences right across this country. The review that was undertaken involved 70 different education groups, 39 school visits and 7,000 submissions. Mr David Gonski, whose name has been attributed to this for such a period of time now, wrote:

… the additional investment—

which is the dollars that the Liberal Party continue to say do not matter—

is needed to implement a schooling resource standard. It is necessary because without it—

this is the key part—

the high cost of poor educational outcomes will become an even greater drag on Australia's social and economic development in the future. The need for the additional expenditure and the application of what those funds can do is urgent. Australia will only slip further behind unless as a nation we act and act now.

That was a compelling argument that this government knew Australians understood. Those opposite were prepared to stand up and pretend to the Australian people that they would fund the entire six years of Gonski. People rolled up to vote in good faith and had a look at those posters that reassured them that this government would match the funding that Labor had committed to this national education project dollar for dollar. Well, now those opposite are quibbling over every single dollar. They have withdrawn their support. They misrepresented to the Australian parliament and to the Australian people what they were going to do, and they continue to come in here and peddle a load of nonsense about the lack of need in schools.

In schools around Australia we know that there are kids right now who are benefiting from the first four years of funding going through. In New South Wales, I have visited many of those schools, such as Woy Woy South public school, where there has been a transformation in learning for many of the students, particularly for the local Indigenous families, who have suddenly been able to achieve literacy and numeracy standards never before achieved because they got access to the additional education they needed to help them make up the gap from where they started.

But this government continues to deny that there is any inequity in schools. We need schools that can access the funding to make sure that they are able to do the job of educating our young. We need schools to get that money because they cannot do the job on the miserly amount that this government is intending to give them, a CPI indexation that is not up to the job. There is a failure to understand that speech therapists and quality teaching cost money. It is an investment in the future of the country. Labor is for it; the Liberals stand against it, and they continue to misrepresent their position.