Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a mess Mr Turnbull and his government have made of school funding, along with their complete dishonesty to the Australian public and, frankly, incompetence. Remember their commitments, their promises—the unity ticket, the lock-step on Gonski and the dollar-for-dollar matching of Labor's funding—which were on display at polling booths across the nation. That is the commitment they gave, and yet they continue to renege on it. Was it all just a hoax unfortunately foisted on Australian school students who need a better deal, who need a better funding model? Was the government's unity ticket, their step-for-step, their dollar-for-dollar a great big dishonest trick played on Australian voters by Mr Abbott, then by Mr Turnbull, then by former education minister Christopher Pyne and now by Senator Birmingham?

The $30 billion cut the Liberals made to school funding is the biggest single cut to education in Australia's history. Just a few weeks ago Prime Minister Turnbull had a completely crazy thought bubble when he proposed the ridiculous idea of withdrawing all federal funding for our public education system. The Prime Minster followed up this crazy proposal with another crazy proposal—that states could levy their own taxes to pay for the massive shortfall in the funds that withdrawing federal funding for education would create. That would create in our history an absolute disparity between states on something we should have a unity ticket on and something which should be national—that is, school funding. Why should one state, which may have been able to levy higher taxes, have a better system than other states? That is the American system, and their system is a mess; in some states taxes are not levied at all and parents are just left with a very poor school system.

That is what the Turnbull government was proposing. I do not know what the Prime Minister was thinking with this crazy, crazy idea, but every single state and territory rejected the idea—except my state of Western Australia. Why? Because we have a foolish premier in Mr Colin Barnett. Frankly, he has no credibility. He has squandered the mining boom and turned our economy, the great powerhouse of Western Australia, into a cot case. He has slashed and burnt education in Western Australia, to the point that everyone is speaking about what a poor job he is doing. And there he is bailing out a crazy idea put by the Turnbull government.

This week the Turnbull government changed their tune again, making an announcement that a tiny share—just $1 billion—of the $30 billion that they ripped out of education would be restored. Clearly the jokers are in charge when it comes to the Turnbull government—to call this a funding increase! To add insult to injury, today in the Senate it was called 'yet another increase'. The Liberals said at the polling booths that they would match our funding, dollar for dollar. That turned out to be completely incorrect, a lie—a dishonesty that Australian voters had every right to believe in. But when it comes to school education, the Turnbull government, whoever the minister of the day is, clearly cannot be trusted.

What have the states said about this latest thought bubble? In Victoria they said:

It doesn't matter which way Malcolm Turnbull tries to spin it, this is another Liberal broken promise and a bitter pill to swallow for Victorian students and their families.

What did South Australia have to say? They said:

We don't need more commonwealth testing, we need commonwealth funding.

What did Queensland say? They said:

If the Government really cared about literacy and numeracy and prep and year one, then they would put their money into additional teacher aids in the classroom that make a real difference to students' learning.

And the great Liberal state of New South Wales? They have been in lock step with Labor's plan. They want Gonski. I was at the public meeting when the New South Wales Liberal minister announced, 'We want Gonski.' That is what he said.