Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of Senator Birmingham's responses to questions from Labor senators today. First, I would like to absolutely support what Senator Marshall said in his contribution. We have people, and the minister in particular, talking about increases in funding when their own budget papers show us that it is a decrease in funding of over $22 billion. So I say to those senators who are signing up to pass this bill that they should look at their budget papers. They should look at what is in black and white. If you have over $22 billion in cuts, somebody loses out. We have already heard, through Senator Marshall, about the Victorian government's concern about $630 million, I think Senator Marshall said, in one year. In Tasmania, my home state, $60-odd million will be lost to the public education system in Tasmania.

I particularly want to talk about the question that I asked Senator Birmingham, which was about the disability loadings in Tasmania. I did not get a response to that, regardless of how many times we asked that he directly respond to the question. What the Department of Education and Training, his own department, said in a question on notice that was released—