Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is the minister representing the Minister for Education, Senator Payne. Comments made by the New South Wales Minister for Education, Mr Piccoli, noted that the Commonwealth had implied that if there were a reduction in funding for the states that have signed up to the schools agreement, then indeed that reduction may well only come out of public schools. Is this the Commonwealth's position?

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has made it very clear—and I think this might be the third or fourth time that we are saying this for Senator Carr, but nevertheless we are very generous people so we will keep doing that—that we will honour the funding deals reached with the states over the four-year period as promised. We are also working with Victoria and Tasmania to finalise their bilateral agreements so that the funding can flow.

What the Australian government will do to Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory is the same amount of Commonwealth funding that was committed by Labor even though a National Education Reform Agreement was not signed. We have already made arrangements so that $230 million of funding will flow to them for 2014, and this will give the government ample opportunity to formalise new heads of agreement with these three jurisdictions. They will not be conditional on signing up to a deal which reduces their authority over schools or creates unnecessary red tape.

What we have is a proper national funding model—a funding support model. What Labor did was to make a complete mess of school funding negotiations. Now that we have agreement across the board for our funding plan we can deliver national school funding reforms. We will also remove the red tape as demand and control features that characterise Labor's model, and we will treat the states and territories like adult governments who operate and own their government schools. But most importantly, there is only one party in this chamber that has taken money away from schools—that is $1.2 billion—and that is Labor.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a supplementary question, Mr President, I refer the minister again to Mr Piccoli's comments. Given that Senator Abetz has told the Senate chamber today that there is no need for schools to be worse off, can the minister advise which schools in New South Wales will lose funding as a result of this government's broken promise on school funding?

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If I can assist Senator Carr, the person to whom he is referring is Mr Adrian Piccoli, the Minister for Education in New South Wales. Let me make it very clear, as I have on two or three previous occasions, that we are talking about the same level of funding for schools in New South Wales and the same level of funding for other states and territories that agreed to the National Education Reform Agreement. That will now flow through to Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, who were left out by those opposite. It is the same amount of funding for New South Wales. I think that is fairly simple to understand. If the senator really pays attention he will know that the New South Wales government—(Time expired)

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I have a further supplementary question. Given Mr Piccoli's statement concerning funding for public schools, can the minister explain why the Commonwealth government believes Australian public schools should suffer as a consequence of this government's breach of faith?

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an absolute disgrace that those opposite—and that senator in particular—would verbal what people have said in relation to this matter and try to score even cheap political points. But nevertheless, what is very, very clear is that the same amount of funding money will go to New South Wales schools and, as I was about to say before, if the senator paid a skerrick of attention to what has already been done in New South Wales he would know that allocations have already been announced. Unless he has some inside information from, apparently, his close friend the New South Wales minister, I do not expect they will be varying their own funding application. Quite frankly, it is a matter for them. The Commonwealth government has made its commitment very clear: the same amount of funding will go to New South Wales as was going to New South Wales before. How that is distributed and whether any changes are made to that, is a matter for the states and territories. The senator knows that and chooses to ignore it.