Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

No, they don't. The previous Labor government, as I said before, never, ever budgeted for years 5 and 6 of the Gonski funding. It does not appear in their budget papers anywhere. We never saw an explanation of how they were going to fund those supposed increases. It is as good as waving around a bunch of Monopoly money, because they never agreed that they would fund it.

In contrast, we have exceeded the commitment to maintain Commonwealth school funding for the next four years, from 2013-14 to 2017-18, with the record amount of $64.5 billion. This represents a 37.4 per cent increase to all schools from 2013-14 to 2017-18. Within that increase, there is $1.2 billion more than the previous Labor government had, because we had to reinstate funding to Western Australia, the Northern Territory and my home state of Queensland. Queensland will now receive the largest share of this $1.2 billion extra funding—some $794 million of additional funding—and this has been acknowledged by the Queensland government. I know from talking to the state schools in my electorate that have received the benefits from this that they are in the order of more than $3 million that they would never have got if the previous Labor government had been re-elected.

In total, Commonwealth funding to all schools in Queensland will increase by some 46.8 per cent through 2013-14 to 2017-18. If Queensland were left with the funding that Labor gave them, they would be worse off to the tune of $795 million. Unlike the previous Labor government, we have a plan for years 5 and 6, but there will be no cuts. The funding will continue to grow from 2018 by CPI in addition to student enrolment growth in our schools.

Long-term Commonwealth past and projected spending on all schools shows a continued increase. I would make those opposite aware of this graph, which does not show any cuts anywhere. It continues to grow and continues to increase.

In addition to that, it is not only about funding for our education system. Despite the fact that funding has increased each and every year since 2008-09, our PISA results continue to fall behind. The government are focused on doing what we need to do to ensure that we have a quality education system by putting students first, improving teacher quality, increasing school autonomy, engaging parents in education and strengthening the curriculum. Let us not pretend that the coalition government is not providing growth in education or putting students first. We are committed to making a real difference to students.

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