Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a pleasure it is to follow the member for Aston in this debate, because, sadly, what we have heard from the member for Adelaide and the member for Lingiari has not been worth following. As a matter of fact, it has been nonsense. It is actually rather problematic, because we are talking about education, and the sad thing about this debate is that Labor thinks that throwing money at a problem is how you fix it. And I say to young Australians, especially young Australian students, that the worrying thing about this is that we are already trying to pay back the legacy that Labor left for you—a budget that is in structural deficit and a large, large amount of debt. Yet if they get back into office you will have to pay back even more. Think about that while you are doing your studies. Labor's legacy for you will be an extra tax burden for you, and that is the sad thing about how they approach everything.

What we want to see from the Labor Party is a proper discussion about how we can further improve education in this nation in a way that does not saddle future generations with large amounts of debt. We as a government are improving education outcomes. We are doing it in a meaningful way and we are doing it in a way that continues to increase funding. I want to go through the MYEFO figures to end the debate about cutting funding to education. This is what we are spending: for 2013-14 to 2014-15, an extra 11.1 per cent; for 2014-15 to 2015-16, an extra 7.9 per cent; for 2015-16 to 2016-17, an additional 8.6 per cent; and for 2016-17 to 2017-18, an extra 6.5 per cent. How can you come into this place and say with a straight face that education funding is being cut when those figures are in the MYEFO? You talk about scare campaigns. Well, this has to be one of the grubbiest, most dishonest scare campaigns that has ever been run. Those MYEFO figures quite clearly show education funding going up: 11.1 per cent, 7.9 per cent, 8.6 per cent and 6.5 per cent. Yet you continue to run a dishonest campaign.

When the member for Adelaide boasted about how much extra money you were going to throw at education there was an interjection from this side. That interjection was: 'How are you going to pay for it?' And the member said: 'We've just outlined in question time how we're going to pay for it. We're going to pay for it through our negative gearing policy and we're going to pay for it through our capital gains tax policy.' How is that going to help to pay for it? As the Prime Minister has incredibly astutely said, Labor's tax policies will make people poorer. And if people are poorer, they will not be earning extra income, they will not be paying extra taxes and therefore we will be going backwards as a nation. How they can come in here, as the member for Adelaide did, and say that Labor's tax plan will help to pay for their extra education funding beggars belief.

When it comes to arithmetic, I am sad to say that those opposite have no credibility. We do, and we want to make sure that we have the budget in a position where we can continue to increase funding in a sensible and methodical way for education. We want to make sure that those 11.1 per cent, 7.9 per cent, 8.6 per cent and 6.5 per cent increases will continue and that we will be able to provide a proper education for future young Australians. We will not use dishonest tactics in this debate. We will use real figures and keep delivering for Australian students.

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