Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We have heard a lot about fairness. That is the key plank of the shadow Treasurer's MPI today—fairness. But what is fairness? Perhaps it is in the eye of the beholder. According to me, fairness is saying something and sticking to it; fairness is fully funding the programs we implement; and fairness is allowing people the freedom and security to live in relative peace and prosperity, to grow their wages, to build a home, to invest in the future and to send their kids to school, to a school that is properly funded. That is exactly what this government has done for Western Australia with respect to school funding.

We all know that the mining and construction boom has ended, and our state has certainly run aground and has had a few problems. We all understand that and we accept that. But it is not all doom and gloom. The drop in house prices means that young people now have a fighting chance to enter the housing market in regional Western Australia. But fairness means giving our Western Australian schools a proper level of federal government fund—a proper need-based model. Fairness means that, instead of those members opposite standing up like we have heard today, parroting and repeating the line of 'tax cuts for millionaires', they should do their job and do some research.

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