House debates

Tuesday, 23 June 2015

Statements by Members

Education Funding, Health Funding

1:58 pm

Photo of Amanda RishworthAmanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | | Hansard source

Not content with ripping out money from our schools and hospitals in the last budget, we now know that this government has a secret plan to abandon schools of Australia and indeed the hospitals of Australia. It is appalling that, not content to rip money out of our schools and trades training centres—to actually not pay any attention to the vocational curriculum—we now have a government with a secret plan. They need to come clean with the Australian people and tell them what their plan is.

Before the last election, of course, they said they had no plans to make cuts to schools and hospitals. They said they were on a unity ticket when it came to our schools. But now we know that they do have a plan that will rip money from our schools and lead to both government schools and non-government schools with huge fee hikes that the Australian public will not stand for.

Labor will stand up for universal schooling in this country. We will stand up for public hospitals in this country even if those on the other side will not. It is up to every single backbencher on the other side who is not being honest with their constituency to tell them what their secret plan is and how they will fund hospitals, preschools and indeed schools into the future. That is the question that they must answer.