Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Gonski week celebrations at Kotara High School. The week before, I joined with teachers and parents at New Lambton South Public School to see firsthand the positive impact that Labor's Gonski funding is having on our local schools. Teachers told me that smaller class sizes meant they got to spend more time with students, and that intensive literacy and numeracy programs that they have been able to put in place were having enormous benefits for students and ensuring that students are all equipped with fundamental skills to set them up for life.

My school communities understand very clearly that properly funding our education system is not just a line item in the budget; it is actually an investment in Australia's future. The school communities are, of course, deeply concerned about the impact of this government's cuts to education and they have every right to be feel betrayed by the broken promises of this government when it walked away from funding years 5 and 6 of Gonski. It is estimated that, across my electorate of Newcastle, schools will be more than $195 million worse off because of the cuts over the next 10 years, cuts that will impact on every child in every school. It is the right of every Australian to access quality education, regardless of background, circumstance or location. It is the cornerstone of our social and democratic traditions and the key to our economic success. Labor introduced the Gonski reforms. We are committed to a sector blind needs based funding—