House debates

Thursday, 25 May 2017

Statements by Members

Solomon Electorate: Schools

1:57 pm

Photo of Luke GoslingLuke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Today marks national public school day, and I want to thank the teachers and staff of the public schools around our great nation. There is a school in my electorate in Darwin called Anula Primary School, and I want to take the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to visit it—when they eventually visit the north—because, as noted yesterday by the shadow minister for education, the member for Sydney, 22 per cent of the kids in that school are Indigenous, and around half the students have a language other than English.

That school, Anula Primary School, is going to get only $4,232 per child from the coalition government. That is an increase of just $554 per student over the next 10 years! Compare that, Prime Minister, to a school in Sydney, a private school, that will receive an extra $2,734 per student over the next 10 years. That school in Sydney is going to get five times more than a public school in my electorate over the next 10 years.

We are the most disadvantaged school system in the country. So what did we do wrong, Prime Minister? Why do the Territory's schools deserve less? (Time expired)