John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is also to the Prime Minister—a popular man. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the steps the government is taking to guarantee and fund vital services, such as education and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, including in my electorate of Bennelong? Is the Prime Minister aware of any alternative approach?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. Schools in the honourable member's electorate of Bennelong will receive an extra $165 billion in Commonwealth funding over the next decade. That is part of our record investment in schools—an extra $18.6 billion over the next decade. We want every student in every region—in every town in every part of the country and in every honourable member's electorate—to get the very best start in life. They need a great education, with great teachers in well-resourced schools.

We do not just talk about giving a Gonski, as the honourable members opposite do; we are actually delivering on his recommendations. We are bringing the transparency, the consistency and the fairness—the needs based funding—to the school issue. Labor treated this as a political game. They did 27 secret deals, all conflicting and all giving different outcomes—running around the country with no consistency, no transparency and no attention to the needs based funding that the honourable member opposite said on 75 occasions was at the heart of his policy.

We have seen again and again that he substitutes rhetoric for substance. Australians know that we need to have a school funding system that is fair, that is transparent and that delivers schools the resources they need. Right now, the honourable members opposite have not only voted against $18.6 billion of additional funding—they have not only sought to deny Australian schools that—but they are also opposing fully funding the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

They talked about that for years too. They talked about it with empathy. They talked about it with compassion. They talked about it with pride, but they did not pay the price of funding it. The honourable member—the Leader of the Opposition—as we all know, failed to deliver the funding that our schools need and that our National Disability Insurance Scheme needs. We are ensuring that every Australian with severe and permanent disabilities can access the services that they need—so that parents with disabled children will know, now and in the future, into the years ahead, that the funding is there.

We are securing the future of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, just like we are securing the future of our schools. We have made the tough decisions. We are funding it. Labor should stop the politics, stop the complaining, stop the hypocrisy and back it. (Time expired)

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, Labor's plan to protect low- and middle-income workers from a tax hike and keep the budget repair levy raises more revenue than the government's plan over the medium term. Is the reason the Prime Minister is shouting about Labor's plan because it raises more money or is he simply angry that Labor will not give millionaires a tax cut?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Prime Minister for the opportunity to respond to the member's question. What the member did not point out to the House is that at the last election they proposed to extend the deficit levy and they spent all the money. They spent it all. You do not get to spend money twice, which is what the shadow Treasurer is suggesting he can do. What he is saying is that all the money that he said at the last election he was going to spend by ensuring that the top marginal tax rate remained at an uncompetitive level well into the future over the next 10 years—

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Sydney will cease interjecting.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

all the money that he said he was going to have from reversing the corporate tax cuts and the small business tax cuts, he spent that all at the last election. And he still had a $16½ billion higher deficit at the last election. When he comes in here and says that he has higher revenue from this measure, he has forgotten that he has already spent the money.