Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

Raising frivolous points of order will not help you at all. Today we have seen a further breach of promise, because the coalition prior to the election also said there would be no funding cuts from education. That was the position then, but today the Prime Minister announced that a further $1.2 billion in cuts from education would be announced straight after parliament rises this year—a further breach of promise. That is what was said, Senator Abetz, and he made the promise on 5 September 2013. He said:

… there will be no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no cuts to pensions, no change to the GST …

And now we have seen an announcement today that there will be a further series of budget cuts to education. What really interests me is that, prior to the election, the government of Western Australia was offered an extra $920 million funding by the Labor government. That offer was rejected by the Premier of Western Australia. Why is it that the total amount of money now being put to the non-signatory states today is only $1.2 billion?

One can only presume the commitments that the Premier of Western Australia made at the time, that he would get more money from an Abbott government than he would from a Labor government, have not been borne out. My understanding is that the offer from Mr Abbott is now substantially less than $920 million. You should ask yourself a simple question: why is it that the government of Western Australia would sign up, even in principle, to a proposition that would deprive the state of Western Australia of so much money?

One has to bear in mind that, clearly, it is part of the chicanery and the deception that is going on and part of the deceitful comments of the Prime Minister with regard to his cynical political manoeuvres on schools funding—a commitment made prior to the election that they could of course be on a unity ticket with Labor, a commitment made that there would be the same funding arrangements and the same funding models presented by Labor and that, if you voted Labor or Liberal, you would get the same deal on schools. Of course, that is clearly not the case, to the point where we are now seeing three separate plans announced inside a week.