Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hume for his question. He will be interested to know that the Australian government has increased funding to Australian schools by some 116 per cent in the 10 years that the Howard government has been in office. For example, in the ACT that increase has been 96 per cent. This year, some $49.2 million will be provided to government schools in the ACT. In addition, we have provided some $7½ million under the Investing in our Schools program to government schools in the Australian Capital Territory.

I have been asked about how this money is being spent. If we look at the Australian Capital Territory, we find that Labor is in fact closing 39 government schools in the ACT. It has been revealed today that Jon Stanhope and the education minister, Andrew Barr, want to kick out what they call ‘out of area’ enrolments. They want to kick students out of schools that they say are out of area. The member for Hume will know that that means children from New South Wales are going to be kicked out, by Labor, of Australian Capital Territory schools. This is outrageous. Labor wants to kick out of school children whose parents want to vote against them at the next election. These parents pay their federal government taxes. In fact, $7½ million of their money has been paid to schools in the ACT, and now Labor wants to kick out their kids. In the Hall Primary School, which is right on the New South Wales border, the federal government, for example, has paid $88,000 for a shade structure for the children in that school, and now Stanhope and Barr want to close down the school.

Labor had the gall to launch a website entitled ‘100s of reasons to live in Canberra’, and one of the reasons is the 60 schools—less the schools that they are closing. I can think of two good reasons why you would not want to live in Canberra—Jon Stanhope and Andrew Barr. The members opposite ought to call on the ACT Labor government to save these schools or pay back the money.

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