Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Compared to the year 2000, 40,000 fewer students were enrolled in tertiary accredited science subjects in 2005, and 17,000 students were enrolled in tertiary accredited maths subjects. What does the Howard government say when it is confronted with that? It says precisely what the two ministers at the table said just then: ‘It has nothing to do with us. We’re just the government of the nation. We’ve just been the government of the nation for 10 long years. It has nothing to do with us. There must be someone else that we can blame. There must be someone else who can take the responsibility.’

These are damning indictments. There is a lack of investment in education at every level: early childhood, primary and secondary schools, universities, and technical education. And their response? It is: ‘Nothing to do with us. We just happen to have been the government of the nation for the last 10 years.’ And what do we find now? We find that Labor stands up and says, ‘The most important thing we can do for the productive capacity of our economy and the most important thing we can do for the future prosperity of the Australian people is to invest in education.’ And what does the government do?

See this speech in context