Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

He must be, because he is certainly not on the same planet that I am on when I look at this bill and see the importance of it—a bill which, in fact, guarantees $28 billion of funding for all non-government schools, in turn enabling greater funding certainty and stability and remaining part of the government’s commitment of $42 billion to schools from 2009 to 2012. That certainly creates certainty for those schools, and certainly it is vastly different to the impression that one might have got from listening to the member for Fadden.

I do note that this bill has been referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, with a report to be brought back by 27 November 2008. I also note that the coalition have moved amendments to this bill and that they have accused the government of promoting the politics of envy, as the previous speaker has said, and have used other terms such as ‘ideological hatred’, ‘pathological hatred’ and ‘hit list’.

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