Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In this debate on the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 I wish to speak about the great Gillard backdown, the great Deputy Prime Minister backdown. I pay tribute to the shadow minister for education, the member for Sturt, who has done a fantastic job on this bill. It started in October, in this House—and I spoke on this bill—when we opposed the requirement that funding be made public, which is what the minister intended to do. Make no mistake: this is part of a long-term agenda that the Deputy Prime Minister has. It is about the school hit list. This is what this is all about.

If we go back to 2004 to look at the history of this matter we find that the Deputy Prime Minister’s then favourite member of parliament was the member for Werriwa—the Leader of the Opposition at that time, Mr Latham—whom we all remember. There were three great policy issues that dominated the campaign in that year.

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