Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker, and I look forward to giving a forensic rebuttal of the contribution by the member for Parramatta! Firstly, I must admit it is very disappointing in this parliament to see time and time again Labor members coming in and talking about a cut to education funding. They think that if they can repeat this untruth enough, if they are all trained about it in their speaking notes and if they stand up and go, 'There's this $30 billion cut to school funding,' the public will believe them. But the public is starting to wake up.

We have heard this over and over again. We have heard it with their 'Mediscare' campaign—complete and utter falsehoods. We heard it last week when they rolled out a young gentleman who turned out to be a Labor Party member. They put him up in front of the microphone and he talked about how he was going to have his penalty rates cut. It was going to cost him $100 a day. It turned out that he was a Labor Party member, was working for Coles and had not had a cent cut from penalty rates. Time and time again what we are hearing from the Labor Party is this practice of blatant untruths. It treats our political system poorly and treats all of us, as members of parliament, poorly.

The facts are very clear: there are no cuts, not a single cut. In fact, from 2014—the first time the coalition got to spend money on education—to 2017 there have been no cuts. We are actually spending 38 per cent more in 2017 than the Labor Gillard government did. How can anyone come in and say: 'It's a cut. It's a big cut'? It is 38 per cent more.

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