Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I was so enjoying the Minister for Small Business's talk. In the early part of it he just sounded like he was reading out the press release. I have never heard a budget press release read more fluently than that. He was talking a lot about the instant asset write-off too. That is the instant asset write-off that Labor introduced that the Liberals tried to get rid of that we stopped them getting rid of. And now he is boasting about it. It is beautiful. I love the front.

What kind of government takes money away from schoolchildren and uni students to give a $50 billion big business tax cut? That is the heart of the question before us today. They are robbing our kids of $22 billion, taking it from their schools, and making sure that uni fees go up while spending in universities goes down. So that is higher fees for a worse product, at the same time that millionaires get a $16,440-a-year tax cut and big businesses get a $50 billion tax cut. That is the heart of this budget. We invest in education because we believe there is nothing better for our society and economy than a highly skilled well-educated worker in a great productive job. That is what we believe.

The $22 billion of cuts means that every school in this country will lose the equivalent of $2.4 million a year over 10 years compared to the Labor policy.

Mr Tudge interjecting—

The minister at the table says that it is not a $22 billion cut. Here is the government's own briefing paper, handed out to journalists on the day they announced the policy: 'Compared to Labor's arrangements, this represents a saving over four years of over $22.3 billion over 10 years from 2018 to 2027 compared with Labor's arrangements.' It is not me saying it. It is in their own briefing paper. What does this mean in practice? In practice it means public schools will be very hard hit.

Let's take the Northern Territory as an example; the nation's most disadvantaged schooling system with the most disadvantaged students gets the least help. I will give you this one example. A primary school in suburban Darwin—lots of Indigenous and lots of kids who speak languages other than English—by 2027, it will receive $4,232 per child. It gets an increase of just $554 over 10 years. They are addressing the overfunded schools, aren't they! Trinity Grammar School in Sydney—a terrific school—has fees up to $24,000 for primary school children. By 2027, it will receive $7,799 per child, an increase of $2,734 over that 10-year period. That is a five-times greater increase for that school than for the Northern Territory poor public school.

Good Shepherd Catholic Primary School, in the ACT, with fees around $3,300 a year, gets a funding cut—a cut—of $2.6 million over 10 years. Geelong Grammar School, one of Australia's wealthiest schools, gets a funding increase over the same period. Guess how much? $16.6 million. So a little Catholic school in Canberra gets a $2.6 million cut; Geelong Grammar, a $16.6 million increase. That is what they call fair. That is what they think is fair.

And look at university students. University students are paying more for their degrees, paying it back sooner than they had to, from $42,000 income a year, and getting less for it because the universities are seeing billions of dollars cut from their operating grants. So uni students graduating on $42,000 a year, not a high income, not like the million bucks a year you earn when you get your $16,000 a year tax cut, will be paying back more and sooner for a worse product as the universities have to absorb those cuts. That is what they think is fair: a $50 billion tax cut for big business, cuts for schools and cuts for universities.

See this speech in context