Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to describe a plan. It's a plan for human beings to travel to Mars and establish a new colony. It's going to cost more than several trillion dollars. It's called the Trekonian plan. But I don't actually have the money to follow this plan. I'll just tell everybody about the plan and hope they're so convinced that if I tell them often enough they'll know it's going to be true. This is exactly the same as the fantasy funding proposed by the Labor Party at the last two elections for their grandiose plan for educational change—which was unfunded, putting it in the same place as my science fiction plan to get humans to Mars. Really, I would think that, by now, this rubbish would be exactly where it belongs—in the shredding bin. There are no cuts to school funding. How can you cut something that never existed?

The Quality Schools package will deliver an extra $25.3 billion in recurrent funding for Australian schools over the next 10 years. I am so tired of the blatant misrepresentation of information. The opposition keep bleating about cuts, cuts, cuts—but it's a cut to nothing. It was never committed. Our total Commonwealth recurrent funding is $249.8 billion over about 10 years. For the first time, real needs based funding will be provided, and it grows from $17.5 billion to $31.1 billion. Nationally, funding per student for all sectors will continue to increase. This is growing. This is an increase. This is more money for our children. By 2027, students with the same needs in the same sector will have the same level of support from the Commonwealth, regardless of the state or the territory where they live, their background or the choice of school their parents make. As a condition of funding, the states and territories have to pull their weight. They have to co-invest in education. When they say, 'Oh, the federal government's putting in money—okay, we'll take ours out,' that is not good enough. We have to fix that.

The new funding is part of a $192 million funding boost for our regions. It's so good that this is actually going to happen. We're delivering a school system that is entirely focused on students and what they need most. This means more resources for one-on-one time with teachers and new or existing initiatives such as specialist teachers or targeted intervention programs, which have been so successful over the last four years, and which Labor and Liberal agreed to fund.

Under our plan, we're delivering, overall, 6.4 per cent average annual growth per student, for each of our children. Our needs based funding plan has been endorsed by everyone, including David Gonski—the name that has been thrown around from one end of parliament to the other. Our needs based education funding for students includes not only those with a disability—which is fairly obvious—but also those living in regional, rural or remote locations. And there's consideration of children in lower socioeconomic communities, and also funding to help close the gap for our Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander kids.

For students with a disability, there'll be an increase of about $22.7 million from this year through to 2027—an 83.5 per cent increase. Increase, increase—it's going up. Students in regional, rural and remote locations will again see an increased investment, from $3.9 billion to $7.2 billion. That's an increase—getting bigger—of 84.8 per cent. More than 750,000 students will be better off with this needs based funding. I mentioned Indigenous students: around 218,000 young students will be benefiting from this far better, targeted, increased investment, from $285.6 million last year to $547.9 million in 2027. That's a 91.9 per cent increase.

Australia is now amongst the highest investors in school education in the OECD. The most important aspect of education is, of course, investment. But the most recent research is that teachers must be part of the formula for better educational outcomes. I know—I was one. The rationalisation and nationalisation of increased funding is critical for our children. That's fact, not fantasy. Making sure the states and territories commit as well—that's critical, and it's fact, not fantasy. Making sure there's money to fund the investment is essential—that's fact, not fantasy.

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