Kerry Bartlett (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a number of complaints about teachers handing out political propaganda at the school gate and in some cases in the school grounds. This happens in every election but it is totally unacceptable, for two reasons. Firstly, it is an abuse of teachers’ positions to peddle political messages and it is unfair to the majority of teachers who do not believe that the classroom or playground should be abused in this way. The second problem is that the Teachers Federation campaign is blatantly dishonest. Their claims that the Howard government has cut funding for state schools simply are not substantiated by the facts. In fact, clearly, the opposite is the case.

In the last 11 years the government has increased direct funding to state public schools by 120 per cent—that is 70 per cent in real terms—despite an increase of only 1.2 per cent in enrolments in state schools. We have increased funding for state schools in fact far faster than the New South Wales government has increased its funding for its own state schools. If the Teachers Federation were really interested in public education rather than partisan politics they would be attacking the state Labor government, not the Australian government.