Kerry Rea (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for Social Inclusion and Deputy Prime Minister. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on recent developments in policies to support regional education?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bonner for her question. She is deeply interested in the quality of Australian education and in making sure that every child gets a fair chance for a great education—something that those members opposite have shown no regard for in government or in opposition.

Yesterday I asked the House to contemplate one simple proposition: when is $1 billion not $1 billion? Of course the answer to that riddle is: when it is promised by the National Party. Yesterday I revealed to the House that a so-called $1 billion education promise by the National Party was nowhere near a $1 billion education promise; it was apparently a promise to spend the interest on the so-called $1 billion policy.

But today I can reveal that in fact it is a little bit more interesting than that. So the member for Calare, when asked what the interest on the $1 billion, around $50 million, was going to be spent on, could not name specific programs that would receive funding. He went on to say, ‘It’s not meant to be a dot point policy.’ So apart from an illusion about the funding, it is an illusion about the outcomes. They have absolutely no idea what it is they should do to improve the life chances and life prospects of country kids—truly remarkable.

It goes on. The member for Parkes has assisted us even more than the member for Calare. The member for Parkes is recorded in his media as saying of this so-called $1 billion policy, which is really the interest on $1 billion that they have no idea how they would spend:

It’s an aspirational statement and not yet policy, but sent a positive message about education.

Quite remarkable.

Now if this were just a fight and confusion between members of the National Party, then of course everybody would say: ‘Business as usual. That’s what we expect from the National Party’. But, no, this policy has been sold, specifically sold by Senator Williams as a policy that has had the tick of the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer. So let the record show, because I believe, Mr Speaker, it should, that what the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Treasurer—the man who would be Deputy Prime Minister if the opposition were elected as government—stand for in education is this: they have promised $1 billion, but they really mean the interest on it, and they have no idea what it would be spent on and really, in the words of the member for Parkes, it is not a policy at all, it is just an ‘aspiration’.

I know what this really means, and let me make it very clear for the House: it is another phoney policy from an opposition that is erratic and irresponsible and on a mission to mislead Australian voters. The reality is when in government they watched the participation rate of regional kids in universities fall, and in opposition they are showing absolute contempt for these kids and their life chances.