Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. How is the government making the smart investments to support our schools through the National Plan for School Improvement?

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

I thank the member for Parramatta for her question and for all of the support that she provides to schools in her electorate. She has been, I know, very engaged with the school-improvement agenda and the better-funding agenda, for New South Wales schools and schools around the country, that the government is committed to. As this parliament now sits, I think it is very important we recognise where the debate about school funding and school improvement is up to. The government is absolutely committed to making sure that our schools are in the top five in the world by 2025. That means we want our teachers, classrooms and children to be properly resourced, not just now but for generations to come, so that they can have the money necessary to pay for literacy and numeracy coaches, specialist staff and the equipment that they need.

I am very pleased that I was able to enter into an agreement with Premier O'Farrell, who knows that the current funding model is broken and who did not want to see his schools falling behind. We have, since entering into that agreement, heard a lot of ridiculous claims about what the agreement with New South Wales means. We have been told that Barry O'Farrell has been conned and that it is a very bad deal. Fortunately, Premier O'Farrell has answered that, and answered that directly. Then the Minister for Education in New South Wales went on his own campaign of myth busting and has made it very clear that the extreme claims being made by the opposition about our school-funding agenda are simply untrue. The minister in New South Wales, a National not a Liberal, has mythbusted the opposition's claims about indexation. He simply said it was wrong to suggest indexation—which is determined by average government school recurrent costs—under the present model would be as high as that claimed by the shadow minister for education. He has gone on to say that the deal in New South Wales with this government is better than the status quo and better than anything the shadow minister for education has indicated he is prepared to offer. He has said very clearly schools are better off under this government and, of course, that is true.

What we do know as well is that the Leader of the Opposition, and many in the opposition, are going in hard behind the scenes to try to prevent other conservative states signing up to a plan that is better for schools and better for children. One asks: what type of person is it who would lobby behind the scenes to see schoolchildren denied the best possible funding for their classrooms? Despite that negativity and those bullyboy tactics, we will get on with the job of ensuring we improve every classroom for every child. (Time expired)