Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to remind the House that Australians were told before the last election that the Abbott government was on a unity ticket with Labor when it came to education and school funding reform. What an absolute sham that has turned out to be. I would like to take this opportunity to place on the record once more some of the now government's words before the election. Before the election Prime Minister Tony Abbott said:

We will honour the agreements that Labor has entered into. We will match the offers that Labor has made. We will make sure that no school is worse off. We think that money is important.

Well, that promise that no school should be worse off is a promise that this government has now refused to repeat in the parliament because they know that it was nothing more than a cruel joke. But there was more. The now Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, said:

You can vote Liberal or Labor and you'll get exactly the same about of funding for your school

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said:

As far as I am concerned, as far as Christopher Pyne is concerned, as far as the coalition is concerned, we want to end the uncertainty by guaranteeing that no school will be worse off.

Further, the education minister said in print in The Daily Telegraph on 29 August—in written form, so that we can take it that it should be believed:

We have agreed to the government's school funding model.

He went on to say:

We are committed to the student resource standard, of course we are. We are committed to this new school funding model.

We know that is nothing more than a farce. We know that the model that Labor put forward would have seen an extra $14.65 billion flowing to Australian schools. We know that under the model that has now been adopted by the Abbott government that figure is now just $2.8 billion. Far from a unity ticket: 2.8 billion versus 14.65.

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And while my colleague says it is shameful, and I absolutely wholeheartedly agree with her, what is even worse is there is no guarantee that the $2.8 billion will not be entirely undermined by the fact that they have opened the door to state government cuts of the magnitude that we have seen in Western Australia by the Barnett government.

We know it is in years 5 and 6 of the school funding model that we really see the money start to flow. In years 5 and 6 we would expect to see $7 billion in additional money flowing from the Commonwealth to Australian schools. And while I believe that all of those statements before the election were nothing more than a sham, were nothing more than cynical politics, dishonesty and an absolute betrayal of the Australian public, we will find out for sure in just 10 weeks when we see the federal budget. The budget will speak far louder than any of the statements that the government tried to put forward. We can expect that if they are on a unity ticket with Labor when it comes to school funding reform, then we should expect that we will see part of this $7 billion of additional funding for our schools included in this budget. Over the next 10 weeks, in the lead-up to budget day, we will hear from parents and we will hear from teachers from across Australia—all of whom believe that they were misled by this government—urging those opposite to do the right thing and include this funding in the budget.

The other commitment that we expect to see in the budget is the commitment for students with disabilities so that the additional loading will be rolled out in Australian schools from next year, as was promised in the coalition's media release of 23 August. They explicitly stated:

… [this] will be used to deliver more funding for people with disability through the ‘disability loading’ in 2015.

There is no room for excuses. There is no room for weasel words. There is no room for the education minister to try to argue that black is white and white is purple. This is the time when we see for sure: we need to see the beginnings of this $7 billion in additional funding in the budget in just 10 weeks. And if this funding is not included in the upcoming budget, we will make sure that every parent, that every educator, that every principal, that every student in Australian schools know full well that all of these statements were nothing other than the biggest betrayal of the Australian community in a cynical move to try to get elected without meaning an absolute word of it.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to bring some seriousness back to the chamber after what can only be seen as a little bit of hilarity. Cruise tourism is a very important sector. It is a fast-growing sector for Australia's tourism industry. Total cruise passenger expenditure was $574 million in 2012-13. This was 29.7 per cent up on 2011-12, and 152.1 per cent up on 2008-09. The sector is an increasingly important contributor to the tourism 2020 objectives.

We were privileged enough to have the head of Carnival Australia speak to the coalition's Friends of Tourism group this week. As she pointed out, in 2012-13, there were 19 Carnival ships carrying 325,000 passengers and made 310 calls to Australian ports. Once again, that is 44.8 per cent of all Australian port calls.

We often think of the standard cruise ship pulling into ports in Melbourne or Sydney, a visitor only to our capital cities. But cruise ships also, importantly, go to regional areas. One of the important regions that cruise ships are about to come to is the south-west of Victoria. This coming weekend, on Saturday, we are about to see the first cruise ship come to the port of Portland. It is a European cruise ship, the Europa, and it will be carrying 660 Europeans on board. They will be embarking at Portland and they will be going to see some of the fantastic tourism sites that the south-west of Victoria has to offer: the 12 Apostles and some of our wonderful tourist attractions around Warrnambool and around Portland. It will be of real benefit to the local economy.

One of the things that I have been pleased to hear is that we are having this first cruise ship come in next weekend but already there are three cruise ships which potentially will be coming next year. The hope is that we will be able to grow the business for the port of Portland so that we could have up to 21 cruise ships docking in Portland during a year. That will be wonderful for our local economy. Tourism provides much-needed jobs—and it is jobs for everyone and, in particular, for our Indigenous communities. We often find Indigenous workers in the tourism sector.

It is going to be terrific for these Europeans to be able to embark on what will be a wonderful adventure for them in the south-west of Victoria. I look forward to being there to welcome them. I look forward to being there to say, 'Welcome to our wonderful country but also welcome to western Victoria and all that it has to offer.' This is a very, very important development for my part of the world, for the part of the world that I represent. I am incredibly excited about what this can potentially mean in terms of adding another important industry into regional and rural Victoria and, coming with that, the extra provision of jobs and the extra provision of income and growth for our sector. We already have important industries, but it is great that we are able this weekend to welcome another one—in the cruise shipping industry