Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are a lot of facts around school funding that are flying around at the moment. Today, I want to use the opportunity of my 90-second statement to actually deliver the facts. The fact: under Labor's school funding plan, 80 per cent of the extra money went to public schools. That is because public schools teach the vast majority of Australia's poorest kids, Indigenous kids and kids with a disability. The fact: under the Turnbull government's plan, more than half of funding will go to private schools. That is despite the fact that private schools only account for around 30 per cent of the nation's schools. The fact: under the Turnbull government's plan, 85 per cent of public schools will not reach their fair level of funding, even after 10 years, while virtually every private school will be at or above their fair funding level. The fact: under the Turnbull government's policy, public schools get huge cuts, while many elite private schools get huge multimillion dollar funding increases. By way of example, St Thomas More's Primary School in Campbell in my electorate will lose $214,400 over 10 years, while the King's School in Sydney will get an increase of $19 million and Geelong Grammar will get an increase of $16 million. This is absolutely outrageous. It is inequitable. I call on the government to reverse its cuts to schools.