Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education. Will the minister update the House on how the Morrison government's plan for economic recovery is guaranteeing education and research funding and supporting more job-ready graduates as we come out the other side of the COVID-19 recession?

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Sydney is now warned!

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

I thank the member for his question and for his passion for education. Can I tell the House that in this budget there is record funding for child care, record funding for schools, record funding for universities and record funding for research.

We were talking about child care earlier. I wanted to share with the House a couple of quotes from the childcare sector themselves about our record funding of $9.2 billion and our $900 million of additional funding that we provided the sector to get them through the pandemic. This is from Elizabeth Death, the Early Learning and Care Council of Australia CEO:

We applaud the Government's commitment to ensuring that early learning and care services could survive the COVID-19 pandemic. The Government's financial support for sector viability was absolutely critical and valued.

The Australian Childcare Alliance President, Paul Mondo:

We commend the government for recognising the unique circumstances facing Victorian early learning services and for continuing the extensive support offered to our vital sector since the beginning of the pandemic. This Recovery Payment, coupled with the extension of the Activity Test exemption, ensures financial viability for Victorian service providers during a period of economic uncertainty.

That's $9.2 billion of record funding for the childcare sector, including $900 million of new money.

When it comes to schools our budget commits us to $314.7 billion of record funding between 2018 and 2029. That includes $146.3 million to deliver a range of projects to help support students, families and school communities impacted by COVID-19.

There is also record funding for universities, funding that's growing from $18 billion to $20 billion. Under our plan for higher education there will be 100,000 new places by 2030. Importantly, in the budget, there's record investment for research in this country. We want research to drive the innovation and the new industries to come out of this pandemic. We want the university sector, through its research, to be one of the drivers of our economic recovery, and that's why we're providing $1 billion of new money for research in this country in this budget. I thank the higher education sector for the cooperative way they've worked with the government to ensure that we can make this investment and ensure that they are a key part of driving us through our economic recovery. There is record funding for child care, for schools, for higher education and for research in this budget.