Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks for all the input. I think the minister said ‘a new era of transparency’. Where is the transparency in not seeing the national curriculum and then having to sign up to it? I do not see how that is transparency. There are 1.1 million children involved in this and there are 2,228 schools. But they are also tying in $28 billion worth of funding. It is like a gun against the schools’ heads. Frankly, you can de-hook the curriculum. This amendment will split the bill and allow the national curriculum to take its course. When the government goes away, does its homework and then brings that back, then we can look at how we tie the national curriculum across the board. You can do that at any stage. You could do it next year or the year after—whenever you have got it ready. When you have done your homework, you can bring it back and then we can debate that and how we tie it to a national curriculum. Most of Australia wants a national curriculum, but we also need to make sure that we understand how prescriptive this will be. It is outrageous to think that you could even say that you have ‘a new era of transparency’ when the first thing you are trying to do is hide behind a gun worth $28 billion. We will strip this out from the bill and, if you do not support the bill, then it is the Rudd government that is stopping the schools from getting the funding.

Question put:

That the clause 22 stand as printed.