Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Marshall, of course it is much more difficult for the Commonwealth to meet these targets when the states are passing the buck on education. We have in Victoria a long, long history of Tory cuts to education. We saw with Jeff Kennett the model that is now being pursued across the country. We have seen some real lessons learned from England, where the Tory masters are. The Kennett creed was very simple: cut deep, cut early and cut the poorest first. We are seeing in New South Wales now that the cuts are so bad that people cannot even get their sports days. We know that the Liberals are actually being banned from schools as a consequence of the policies that are being pursued there. We have seen that they have cut $1.7 billion from the school budgets. They have cut special needs funding for more than 270 schools. They have halved the literacy programs for the most disadvantaged. They have axed the curriculum support services— (Time expired)