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

You are quite right. Despite the bipartisan approach on teacher quality, the fact remains that conservative state governments around this country have been cutting funds to education, and that has an immediate impact on students, on schools and on their families. Of course, there is a flow-on effect of these cuts; and, under the current funding system—a funding system that the opposition remains wedded to—these cuts will reduce the level of indexation and therefore the level of expenditure over time.

In 2012 the indexation measure came down to 3.9 per cent. Senator Cameron is quite right about this. Because of the slower growth in the state funding arrangements, it has come down from a revised 6 per cent to 5.6 per cent across the forward estimates on a 10-year weighted average. The current funding system, if it is retained as those opposite would urge us to do, would see further reductions in that amount. (Time expired)