Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Hansard source

I have often admired the Prime Minister's commitment to and sincerity about education, including higher education, and her belief in its transformational nature. I know that she used to welcome serious policy debate on education. She, like many of us in parliament, has benefitted from a good education. I read her National Press Club speech on this topic and it was excellent. She, better than most people in this place, understands the role of education in changing our lives. How we fund our schools—both government and non-government—is very important. All of us in this place know that standards are failing within our schools both domestically and, comparatively, internationally. We spend a fortune in this country on education and yet our standards are falling. The United Nations says that we are the best place in the world to live, according to the human development index. And yet our education system is failing us.

There is real concern in the community about teacher quality, as you would be aware, Mr Deputy President. There would not be much between the government and us—a cigarette paper of difference—about the importance of teacher quality and of community and parental engagement. All those issues are absolutely key, and are in fact the key to making Gonski work. You can throw buckets of money at education and it will not make a dime of difference. That is why we need this debate in this country.

As well as that, plenty of schools say they are going to be worse off. In my home state of Queensland they say that under the Gonski reforms they would be worse off. We even have concerns about where the money is going to go. This feeds into higher education and ultimately—and the Prime Minister is right—into the stories about equity and opportunity. They are important. It also ultimately feeds into productivity, a wealthier country and our national interest. You cannot divorce education and educational outcomes from a more productive community and a better and more unified one. That is why we have to have this debate.

For some reason the government does not seem to want to have this debate. Can you imagine spending 2¾ hours on Wednesday afternoon on something as vital as this is to our nation's, and our kids', future? As the Prime Minister herself said, 'It is the biggest change in school education in 40 years and there was less than three hours of debate devoted to it.' This is absolutely and utterly ridiculous. There are stacks of policy questions, and I have just touched on some, that need to be teased out, but they will not be because there will be no time. There has not been an effective debate either in the parliament or in the community on this issue. An amount of $16.2 billion in expenditure discussed in less than three hours—about $100 million every minute. That is just not good enough.

As my friend Senator Abetz has pointed out, guillotining a debate has now become standard practice. This week is the highlight. It is the culmination of the standard practice of guillotining debate in this parliament by the Labor Party and the Greens. I remember Mr Oakeshott's comments on the much vaunted new paradigm. What have we got instead? We have had the application of the guillotine more times than in the French Revolution. This is the reign of terror. Now the Prime Minister is the new Madam Defarge, with a nod and a wink at Senate despotism. The guillotine is being sharpened and it will be used ruthlessly throughout this week to stop debate. It is pathetic. The Labor Party is better than this.