Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Employment (Senator Abetz) and the Minister for Human Services (Senator Payne) to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today relating to schools funding.

Today we have seen the latest iteration in the coalition's twists and turns to avoid keeping the promises they made to the Australian people before the election. Everybody knows that education was a key issue in the election. Despite Mr Pyne describing the Gonski report and reforms, which are the foundation of Labor's Better Schools Plan, as a con, a 'conski', he had an 11th-hour conversion because it was very clear that this was a plan supported by teachers, by parents, by students and by schools across this country. Instead of the 'conski', as Mr Pyne called it, what we saw was a set of unequivocal commitments from this Prime Minister and this education minister that they would honour the agreements that the Labor government had made, that they would ensure that they would deliver precisely the same policy, that they would keep their promise to the Australian people and that there was a unity ticket when it comes to education. You only have to go through some of the quotes from the Prime Minister to see this:

TONY ABBOTT: (August 2, 2013): … We will make sure that no school is worse off.

The same day, he said, 'We will guarantee that no school will be worse off' and:

… every single school in Australia will receive, dollar for dollar, the same federal funding over the next four years whether there is a Liberal or Labor Government after September 7.

And he said: 'We will honour any deal that has been made. We will honour the agreements. We will honour any commitment which has been made. There is a unity ticket.' He went on and on. What have we seen since? We have seen the Prime Minister of this country not only refuse to give the same commitment when invited to give the same commitment; he actually said this:

We are going to keep the promise that we actually made, not the promise that some people thought that we made, or the promise that some people might have liked us to make.

So what he was saying to the Australian people just over 24 hours ago was: 'Sorry, you heard it wrong. You know when I said "unity ticket", you heard it wrong. When I said "no school will be worse off", oops, you heard it wrong. I'm sorry, you just must have misheard me.' This is the new standard from this Prime Minister, who said, 'We will keep our promises, but it is not actually the promise we made.' That was in the same interview where we saw the extraordinary exchange on the use of plurals and the singular. Apparently, when they said 'no school would be worse off', they actually meant 'no schools'—plural, because they want to talk about funding envelopes and quantum, and muddy it up. This is all part of a Prime Minister who is seeking to slide away from his election commitments.

What happened today? Just before question time, we saw the press conference you hold when you know you are sinking, the press conference you hold when you know the Australian people are on to you and are saying: 'You are breaking an election promise. You are breaking your commitment.' We saw the press conference you hold when you know your education minister is sinking, because that is the only explanation for a press conference where there is a complete reversal on a number of things Mr Pyne has said, including just a few days ago when he said he was going to completely renegotiate all the agreements. But, all of a sudden, it is: 'We didn't really mean that. You might have just heard that, but you heard that wrong. We didn't actually say that.'

What is absolutely clear is this: there was only one party before and after this election committed to properly funding our schools across this nation—that is, the Australian Labor Party. I also acknowledge the work of the Greens on this. On this issue, they do support proper funding and proper resourcing of education. What we saw today in question time as well was the latest round of weasel words. Before the election it was 'no school will be worse off', then we had a discussion about quantums and envelopes with Mr Pyne walking away from the commitments and the Prime Minister walking away from the commitments.