Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of this matter. Senator Fawcett has a fundamental flaw in his argument—that is, prior to the election, coalition speaker after coalition spokesperson committed to the Labor government's funding model, which contained a whole series of conditions to maintain funding by the states and on which the Commonwealth would pay record levels of moneys to the states. The coalition, in opposition at that time, said they would match those commitments dollar for dollar, agreement for agreement, model for model. Now that is not the position, and today we have the third effort in a week by the government to try to clarify their position, which fundamentally boils down to repudiating an election commitment. They are repudiating their commitment to the people of Australia and to the students of Australia. Furthermore, today yet another election promise was broken.