Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, he doth protest too much, does Senator Carr. From what we hear, over there Senator Carr howls and he yells and he squeals and he screams. What he is so upset about is that this government has done what his government could not. This government has set about and achieved delivery of funding across every state and territory of the Commonwealth for schools, which his government failed to do. This government will ensure, as promised, that, firstly, there is no need for any school to be worse off and also, as Senator Abetz said today, that, secondly, no school will be worse off. The money is on the table and flowing not just to four states and one territory but to all six states and to both territories to ensure that every student around Australia will be treated equitably under our school funding arrangement.

Senator Carr comes in here, as do other Labor senators, and talks about the potential for schools to be worse off, for children to be worse off, for parents to be worse off. You know who was going to be worse off under the Labor Party had they remained in office? The schools, the students, the parents, the families in Queensland; the schools, the students, the parents, the families in the Northern Territory; and the schools, the students, the parents, the families in Western Australia. Labor was providing no future funding for students, parents, schools and families in those jurisdictions. Labor went into the last election having stripped $1.2 billion out of the budget so that it had nothing left to provide to those jurisdictions. The coalition in government have set about rectifying Labor's problems. We are ensuring that no student will be worse off because we are ensuring that every state, every territory and therefore every Australian family and school student will be treated equitably regardless of where they live. They will be guaranteed of getting the funding they deserve for their schools because every jurisdiction will receive the funding that they deserve.

Mr Shorten has history when it comes to axing things. He may have in the pre-election context axed $1.2 billion of school funding, but that was on top of his track record of having axed two prime ministers during their squalid term in office. How can the Labor Party can come into this chamber and talk about fairness of funding when they got it so wrong—how can they talk about proper process when they ran such a chaotic and shambolic government; how can they talk about any of those things—when they are led by a leader who was the one who left three jurisdictions in the lurch, who failed to properly sign up other jurisdictions to his much vaunted model? Let us be very clear in what we understand here: the school funding package Labor took up was just an attempt to mask all of the failures of government at the last minute running into the election campaign. Mr Shorten ran around the country attempting to stitch together at the eleventh hour of a chaotic government a deal which did not have equity at its heart because he could not get everybody onto the same funding page, a deal that left virtually half of Australia in the lurch, a deal that was clearly and demonstrably unfair in its approach.

Senator Carr comes in here and talks about shifting costs. The truth is that Mr Shorten shifted costs all right. In trying to claim that all money in the world was being provided to schools, he shifted costs outside of the forward estimates. It is very easy to promise things that you do not have to budget for. That is not the style of this government. We are promising what we know we can budget for and deliver over the four-year budget cycle, not what might happen beyond that. What might happen beyond that has to be the subject of future proper budgeting. Mr Shorten also then shifted costs right outside of the budget when he stripped that $1.2 billion away. So be under no illusion: this government stand proud of their education record because they are delivering the equity, the service and the money to all Australian students. (Time expired)