Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Stephens for her question. If one wanted to talk about money being removed from schools funding in Australia, I think the best place to start would be the removal of $1.2 billion from schools funding by the previous government when they failed to reach agreement with all the states and territories. That would have meant there was no additional funding for students in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory—a small technical point that it appears those on the other side are trying to avoid. What is in fact the case with our education announcements in the budget is that we are investing a record amount of $64½ billion in recurrent funding for government and non-government schools over the next four years. The coalition has not only matched school funding dollar for dollar over the quadrennium of the previous government but increased it. That includes $1.2 billion for schools, from 2014 to 2017, over and above the funding committed by the previous government.