George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Lines, once again, I am afraid you have misled the Senate. In fact, it was when Mr Bill Shorten was the minister that $1.2 billion was taken out of the Commonwealth budget for schools in Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory. As I pointed out before, the Abbott government has increased school funding to Western Australian schools by 42 per cent over four years—42 per cent, $619 million, over the next four years. Since the 2013 election—Senator Lines, you might be interested to know—the Abbott government has created almost 45,000 new jobs in Western Australia, many of them in the Canning electorate. More than 170,000 pensioners with modest assets, including those in Canning, have had their payments increased by an average of— (Time expired)