Senate debates

Monday, 2 May 2016

Questions without Notice: Take Note of Answers

Education Funding, Medicare

3:06 pm

Photo of Sam DastyariSam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Attorney-General (Senator Brandis) and the Minister for Regional Development (Senator Nash) to questions without notice asked by Senators Dastyari and Gallagher today relating to schools funding and to funding for pathology and diagnostic imaging.

Honourable senators: Fantastic!

It's fantastic! Sorry, I am trying to compose myself after the hilarity of the comments coming from this side of the chamber.

The answer we heard earlier from the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Brandis, really defied belief. This notion that the government are trying to dress up a $29 billion cut in future education funding as some kind of achievement really defies belief and it defies logic. This is the journey the government have been on, and let's be clear: they started off by saying that they were going to be on a unity ticket with Labor when it came to Gonski funding. Then the new minister, Senator Birmingham, indicated that he would be somehow favourable to funding the Gonski model. Then, on the eve of Christmas, right at the end of the year, in the dead period, the government came out with an announcement that no Gonski funding was going to be made available. Then we had the thought bubble that came from the Prime Minister himself: 'Hey, not only should we not fund the future funding that's needed in our schools, but let's not fund schools at all. Let's just palm it off to being a state responsibility.' This is a matter which, we discovered in evidence given to a Senate committee, was not even discussed with or run past the department itself. I see Senator Birmingham leaving. His own department found out about it from the media statements or by watching it on television. Then, the weekend before the budget and a week before the calling of an election, there was this weak, measly announcement from this government that it is going to find a few extra billion dollars in the next couple of years. This is not a plan to fund schools; this is a plan to get the government through an election. This is an election strategy, not a school funding plan. Frankly, the government keeps changing its position here.

Comments

No comments