Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

The Productivity Commission's ROGS data report does, indeed, make for interesting reading in terms of state schools in our home state of South Australia, in particular. It shows that Australian government funding per student to South Australia between 2011-12 and 2015-16 grew quite strongly at around 8.1 per cent. I acknowledge that was under both a federal Labor government and a federal Liberal-National party government. However, curiously, in that same time frame state government funding declined by some 3.3 per cent. There you have a state government, the Weatherill Labor government, that spent much time wanting to talk about school funding in South Australia, yet the Productivity Commission's data shows that as federal funding increased into South Australian schools state funding was taken out. On a per-student basis, we saw federal funding grow by 8.8 per cent, yet the state ripped out 4.2 per cent per student. (Time expired)