Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Have you ever wondered why primary schools need to host Bunnings sausage sizzles? It is because of government failure. 'But it's okay; our kids are used to being tossed aside and monetised by the time they reach primary school.' We have let the for-profit childcare sector turn our early learning into a money-making machine for domestic and foreign corporations. Then our kids roll up to underfunded primary schools while this government refuses to tax our coal and gas exports to pay for the things that we need. 'Sorry, teachers, there'll be no pay rise again this year. The government has already handed that money over to the likes of Woodside.' While teachers are doing $11.5 billion in unpaid work to keep schools functioning, most of them still pay more tax than big fossil fuel giants. It's outrageous.

If our kids make it through school without a gambling addiction due to this government's inability to regulate gambling advertising while taking donations from Sportsbet and Tabcorp, they might make it to uni, where government starts paying attention because they can make money off uni students. 'Hey, $50,000 bachelor degrees are completely reasonable, kids. Education isn't free—anymore.' But our uni students are doing an important and patriotic job for this Labor government: they're giving the government more money from their student debt payments than the government collects from the petroleum resource rent tax, which is great, because students can afford it and we wouldn't want to burden those innovative startups like BHP, Chevron and Santos, would we?

This government is selling out our kids for their big corporate buddies and political donors. Make no mistake about it. Our kids' early education should not be monetised. We shouldn't need to fundraise for our primary schools at our primary schools. Uni shouldn't be a debt sentence. We should ban corporate donations, make the big corporations and the billionaires pay their fair share, and make education free, accessible and high quality from early learning all the way through to university. (Time expired)