Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to remind the House that Australians were told before the last election that the Abbott government was on a unity ticket with Labor when it came to education and school funding reform. What an absolute sham that has turned out to be. I would like to take this opportunity to place on the record once more some of the now government's words before the election. Before the election Prime Minister Tony Abbott said:

We will honour the agreements that Labor has entered into. We will match the offers that Labor has made. We will make sure that no school is worse off. We think that money is important.

Well, that promise that no school should be worse off is a promise that this government has now refused to repeat in the parliament because they know that it was nothing more than a cruel joke. But there was more. The now Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, said:

You can vote Liberal or Labor and you'll get exactly the same about of funding for your school

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said:

As far as I am concerned, as far as Christopher Pyne is concerned, as far as the coalition is concerned, we want to end the uncertainty by guaranteeing that no school will be worse off.

Further, the education minister said in print in The Daily Telegraph on 29 August—in written form, so that we can take it that it should be believed:

We have agreed to the government's school funding model.

He went on to say:

We are committed to the student resource standard, of course we are. We are committed to this new school funding model.

We know that is nothing more than a farce. We know that the model that Labor put forward would have seen an extra $14.65 billion flowing to Australian schools. We know that under the model that has now been adopted by the Abbott government that figure is now just $2.8 billion. Far from a unity ticket: 2.8 billion versus 14.65.

See this speech in context