Thursday, 15 May 2025

Education funding

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (09:45): I want to draw the chamber’s attention to the developing, strange denials by the Labor government, the Minister for Education and the Treasurer yesterday of the cuts that they have instituted in the $2.4 billion education cut. There is no doubt about this cut: it is in their own cabinet committee minutes. It is there; it is plain. They have decided not to increase funding according to the Gonski formula that they signed up to – according to the Gonski formula that all state governments and the federal government have agreed to. This will put federal money at risk, so our students, our kids, will have less funding than they otherwise would.

It is disingenuous of the government to say, ‘Oh, we’ve increased funding.’ It is true that their overall funding has increased, but not at the rate that they have committed to. They have wound back the rate of increase in funding, and our kids are suffering for it. The Chip Le Grand article today in the Age very clearly calls the government out on this, and I think he is right. It is a Trumpian denial that we are seeing of this government, and they are denying things that are black and white, things that are dead clear – just denying and denying and denying. This is what we see with this government. They are always denying the obvious and the facts. They have always got a spin, but the truth is our kids are paying the price.