Tuesday, 27 May 2025

Education system

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:38): (1652) My adjournment is for the Minister for Education, and the action that I seek is that he update the house on how this government is supporting Victorian students in improving their numeracy and maths skills. Today we saw a rather significant announcement come from the opposition with regard to stamp duty. It is always good to see the Liberals jumping on board good Labor policy such as our very, very longstanding support through stamp duty concessions for first home owners. Of course you know that they still oppose housing and providing any sorts of housing options for people, but that is another subject.

What was more surprising, though, was to see the costings come out as part of that – that apparently this is going to cost $1.9 billion over the forward estimates but is going to somehow provide support to 17,000 people per year. On very conservative estimates of using that $750,000 threshold, that would lead to a total cost over the forward estimates of just over $2.7 billion, a $1.6 billion shortfall that is completely unaccounted for. We know that the Liberals cannot manage the economy. We know that they are not any good with managing money – and a $ 1.6 billion shortfall, more than the entire amount of the announcement made, an error. Indeed, if you were to use the value of $1 million as the average median price for these houses, it would be a $3.7 billion cost over the forward estimates. So we know that the opposition have mucked up their figures again. Another Shadow Treasurer that does not have the facts with him, does not know the numbers and probably does not have the numbers for much longer either – whilst Mr Newbury may wish to go for growth, he might be best to go back to school.