September 4, 2012
Member for Wide Bay Warren Truss has blasted a speech given by Prime Minister Julia Gillard yesterday on the proposed Gonski reforms to education, saying the Federal Government doesn’t have the money to meet its promises.
“Those hoping that the Prime Minister’s National Press Club speech would deliver a clear plan for a better national education system were left cruelly disappointed,” he said today.
“This is Labor up to its old tricks, playing a cynical game with Australia’s parents and children – promising billions for education spending that the government does not have.
“So brazen and desperate is the Prime Minister that she is asking Australians to take her on faith not just for the next election, but all the way out to 2025.
“Australians are increasingly concerned about the slide in our nation’s education performance, but it will take more than carefully crafted rhetoric from the Prime Minister to fix the problem.
“Regional and rural Australians, in particular, have reason to be concerned that their schools are being left behind and country students lack the opportunities provided in the cities.
“In recent weeks Julia Gillard’s spending spree has included promises of an $8 billion a year National Disability Insurance Scheme, a $4 billion dental health package, and now $6.5 billion to fund some of Gonski’s education changes – all due to commence after 2014.
“With an election due in 2013, or sooner, Julia Gillard is playing Australians for mugs. And she was quick, in making yesterday’s grand statement, to put the funding onus on the states.
“The Prime Minister is big on grandiose promises but her government is broke and getting broker. The Government is $144 billion in debt, Labor’s mythical $1.5 billion budget surplus is dead in the water and mining tax revenue is already $620 million shy of funding existing commitments and falling.
“We’ve heard grand plans from this government before – Grocery Watch, Fuel Watch, pink batts, cash for clunkers etc. Labor has already given us one ‘education revolution’ – computers for half as many students as promised, delivered years late and hundreds of over-priced school halls. That revolution cost $18 billion, but education standards are in freefall.
“In Julia we do not trust. Her government’s big spending promises are insulting to every Australian.
“The Prime Minister refused yesterday to release the modelling on which schools would benefit under her proposals.
“We know the Government has been desperately working on a new Gonski funding model following the release of earlier modelling, which showed that 3,254 schools would be worse off – many in small regional communities.
“Surely teachers, parents and the public have a right to know how much their school will receive before being asked to believe in a new education utopia.”
Related article:
