Page 466 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 17 February 2016
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that has been presided over by the federal Liberal government, and complicit the ACT Liberals have been. We have heard very little from them about this. That is a travesty and that shows where the priorities lie for our local Liberals.
Turning to education, again, the government is investing heavily in education. Having just taken over the portfolio, in the first few weeks I can see the enormous energy that is going into ensuring a great educational future for all the children of this city. This financial year alone $1.1 billion goes to our education system. This funding supports our students and our teachers across Canberra in all of our schools, no matter what type of school, whether they be public, catholic or independent. This funding covers the cost of our teachers, our programs, necessary resources and special needs transport for students with a disability.
As well as this, the government is investing in capital such as building new schools, maintenance of our 87 existing public schools and new ICT in schools. I was able to attend the first day at the brand new school in Molonglo just this month, the Charles Weston School in Coombs. That is a fantastic campus which not only can be enjoyed by the students but has been designed in a clever way so the wider community of Coombs and Molonglo can have it as a true community hub. The government has introduced a program of revitalising school infrastructure and is investing in the much-needed Tuggeranong CIT campus as well as upgrading Bruce and Reid CIT campuses and modernising Belconnen high.
The Greens are pleased the government now has a needs-based education funding system for our ACT education system; it was certainly a top-line item in our parliamentary agreement with the Labor Party. But where are the Canberra Liberals when it comes to education, funding and resourcing? We are still dealing with the fallout of one of the most obvious broken promises from the Abbott government—the funding of the Gonski reforms. This means the ACT now has to increasingly go it alone in developing needs-based funding, and with less money than was promised.
This is only just beginning to play out. We know the later years of that funding agreement are the most critical ones and the ones where the biggest gaps are going to come because of the position taken by the Liberal Party nationally, and we have seen no serious argument with that by the local Liberal Party. It is going to be a tough few years for education funding, but certainly the Greens and the Labor Party are working hard to ensure that we are striving to end the educational achievement gap based on socioeconomic status and that the ACT at least develops a fair, transparent and equitable funding system, despite the federal Liberal Party position.
I note that later today we will talk about public housing. I do not believe the Canberra Liberals could put housing on today’s list of things they are focused on, because we know they are, of course, the party that oversaw the biggest sell-off of public housing in the ACT’s history. They reduced the level of public housing in the ACT from 13 per cent to less than nine per cent, and they have the hide to tell us today that they are focused on delivering better outcomes for all Canberrans. Talk about leaving people behind. When you start flogging off that much public housing, the most vulnerable people in the community are the ones who are going to feel those sorts of policy outcomes. That is the sort of reality that we can expect to see if Mr Hanson
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