Education Bill confirms spin over substance

The Prime Minister has humiliated herself this morning presenting a Bill to the Parliament entirely devoid of any detail and failing to outline Labor’s school funding changes, said the Shadow Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne today.

The Australian Education Bill explanatory memorandum specifically spells it out on page four, indicating unequivocally that there is “no financial impact associated with this Bill”.

“To characterise this Bill as the “Gonski Model” is false. There is no substance in the Bill at all, no appropriation of funding and no information as to how much funding schools will receive,” Mr Pyne said.

“There is no detail of what the states will pay, no structure and no information about the new stringent requirements the Federal Government intends to impose on schools,” he said.

“Labor has introduced an empty shell this morning as a desperate distraction. No one in the schools sector will have any clearer picture of what the Government is proposing.

“The Prime Minister calls this a uniquely Labor Bill and she is right - it is all spin over substance, a classic Labor hoax.

“This Bill is full of motherhood statements that the Prime Minister has so little confidence in achieving she has included a clause that makes the entire Bill legally unenforceable.

“With twelve months until this new model must begin, Labor continues to leave schools hanging,” Mr Pyne said.

November 28, 2012