Less than five minutes on Gonski at COAG

Reports have emerged from the Council of Australian Governments that less than five minutes was spent discussing Labor’s school funding changes, said the Shadow Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne today.

“This is despite all the posturing during the last federal parliamentary sitting week of the year,” Mr Pyne said.

“We now have the Australian Education Bill containing no detail and a Prime Minister who is too embarrassed to even have a discussion on the topic at COAG,” he said.

“Instead it appears Labor is intent on heaping more red tape on schools with their national plan for school improvement.

“Forcing schools to adhere to new nationally prescribed red tape will have zero impact on lifting student outcomes.

“No parent, teacher, principal or even State Education Minister would be thinking the Federal Labor Government knows best when it comes to running schools, in fact quite the opposite. 

“If Labor’s plan is more red tape, more bureaucracy, more paperwork and more checklists then it will mean less time to focus on student outcomes,” he said. 

“The facts are that under Labor, student outcomes have stagnated or declined over the past five years, despite promises of nothing short of an education revolution.

“Prime Minister Julia Gillard as Minister for Education demonstrated her Labor values with ‘historic’ waste and mismanagement in the education portfolio.

“The truth is no Australian trusts this Government to deliver a new funding model by the end of next year,” Mr Pyne said.

December 7, 2012