Doorstop - Sydney (Early Morning)

SUBJECT: School funding. QUESTION: What are we expecting today from this meeting? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, we're having a Ministerial council meeting and it's my first Ministerial council meeting so I'm very much looking forward to it. Looking forward to sitting down with my Ministerial colleagues and working through issues around the curriculum and bullying and violence. No doubt the South Australian Minister will report on the issues to do with child protection in South Australia and the Department of Education there which have bedevilled the State Government in South Australia for the last 12 months with more and more revelations of children not being adequately protected from alleged paedophiles in the system which has led to a policeman now being head of the Department of Education in South Australia because that's their priority and I'll obviously talk to them about things like teacher standards and so on. I'm sure funding will get a discussion. Of course on funding, it's important to remember that the Labor Party had a funding level of $1.6 billion over the forward estimates. And the Coalition is investing $1.83 billion so we are putting more money into the education system than Labor intended to. But we are more than keeping our promises, we are going further than that. We are also said that we would remove the prescriptive elements of the model which we are going to do. And we are going to repair the shambles that I have been left by Bill Shorten by creating a new model which we will reveal sometime next year. And that’s what I think will happen to do. QUESTION: What are you expecting to say to New South Wales, and Victoria and the States that are concerned about changes to Gonski and the fact that they feel they might be soured? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I want to work with all my state colleagues, of course I do and I am sure they want to as well. Everyone knows that we were never going to fund the year five and six of this model because it is beyond the forward estimates. But we are putting more money than Labor would have if they had been re-elected and really it is time Bill Shorten admitted that Chris Bowen admitted last night for him and that is that he did take $1.2 billion out of the system. Chris Bowen said it on ABC 24 yesterday afternoon that it was true that they had cut $1.2 billion and Bill Shorten should admit it today. This will be the fourth day in a row that he has been asked about it and for three days he has denied it. QUESTION: What do you think of Adrian Piccoli saying that States that signed up to Gonski appear to be getting punished? CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well Adrian is a good friend of mine so I wouldn’t denigrate any of my colleagues. Thank you. Ends