Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (15:39): I seek leave to make a short statement. The PRESIDENT: Leave is granted for one minute. Senator RUSTON: The government's funding model for Catholic and independent schools is consistent with the needs based approach. It was based on a recommendation made by David Gonski in 2011 and taken up by Michael Chaney in his review of school resourcing. State governments are the majority funder of state schools, and the federal government is providing funding to the state school system on an agreed needs based approach. Commonwealth funding for state schools was $6.8 billion last year. It will be $7.3 billion this year. It will be $7.9 billion next year, and it will be $8.6 billion the year after that.