Mr TEHAN (Wannon—Minister for Education) (16:04): If I can, on indulgence, refer to a previous education minister who announced to this place 10 minutes ago that she would be leaving. Can I acknowledge her contribution as education minister, and, in particular, as foreign minister. As someone who was a diplomat and who worked at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and has a little bit of experience in this area, can I absolutely commend her for the outstanding job she did as Australia's foreign minister. She did this nation proud, she did the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade proud and she did this parliament proud. I would just like to put on the record the outstanding contribution that she has made as a parliamentarian, as a senior cabinet minister, as a deputy leader of the Liberal Party and as the member for Curtin. I will now turn to this matter of public importance. Can I just say that it's about time the Labor Party stopped lying. Ms Henderson: It's a disgrace! Mr TEHAN: It is an absolute disgrace; it is blatant, blatant lies. Let's just have a look at the facts. Child care: the facts are that in Labor's last budget the amount of investment in child care was $6 billion. In the last budget that we delivered it was $8.3 billion. Mr Coleman: That is a lot more! Mr TEHAN: It's a lot, lot more. Let's have a look at schools. When it comes to schools, in Labor's last budget, when they were in office, $13.7 billion was delivered for schools. Last year's budget for the coalition was $19.3 billion. Mr Coleman: It's a lot more. Mr TEHAN: A lot more. Let's go to higher education and research. Labor's last budget was $14.9 billion. The coalition's was $17.3 billion. The facts are that we have put record levels of investment into child care. We've put it into preschools, we've put it into schools and we've put it into higher education. I would also just like to deal with the myth that, somehow, through this investment parts of the school sector are missing out. It is record funding for government schools, record funding for Catholic schools and record funding for independent schools. I would just like to make this point: when it comes to state schools or government schools, the government's spending is growing at around 6.3 per cent per student each year from 2019 to 2023, compared to per student growth of 5.2 per cent for the non-government sector. That is worth repeating: the government is investing an increase of 6.3 per cent per student each year from 2019 to 2023 for government schools. That's compared to per student growth of 5.2 per cent for the non-government sector. So, whichever way you look at it, record funding is being provided by this government for all parts of our education sector, and it's something that all members on this side are extremely proud of. Not only that, our focus is on reform and our focus is on making sure that all Australians benefit from this record investment. We don't just take a narrow focus. It's a bit of a shame and a pity that in the shadow minister's speech I didn't hear mentioned once what Labor will do for Indigenous students, what they will do for rural and remote students or what they'll do for those from low-socioeconomic backgrounds. The facts are that this is where we need to prioritise and focus. This is where the gaps are. Let's take preschools. This government has been absolutely focused on making sure we don't just pay for enrolment but ensuring that when we deliver our record funding the states and territories know we want it to benefit those who aren't attending. Ms Rishworth: No, you didn't! Mr TEHAN: Yes, we did. The shadow minister for early childhood is interjecting, but yesterday she spoke for 10 minutes on this subject matter and didn't refer at all to what their policies will do to help Indigenous attendance, low-socioeconomic attendance and rural and remote attendance. There was not one word, and that is where the gap is. As the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs, who is at the table, has stated, it's incredibly important that you don't just invest the money but that you invest in the right ways to get the right outcomes that will benefit every Australian child, and that is what this government is doing. I say to those opposite: look at our policies closely because you could learn a lot from the approach that we're taking. That is something that you might want to contemplate and think about in your next three years of opposition, because it is absolutely important that, no matter where you come from or where you live, you get the opportunities that are required to give you a decent education. That is what we are doing. What are we doing with regard to reform? We're implementing the school reforms that were put forward by David Gonski. We're doing that in collaboration and cooperation with every single state and territory government. Every single state and territory government signed up to the school reform agenda that we took to the Education Council last year. It's worth reminding people that every single state and territory signed up to that national reform agenda, and that includes the Labor government in Western Australia, the Labor government in Victoria, the Labor government in Queensland and the Labor governments in the ACT and in the Northern Territory. So we have bipartisan agreement to the national school reform agenda that we put on the table. I thank all those state and territory education ministers for understanding the importance of school reform and backing the proposals that were put forward by David Gonski. We on this side also understand how important it is to provide the support that our teachers need, and I see that that is something the shadow minister has taken on board. People may or may not remember, but the government put the Teacher Education Ministerial Advisory Group in place to consult and come up with recommendations to help improve the support we are providing to our teachers. The government invested $16.9 million to back the work of this group to ensure quality assurance for teacher education courses and rigorous selection for entry to teaching degrees, and to ensure that teachers are in the top 30 per cent when it comes to literacy and numeracy when they graduate. These are very, very important reforms for a very, very important component of our education system, because we all know that, when it comes to encouraging students to learn and when it comes to providing the support that students need to learn, teachers are absolutely vital. As a matter of fact, they are second only to the influence that parents and guardians can have on a child's education. The facts are absolutely clear. There has been record funding for child care, record funding for early childhood learning, record funding for government schools, record funding for Catholic schools, record funding for independent schools and record funding for the higher education sector. All this has been done without us having to tax the Australian people an additional $200 billion, as those opposite are going to do, including retired teachers.