Mr LAMING (Bowman) (16:13): It just seems like there's this constant hand-wringing on the other side—an almost Labor Party obsession with cuts to education. The problem is that in their six years of government we didn't see much in the way of increases from the Labor Party, because they ran the economy so poorly. But here's a little tip. I have some very good members from the Labor Party on my Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Training. There's evidence of early green sprouting of people on the Labor Party side that have an education background. I commend the previous speaker for her work in TAFE. She's a great addition to the chamber. And we have another angry principal in the back row of the Labor Party. I am sure there's no mess in the playground and rubbish on the ground at her school. At least they have had hands-on experience. This is something we have been looking for, for decades, from the Labor Party—to replace people like the member for Sydney, who just have this constant union-driven refrain; handcuffed to the corpse of her union employer, just rolling out the 'cuts, cuts, cuts'. It reminds me of that supermarket jingle 'Down, down'—union membership is down. It is all down, down, down on cuts. But the brutal reality is that education funding is in fact going the other way. There's this 'awkward' fact that the government committed $310 billion. The $310 billion committed by this coalition government—the government that runs the economy well—means that the average student can look to an increase of around 62 per cent per capita in education funding over the next decade. Part of that is what we call education inflation, but those figures can't be argued with. So we can waste our time talking about cuts that don't exist. The Labor Party talks about the funding going down. It is going up-down! These guys simply keep saying 'cuts, cuts, cuts'. It doesn't matter what the figures show. Let me give them a tip: the reality is that they're in opposition. We say to each of you, including the member for Sydney: you're not going to be doing anything about education funding, because you are in opposition. So here's a friendly tip. Let's talk about the quality of the education system and a better spend, because that's what they can do something about. They can stump up, talk to their Labor mates in state government and start identifying what Gonski pointed out. What did Gonski point out? He pointed out that, fundamentally, teachers are basically being distracted from their good work by having to do unnecessary additional tasks. Teachers aren't being looked after for the hours that they do or paid for the work they do. They're taking home enormous amounts of work that they're not remunerated for, and some of these elements would liberate teachers to be able to do what they do best—to teach, to assess and to form those one-to-one relationships and understand student progress—because they'd have enough time to do it. But nothing was done when Labor were in government. Why? It's just this unionised obsession: the higher the student-teacher ratio is, the worse the education system is, as if a great-quality teacher can handle 26 students but can't handle 28. All the evidence from Europe disproves that. What they are dealing with from opposition is they are looking at a coalition government that can run the economy and fund education—higher education and secondary, primary and early education. They're dealing with a coalition government that has brought the out-of-pocket costs for child care down, down, down—let's go back to the supermarket jingle. Seventy-five per cent of those using child care are paying less than 50 bucks a day. Of that cohort, a quarter pay less than $20 a day for child care. This myth of unaffordability is something which is generated in the Leader of the Opposition's office and pumped out for disappointing performers like the member for Sydney. For our teachers, what's the obvious challenge? They're teaching out of field. Too many PE teachers in this country are teaching maths, poorly, particularly in regional areas. There is no lattice of support for our teachers. We need subject matter experts. We need leadership experts supporting young teachers and giving them some time to develop their skills. That's what we really need in our schools, but what we are let down by is a Labor Party opposition that is obsessed with cuts. I know it permeates their life in the union movement—lack of membership—but in education the story is different. The narrative is written. The debate's over. Funding's going like that. So move on. Be constructive. Stop reading out your opposition talking points. We're tired of them. We need teachers to have cutting-edge resources and new technology. This is a Labor Party blind to those opportunities because it's obsessed by what its teacher unions tell it: it's all about whether there's one extra kid in the class making teaching impossible. Great-quality teachers can teach 24, 26 or 28 students because they're great teachers. Let's work on making sure the money we are investing is supporting teachers to do the job they love. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hogan ): The time for the discussion has concluded.