Education (School Donations) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Oh, here we go again: the last speaker of this particular bill will be going at the time that the House will close tonight—never mind. I think this bill is an absolutely fabulous bill. As I said the other night, this bill might be a short bill, but it has huge positive implications for the sector—[Interruption] Actually, I want to address that, because we’ve got an Opposition that’s laughing over there, because I said “a short bill”. Actually, I wonder what their definition of a short bill is that they think that they have to laugh at that—that it’s two pages long, or what is it that they don’t actually understand about the fact that the bill is a short bill?

The fact is that they are actually opposing this bill on things that are actually out of the scope of this bill. I don’t think they actually understand the bill as it’s written at this moment. All of the previous speakers’ opposition to the bill in this debate was about stuff that’s actually not in the scope of this particular bill. I think the Opposition are actually very confused on this bill.

This particular bill is about the recovery of grants that are given to schools if they do unlawfully charge for donations to their parents. That is what this bill is about. It is not about the deciles that that Opposition is opposing this bill on. In fact, that is their main opposition: stuff that’s not out of scope. It is scaremongering, because we did hear in the Minister’s opening address on this third reading that this is only just the beginning. The deciles 1 to 7 part of the scheme itself, which isn’t in this bill, is just the beginning. The next part and the next phase will be to engage with the deciles 8 to 10 schools to have them included in this when funding allows. So it’s very interesting that we have an Opposition that is very confused about what is actually the content of this bill, even though we moved through it very, very clearly in select committee.

Now, I’ve actually really enjoyed engaging with principals around the country on this particular bill, both principals who are for it—and the majority are because we have 70 percent of our principals and our schools that are actually going to be eligible to go into it: 70 percent. Again, I’ll point that out to the Opposition that that’s higher than 50 percent when we hear the Opposition saying the majority are against it—70 percent.

I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but this debate is interrupted—[Interruption] Order! I’m on my feet. This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 24 September 2019.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.