JULIA Gillard has always clung to education as the fig leaf to hide her incompetence.
That fig leaf was shredded in Parliament this week when Labor – with the connivance of Rob Oakeshott, whose supine loyalty to his Labor masters is such that he should never in honesty be referred to as an Independent – gagged debate on education to force through its half-baked Education Bill.
There was less than 90 minutes debate before Oakeshott rose to end the proceedings.
The 71 pages of amendments constituting Labor’s entire new school funding model, tabled late Tuesday, were forced through the House of Representatives despite the best efforts of the Opposition.
“The motion to shut down debate was moved on behalf of Labor by the Member for Lyne, Robert Oakeshott, who has abandoned any notion of proper scrutiny and any pretence of independence,” Christopher Pyne, the shadow education minister said.
“This Bill hinges on there being a national agreement for school funding. There is no national agreement, with only one State and one Territory agreeing to the changes.”
“Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory Governments did not allocate any funding for these changes in their Budgets,” he said.
Yesterday, Gillard took Dorothy Dix questions from her side of parliament and gushed nonsense about the unfunded Gonski plan that had been ramrodded through the House.
She didn’t mention the new means test that will apply to parents who choose to use independent schools.
She didn’t mention the new hit-list for independent schools.
She didn’t mention that the pages and pages of amendments had not been properly debated.
That the Gillard government is a farce is well-known but its disrespect for parliamentary process shows an absolute contempt for the Australian people.
Labor says its Bill paves the way for a stronger, fairer delivery of education – it does nothing of the sort.
It is just another wealth redistribution program with the beneficiaries being members of the education union who provide election funding to Labor MPs.
In reality, there is no national agreement on school funding, as Pyne pointed out, because only one State and one Territory have agreed to the Gonski changes.
Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory Governments did not allocate any funding for these changes in their Budgets.
The Labor Government in South Australia has not allocated any funding in their Budget for these changes, and Pyne believes, even if an agreement is signed, there will be no contribution from these jurisdictions.
“For a Labor State to not allocate funding in their Budget would be a vote of no confidence in these changes,” he said.
The Federal Coalition has said all along that it will wait until the June 30 deadline for a national agreement before finalising its position.
With a gross national debt now acknowledged to be in the staggering order of $340 billion, this government is doing nothing but spend.
Gonski, the NDIS, all on borrowed money.
It doesn’t take a university education, even a reform in education, to understand that the nation is broke and that Gillard and Co are responsible for bankrupting the nation.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/gonski_exposes_gillards_mendacious_incompetence/
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