Mr CONLAN - 2016-04-21
Can the minister update the House on what the Country Liberal government is achieving for children across the Northern Territory? The House will be very interested to hear the answer.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, if we had listened to Labor, followed their advice and signed up to Gonski, which was the wrong model for the Northern Territory, we would have sold ourselves short by $272m. We receive $505.9m over four years under the agreement we signed with the federal government under the former minister, Christopher Pyne, which is $272m more than we received under the previous agreement.
Who signed up to the previous agreement? The former Labor government. Through good negotiation and by not signing up to the Gonski deal, the Northern Territory received $272m more than we would have had we …
Mr McCARTHY: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Standing Order 110: relevance. The minister has already said it is not about money.
Madam SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.
Mr CHANDLER: We have invested in infrastructure. We put $12.4m into the new Northern Territory Open Education Centre, which is due to open in a few months; $31m into Henbury School, a fantastic initiative – you were in government for 12 years and you did not build a new Henbury School – $21m into a new special needs school in Palmerston, due to open in September; and $10m into refurbishments, new classrooms and school facilities were constructed in Darwin, Maningrida, Galiwinku, Batchelor, Borroloola and Palmerston. There is a new $4m preschool at Braitling Primary School, a $5.5m Child and Family Centre at Larapinta Primary School, and a new music school.
There is $68.5m going into schools across the Northern Territory for things they need now: extra classrooms to increase the capacity of Territory schools; multipurpose learning areas; improved sporting facilities; water and mechanical upgrades; new preschools and early learning facilities; kiss and go areas for safe student drop offs; playgrounds, and the list goes on.
Not only are we stimulating the economy, we are putting vital infrastructure into education because we have a growing system that Territorians can have confidence in, far more confidence than what they could have in a bloated system under the former Labor government. Labor seems to have this self-righteous belief that it owns education, which, based on our results, is wrong. On our results alone, we own education.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, if we had listened to Labor, followed their advice and signed up to Gonski, which was the wrong model for the Northern Territory, we would have sold ourselves short by $272m. We receive $505.9m over four years under the agreement we signed with the federal government under the former minister, Christopher Pyne, which is $272m more than we received under the previous agreement.
Who signed up to the previous agreement? The former Labor government. Through good negotiation and by not signing up to the Gonski deal, the Northern Territory received $272m more than we would have had we …
Mr McCARTHY: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Standing Order 110: relevance. The minister has already said it is not about money.
Madam SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.
Mr CHANDLER: We have invested in infrastructure. We put $12.4m into the new Northern Territory Open Education Centre, which is due to open in a few months; $31m into Henbury School, a fantastic initiative – you were in government for 12 years and you did not build a new Henbury School – $21m into a new special needs school in Palmerston, due to open in September; and $10m into refurbishments, new classrooms and school facilities were constructed in Darwin, Maningrida, Galiwinku, Batchelor, Borroloola and Palmerston. There is a new $4m preschool at Braitling Primary School, a $5.5m Child and Family Centre at Larapinta Primary School, and a new music school.
There is $68.5m going into schools across the Northern Territory for things they need now: extra classrooms to increase the capacity of Territory schools; multipurpose learning areas; improved sporting facilities; water and mechanical upgrades; new preschools and early learning facilities; kiss and go areas for safe student drop offs; playgrounds, and the list goes on.
Not only are we stimulating the economy, we are putting vital infrastructure into education because we have a growing system that Territorians can have confidence in, far more confidence than what they could have in a bloated system under the former Labor government. Labor seems to have this self-righteous belief that it owns education, which, based on our results, is wrong. On our results alone, we own education.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016