Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027
Mr LEESER (Berowra) (17:20): This is a budget of broken promises and broken dreams. For the last six months the government has been congratulating itself for reaching a schools funding agreement with every state, but in Victoria the spin doesn't match the facts. This government has been constantly gaslighting.
When the Prime Minister stood up in March last year and said every jurisdiction was on track to receive an increase in school funding and to receive the full school resourcing standard, it simply wasn't true. The proof is publicly available. To get an increase in funding, what you need is a document called a bilateral agreement between the Commonwealth and the relevant state.
In March last year, there was no bilateral agreement with Western Australia and there was no bilateral agreement with Victoria. It was a falsehood. And, as of today, there is still no plan for an increase in Victoria.
The best they can manage is a stopgap with no increases that terminates at the end of this year. You can't believe the Albanese government on taxes, and you can't believe them on school funding either. Thanks to the Allan and Albanese Labor governments, Victorian government schools have the lowest funding of any state in the entire country.
Compared to New South Wales in this year alone, Victorian high schools and public schools are short-changed by $860 per student for every single one of the 667,000 Victorian public school students. Compared to South Australia, it's $900 less per student. And compared to Tasmania, it's $1,740 less per student.
Maybe if Labor hadn't funded $15 billion of taxpayers money to the crooks and crims at the CFMEU, kids in Victoria would have a better chance for an education, but it's now Victoria's school children who suffer the consequences. So my questions to the minister are: Are you going to sign a bilateral agreement on school funding with the Allan government? What date will it be signed?
Why have you left such an agreement until the eve of the Victorian election? And given the state of the Victorian Labor budget and the fact there is no specific allocation for this funding in the federal budget, don't the Victorian public have a right to be cynical about any agreement that is signed between the Albanese and Allan Labor governments? This budget sets up a non-government-school funding cliff beyond 2029.
For the millions of Australians who send their children to Catholic and independent schools, who have made genuine financial sacrifices, they deserve certainty beyond the forward estimates, and yet there is none. The non-government sector now educates 40 per cent of Australian students. According to an analysis by the AEC Group, independent schools save the Australian taxpayer an estimated $12½ billion in expenditure through recurrent education and capital costs.
Under Labor, education costs have risen by 21 per cent. The government has failed to keep downward pressure on the drivers that increase out-of-pocket expenses for families—energy prices, insurance premiums, land and capital costs, regulatory complexity, taxes and all the other things that make it more expensive to deliver a high-quality education that parents ultimately pay for.
In government schools, increased costs are borne by the taxpayer, but in non-government schools those increased costs are borne by parents in higher fees. This government sees independent schools as elite. We know differently.
We know independent schools educate more than 22,000 Aboriginal students, more than 187,000 students with disability and keep fees, on average, across the sector at just $6,060 a year. And yet this budget provides no guarantee, no commitment, no clarity about what will happen after 2029. School funding decisions should not punish parents for exercising choice.
They should support affordability, protect diversity and make sure funding follows the student. So, Minister, will you guarantee that non-government schools will receive funding that supports parental choice and ongoing affordability beyond 2029? The third area I want to talk about is the $2.2 billion research funding cut, which is short-changing our researchers at a critical time.
This budget rips $2.2 billion out of research over the next 10 years, through cuts to Australia's Economic Accelerator. That's devastating for our universities, but, worse, it's part of a pattern. In 2023 Labor ripped $46.2 million out of the accelerator through a cash grab hidden in MYEFO.
In 2025 they did it again, taking a further $76 million from research. Now they're taking a further $800 million over the forwards and $2.2 billion over the decade. On top of that, the government has abolished the Trailblazer Universities Program.
That was worth $86 million this year, intended to fast-track research and boost commercialisation. And they've taken $67 million out of the National Environmental Science Program. Research drives innovation, which drives productivity, and we desperately need productivity at this time.
Just today, we've seen reports of Australian universities slipping in world rankings. We now have no universities in the top 50 in the world. My final question is: Minister, why are you ripping $2.2 billion out of research at this absolutely critical time for Australia?