Dr KEMP (Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) (11:58 AM) —I can well understand the frustration of my officials, who go out of their way to brief the member for Dobell and to explain matters to him at great length—for example, in relation to funding for disabled students in schools—and then find that he seems not to have understood the briefing in any way and comes into the House and makes misleading statements.

I sometimes have the impression that he has a hearing problem. We have made this point on a number of occasions—he seems not to have heard it—that category 1, in which he places an almost religious faith, is a category in a totally discredited funding system. Whatever figures my officials gave in the Senate in relation to category 1 schools have no bearing on the amount of money that will be going to the 62 schools serving the wealthiest communities in Australia. Those 62 schools in category 1 are not the 62 schools serving the wealthiest communities in Australia. As I have said on numerous occasions, and I will repeat it briefly now, the schools in category 1 have SES scores ranging from 93 to 130. All this shows is the complete corruption of the ERI system that Labor engineered during its time in office.