Mr BEAZLEY (2:54 PM) —My question is to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware that the King's School in Parramatta, which has 15 sports fields, five basketball courts, a 50-metre swimming pool and an indoor rifle range, gets an extra $1.4 million a year under his new funding system? Are you also aware that a neighbouring school, Parramatta High School, which has no fields, no basketball courts, no swimming pool and no rifle range is, as a government school, the recipient of an average increase of only $4,000 a year? Prime Minister, which school do you believe has the greater need for $1 million to improve its facilities?

Mr HOWARD (Prime Minister) —I am not personally aware of the facilities at all of these different schools. My capacity to find out about those comparative facilities would be no greater or no less than the capacity of quite a number of people who sit behind the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition asked me about need. The bottom line about the approach of this government to need is to be found in the end result of the application of the policy, and the end result is that schools like the King's School—

Mr Bevis —They need more! They need a lot more!

Mr HOWARD —get far less funding under our policy than do the more needy schools in the community. It is as simple as that. You can try to generate envy about basketball arenas; you can try to generate envy about swimming pools; you can play that silly old Labor game, but at the end of the day you are, on this issue—

Mr O'Connor —Those kids would like a field to play on.

Mr SPEAKER —The member for Corio and the member for Brisbane!

Mr HOWARD —Just as the Labor Party was behind the eight ball in the early 1960s, when the Menzies government provided a historic breakthrough that delivered justice to the Catholics of Australia by state aid, in the early 21st century you are once again behind the eight ball in relation to the provision of choice in education. A growing number of Australians want more choice. Your envy games are not impressive to them, and your envy games will not prevent this government delivering choice to not only the better off people in the Australian community but also working-class families. You did not know that in the early 1960s and now, 40 years on, you still do not understand the dynamic of this debate.

Mr SPEAKER —The Leader of the Opposition is aware that he is, as leaders of the opposition always have been, granted a great deal of licence by the occupier of the chair, but he—

Mr SPEAKER —The member for Werriwa is warned! The Leader of the Opposition is also aware that he is much too frequent an interjector across the table. The level of interjection cannot continue to be tolerated.

Mr Beazley —I accept your admonition, Mr Speaker, but I am frequently responding to matters that are thrown across the table at me.

Honourable members interjecting—

Mr SPEAKER —I do not expect to have to rise in order to get order from members on my right or my left. I know the Leader of the Opposition well enough to know that he would not and does not challenge what has been said by the chair, but I would point out to him that I am in the principal place in this chamber to tell who is interjecting most frequently.