Mr LEE (2:18 PM) —My question without notice is addressed to the Prime Minister. Why did the Prime Minister mislead the Australian public when he launched his innovation package on 29 January by completely ignoring the $130 million cost of abolishing the enrolment benchmark adjustment? Prime Minister, when exactly were you planning to tell the Australian people that the Commonwealth budget was $130 million worse off than you claimed?

Mr HOWARD (Prime Minister) —Mr Speaker, seeing as I launched that statement a couple of months ago—I think it was 29 January—I will have to go and look at the documentation. I do not, of course, accept for a moment the claim made by the shadow minister opposite that I have misled the Australian public, but I am glad the member for Dobell has allowed me to say something about the enrolment benchmark adjustment. If we are talking about misleading comments, the only misleading comments about the enrolment benchmark adjustment have come from the Australian Labor Party, and most particularly from the member for Dobell. The enrolment benchmark adjustment recognised that, if there were fewer children being educated in government schools, the cost of educating those children would fall.

The enrolment benchmark adjustment did not seek to transfer from government schools to independent schools. The claim made by the Australian Labor Party that the enrolment benchmark adjustment sought to shift money from government schools into independent schools is completely false, and you know it. You have misled, systematically, the government schools of Australia on this issue. That money was never transferred into independent schools. It represented a diminution of the payment made by the federal government to the state government because of the cost. Quite separately from that enrolment benchmark adjustment, the coalition has increased, at a faster rate than state governments, its contribution to financing public sector education in this country. It is very interesting that the member for Dobell comes from a seat in the state of New South Wales because, in the current financial year, the percentage increase in federal government spending on government schools in New South Wales has risen at a faster rate than state government spending on government schools in New South Wales.

Mr SPEAKER —The member for Dobell!

Mr HOWARD —I am so pleased he has raised it—

Mr SPEAKER —The member for Dobell is deliberately defying the chair.

Mr HOWARD —This is despite the fact that the member for Dobell and the Leader of the Opposition both know that the primary responsibility for government schools is carried by state governments. They are state government schools; they are not federal government schools. Something like 88 per cent of the cost of running state government schools is borne by state governments yet, despite their predominant financial responsibility, in both New South Wales and Queensland Labor governments have increased their spending on government schools at a slower rate than has the federal government. This is despite the fact that we, in effect, discharge—this has been historically the case under both Liberal and Labor governments—what is only a supplementary financial responsibility for government schools.

Let me say that the policy of this government is to boost and support the choice of parents in education. As somebody who has benefited from a very fine public education system in New South Wales, let me say very clearly that we remain strong supporters of public education in New South Wales and in all the other states. In relation to the enrolment benchmark adjustment, what we have said is that that money that would otherwise have been returned will not be returned if the state education systems agree to spend that money on additional science and maths teachers and on other things related to science and mathematics. That represents another injection of money by the federal government into government schools. It is about time that the Labor premiers of New South Wales and Queensland were shamed into putting a greater percentage of resources into the government schools for which they are primarily responsible