Mr BARTLETT (4:35 PM) —I rise to express my strong disappointment with the current advertising campaign being run by the Australian Education Union regarding school funding. I am disappointed—in fact, appalled—for two reasons: firstly, it again fuels unhelpfully the division between the public and non-government school sectors; and, secondly, it is blatantly dishonest. This advertising campaign claims that the federal government is not adequately funding public schools and it tries to give the impression that we are somehow unfairly favouring non-government schools. It does this by dishonestly looking at only one part of the funding formula.

The simple fact is that the federal government helps our public schools in two ways: it funds them directly, and it funds them indirectly. The indirect funding comes through massive grants to the state governments to help them with their core funding responsibilities, such as public education. In the last financial year, the state governments have received $54 billion from the federal government in funding to help them with those responsibilities, of which $30 billion was GST revenue, out of which they make allocations to funding responsibilities such as schools—that is, approximately 50 per cent of state government revenue comes from the federal government, or in other words approximately 50 per cent of state spending is supported by or comes from the federal government. So, of the $17.4 billion in state funding to state schools, approximately $8.7 billion is actually federal funding for state schools, yet the teachers unions totally ignore this main component of federal funding.

In addition to that, of course, are the direct grants for education, and in the last year they were $2.5 billion in grants. Direct federal funding for public schools, on top of the indirect funding, has risen by 58 per cent under this government. It is now 58 per cent higher than it was under the Labor government and it has risen far more rapidly than the states' funding for their own state schools. In New South Wales in the last couple of years they have averaged a rate of increase of less than two per cent a year, while we have been increasing it by five to six per cent a year.

The point is that this campaign by the education unions totally ignores the largest component of funding. If you put the two components together—the approximately $8.7 billion plus the $2.5 billion—you come to the much more realistic measurement of federal funding for state schools of around $11.2 billion. For the teachers unions to completely ignore the major component of funding is a totally dishonest approach, and it is a totally misleading campaign.

The work of our schools is far too important for this sort of dishonesty and deceit. This government supports the right of parents in the choice of schools for their children. If parents choose a particular type of school that they think reflects the values they teach within their homes, it is appropriate that we support them in that decision. This government supports that choice. This government is strongly increasing its funding for government schools and for non-government schools.

We have many excellent schools in both the public and non-government sectors. We have many outstanding teachers in both sectors. This divisive and dishonest campaign by the teachers unions is doing nothing to help our schools and nothing to help our children in either sector. The Labor Party's total silence in the face of this campaign by their union mates is shameful. If they had any integrity, they would be on the phone to the education unions and pushing them to withdraw this series of misleading ads. If they had any integrity, they would be pulling their union mates into line. The welfare of our students and our schools should be above politics. It is far too important.