It was obvious in the last Coast Community News that while much of the publication highlighted positive local news and achievements, Labor was too busy peddling its latest scare campaign.
Quite frankly, the Central Coast has had enough of Labor’s negativity.
Labor Senator Deborah O’Neill was again the one caught out, this time over school funding claims.
Contrary to the advertisement authorised by Senator O’Neill, the Turnbull Government’s Quality Schools, Quality Outcomes policy will deliver record funding to schools.
There are no cuts.
This record funding is needs-based and tied to evidence-based initiatives that will lift outcomes for Australia’s children.
Simply, schools funding under the Turnbull Government will grow from already-record levels.
The investment in schools will grow from $16 billion in 2016 to $20.1 billion in 2020, on top of more than $14 billion the Coalition has been delivering for regional and remote schools since we came to office in 2013.
That is funding above inflation and above enrolment growth projections.
Our funding growth means there’s no reason schools won’t be able to continue to support teachers and new or existing initiatives, such as specialist teachers or targeted intervention programs.
While funding matters, what you do with it matters even more.
The Turnbull Government will tie our future funding to more than a dozen evidence-based ‘back to basics’ reforms in schools proven to boost student outcomes, such as minimum literacy and numeracy standards, recognition for teachers based on competency and achievement, and early intervention for struggling students.
As a former teacher and mother of two school-aged children, I know this means a lot to local families.
If only Labor would learn its lesson and stop talking down our region with its desperate scare campaigns.
Email,
Jan 30, 2017
Lucy Wicks, Federal Member for Robertson