Thursday, 19 October 2023

Schools payroll tax

John PESUTTO (Hawthorn – Leader of the Opposition) (14:17): My question is to the Premier. Will the Premier match the opposition’s pledge to remove payroll tax from all Victorian schools, including all Victorian government schools?

Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:17): The answer is no, and I am happy to elaborate. Just to be clear, just so the member for Brighton does not jump up and say I am not being relevant, I have answered the question. The answer is no.

The reason why the answer is no is that in the proposition that has been put forward by the Leader of the Opposition and his shadow minister in saying what they will do, they are not saying they will put extra money into government schools; they are not saying they will put extra resources into government schools. What they are doing is they are saying to the highest fee paying schools in the state that they will make this change for them, but there is no commitment to government schools that they will support additional investment to government schools. That is why we will not be supporting their position. We will not be supporting the decision because what we are doing is – government schools already have these payment arrangements in place. By applying these payroll tax arrangements to a small number of high fee paying private schools we are also indicating very clearly that the significant majority of non-government schools will not be affected by this change. Indeed those schools receive hundreds of millions of dollars of support in capital grants. These schools have the Smile Squad dental vans visiting them. They have support through our tutor learning initiatives. That is the support we will continue to provide. There is no change from the announcement that was made at budget, and we will not be following the Leader of the Opposition down a path of cutting funding to government schools. That was the path they took in government. We will not do that.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Kew is warned.

John PESUTTO (Hawthorn – Leader of the Opposition) (14:19): Analysis by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office found that 18 more schools will be hit by the government’s controversial payroll tax by 2029. This includes Rossbourne School in Hawthorn, a specialist college with 131 secondary students. Will the Premier give the parents of children at Rossbourne School peace of mind and commit to exempting the school from her schools tax?

Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:20): Firstly, the proposition put forward by the Parliamentary Budget Office is an entirely hypothetical one. For those 18 schools that the Leader of the Opposition has listed it is entirely a decision for those schools, entirely a decision for those school boards how they set their fees. It is a hypothetical proposition that has been laid out by the Parliamentary Budget Office. I would hope that if the member for Hawthorn was fair dinkum about being a good local member, he would not be running this sort of scare campaign to a special school in his electorate – he would not be doing that.

James Newbury: On a point of order, Speaker, this was an important question around a specialist school, and the Premier is now debating the question.

The SPEAKER: The Premier to come back to the question.

Jacinta ALLAN: Well, I am making it very clear to the member for Hawthorn that he should not be misleading schools in his electorate, because it was a hypothetical proposition. The member for Kew has just become the shadow minister for education. She should be renamed the shadow minister for private schools in Kew because that appears to be the focus of the opposition.

James Newbury: On a point of order, Speaker, the Premier is now defying your ruling and just being nasty.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The house will come to order. That is not a point of order.