Wednesday, 5 February 2025

Department of Treasury and Finance

Budget papers 2024–25

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:44): I cannot quite shake the thought of being lectured by the Liberal Party about being at war with yourself. I have seen a few different positions in the chamber right in front of me this week. If we ever do decide to go to war with ourselves, Mr Mulholland, we will come to you, Mrs McArthur and Mr McCracken for advice; you can rest assured about that.

Today I wish to make a contribution –

A member: What about Mrs Deeming?

Michael GALEA: And Mrs Deeming. I apologise for excluding you, Mrs Deeming. We will certainly come to you if we want to cause that sort of chaos. But fortunately we on this side of the chamber do not. In fact we enthusiastically support our Premier, Jacinta Allan, including with the wonderful initiative of the school saving bonus, and this is where I refer to the budget papers 2024–25 and specifically the output initiatives of the Department of Education.

The school saving bonus is a terrific initiative of this government, led by Jacinta Allan with Ben Carroll as her deputy and Minister for Education. It is a terrific initiative which is seeing real change and real benefit for hardworking Victorian households. It is a single $400 payment for every single child at a government school, providing support for resources, things like uniforms, textbooks, other things, excursions – most prominently and most especially uniforms. Indeed we have seen with uniforms the great take-up of that initiative. We have seen this, for example, in schools in my electorate. I was recently out at the terrific Athol Road Primary School in Springvale South with Mr Tarlamis; Meng Heang Tak, the member for Clarinda; and Minister Carroll as well. The excitement on the children’s faces and the excitement on the teachers’ and the principal’s faces as well – what a difference this program is making.

I have spoken many times in this chamber about making Victoria the Education State, and I have spoken many times about the wonderful new schools in my region, in Clyde North, with a new primary school opening last year, two new ones opening the other week and a new high school opening the other week as well. These are all evidence of that as part of the 100 new schools. But the school saving bonus is a meaningful way that we can benefit so many Victorian families, and boy do we know that they are enthusiastic about it too, because we have already seen more than $100 million paid out through this program for uniforms and for other necessities, and that is money that is not coming out of the pockets of everyday mums and dads in Victoria.

That is what meaningful action means, not just building the wonderful schools and providing the resources but providing those simple and effective cost-of-living relief measures that actually make a difference to people. Couple that with, as my colleague Mr Batchelor commented in his statement as well, the investments that are being made now by the federal government. I have been quite open in criticising, where criticism was due last year, the federal government not coming to that 25 per cent. We have seen the education minister relentlessly push for that fair share of funding. Whilst he was focused on those numbers, the Liberal Party were focused on their own numbers.

But what Minister Carroll got was that outcome. We got the full 25 per cent of funding from federal Labor, and I will give them plenty of credit, because it does prove that only Labor governments can be trusted to invest in public education. Only Labor governments can be trusted to invest in the 100 new schools right across Victoria that we need. Only Labor governments can be trusted to fully fund those schools, be it at the state level or be it at the federal level. Don’t we all know it, and doesn’t John Lister know it. As a wonderful schoolteacher in the Werribee electorate, who teaches at Wyndham Central secondary college, he knows firsthand the pressures that are on our state schools. I hope next week he is going to be right here in this place too, championing every one of his students and his school community as well as the broader Werribee community.