LANGBROEK MUST EXPLAIN MISSING EDUCATION MILLIONS.

Media Release.

Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk has called on Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek to explain why the latest federal funding deal leaves Queensland schools $90 million worse-off.

“Last month, Mr Langbroek announced he had struck an education funding deal worth $884 million with Federal minister Christopher Pyne,” Ms Palaszczuk said.

“Yet today, Mr Pyne has revealed that Queensland will receive only $794 million over four years, and that he didn’t know how Mr Langbroek had arrived at the figure he had previously announced."

“These funding negotiations between Mr Langbroek and Mr Pyne have been a monumental stuff-up from start to finish and even after an extraordinary period of backflips and policy on the run, it remains mired in confusion."

“Only thing is crystal clear – Mr Langbroek has been more interested in crawling to his Coalition masters in Canberra than getting the best deal for Queensland students."

“His credibility has been destroyed in a process which has seen he and the Premier slavishly put Mr Pyne’s interests ahead of Queensland students."

“The missing $90 million is vital to supporting our school students.  It would pay for 900 extra literacy and numeracy teachers, or thousands of extra teacher aide hours, or up to three new schools."

“If this is the final deal, and if the experience of the past few weeks is anything to go by, who knows what might happen, then Mr Langbroek needs to guarantee that there will be no cut in state funding to Queensland’s education budget."

“There have been no guarantees that schools won’t be worse off and no guarantees that appropriate funding will go to the schools that need it most."

“As we understand this agreement, Queensland will not have to increase its own education spending like the other states and there will be no directives from Mr Pyne about how the federal funding can be allocated."

“Queenslanders demand a full explanation and demand to know how this $794 million of federal funding will be spent because it appears that Mr Pyne has not even specified that it must go to schools at all.

“No matter what spin they put on it now, the hard cold facts are that if Mr Langbroek had signed up to Gonski when he had the chance, Queensland students would have been better served and would have benefited from an additional $3.8 billion.

“Ominously the patched-together deal announced by the Prime Minister and Mr Pyne will be paid for by savings from the federal education budget and we are still to find out what that will mean,” she said.