Budget failure

This week's federal budget, not surprisingly, has been a great disappointment. While many will focus on the tax cuts and pork barrels being desperately rolled out in advance of a federal election, there's no avoiding the black hole at the centre of Scott Morrison's first budget as Prime Minister. Where is the missing $14 billion owed to public schools? Where is the fair funding?

This is a Santa Claus budget, frantically throwing presents at the electorate in the hope that voters will believe the Morrison government is going to do something, when their track record is one of cuts to schools, preschools and TAFE. But this smoke and mirrors approach won’t distract from the fact that public education is a key issue for Australians. And this budget makes clear Morrison's contempt for public education.

By every measure, this budget fails Australian public education:

• no restoration of the $14 billion in public school funding cuts.
• no capital works funding for public schools.
• no guarantee of ongoing permanent funding for 15 hours of preschool for four-year-old children and no funding for three-year-olds.
• no reversal of the $3 billion they have cut from vocational education and TAFE since elected. There is not a single mention of TAFE in the Budget papers.