The Liberal Government is getting on with the job of fixing the budget and delivering on our long-term Plan for education.
We are investing a record $1.4 billion into education, including a more than five per cent increase in school resource packages for every public school.
We have appointed 25 new literacy and numeracy specialists, increased teacher assistant hours and provided additional funding to extend six high schools to Year 11 and 12 in rural and regional communities.
We were elected to fix the $1.1 billion budget mess we inherited from Labor and the Greens so that we can afford to fund essential services into the future.
Our sensible 18-month pay freeze proposal would have delivered the savings needed to get the budget back on track without impacting on the front-line.
However, that proposal was rejected and lobbied against by Labor, the Greens and the Unions.
The AEU's Terry Polglase has made it clear time and time again that he would never accept our pay freeze proposal, describing it as "despicable" and "devaluing teachers".
Mr Polglase has left us with no choice but to make additional savings in order to deliver the budget bottom line.
This decision was regrettable and we accept that it may not be popular, but tough decisions need to be made so that we can continue to invest record amounts in education into the future. It is our responsibility now to make sure these decisions have minimal impact on our schools and we will work with parents and school communities to make sure that is the case.
More Media Releases from Jeremy Rockliff
More Media Releases from the Minister for Education and Training