I am appalled at reports that Mr McKim has shamelessly re-named a taxpayer-funded student award for outstanding achievement in order to peddle his Green ideology.

It has been a longstanding tradition that each year the Education Minister provides an award for outstanding achievement at school assemblies around the state.  This year we have been told that schools have been instructed to rename the achievement award to “Think Globally, Act Locally”, which is a well-known Green Party electioneering slogan.

Mr McKim has shown poor judgment by blatantly manipulating a prestigious student award to reflect Green Party politics rather than something the whole community can embrace – particularly when it’s taxpayers’ money.

I strongly support students’ achievements being acknowledged through end of year awards. However I do not support the Minister trying to use such occasions to indoctrinate students on Green ideology and narrow the focus of what kind of achievement that the Government values.

Similarly, my criticism of Mr McKim is in no way a reflection upon students who have been selected by schools as worthy award recipients.

These kinds of awards should aim to celebrate student effort and achievement – not be pushing Mr McKim’s Green agenda.

A drop in education spending is hurting Tasmanian children.

A report showing that Australian Governments are spending a lower proportion of their budgets on education is made worse given the extent of recent budget cuts already being felt through the state’s education system and those which come into effect in January 2012.

The simple fact is, Tasmanian students cannot afford these budget cuts.

They will be the people that will ultimately suffer.

NAPLAN results released last week show that Tasmanian students have gone backwards in nine literacy and numeracy levels, and are ranked well below other states.

This testing was done in May, before Labor and the Greens took a sledge hammer to the education budget.

If that is not the clearest sign yet that the state can’t afford massive cuts to the education system, then Minister McKim must be living on another planet!

The Minister needs to explain to Tasmanians just how he intends to lift educational outcomes in our schools when millions of dollars is being cut from education budgets at both a state and federal level.

The Liberals’ Alternative Budget showed how we would improve the state’s education system, end experiments and invest $60 million to keep schools open.

It is time that Nick McKim did the same.

The Liberals oppose Mr McKim reducing the funding ratio to non-government schools and we have moved a motion in parliament this week condemning the Government’s betrayal of the 30 per cent of families who choose a non-government school.

The Liberals have fought tooth-and nail for our public schools around Tasmanian – especially those under continued threat of closure by Labor and the Greens.  However, Mr McKim needs to realise that as Minister for Education he is there to work for all school children and that it is wrong to target one sector for more savage cuts than another.

But that is exactly what Mr Mckim is doing by breaking the funding formula agreement that has been in place with Catholic and independent schools since 1998; and revising the funding ratio down to 18.5 per cent.

As a result, non-government schools are copping an extra five per cent cut to their funding – on top of the $190 million being ripped out of education state-wide as a result of the Green-Labor Government’s financial mismanagement.

We are being told that this additional cut will mean an increase of up to 14 per cent per in school fees – an increase that many families simply won’t be able to afford.

Tasmanian families have already been hit with the spiralling cost of living as a result of government incompetence and this latest increase will mean that many families will struggle to maintain their children’s enrolment and some will have to make the difficult decision to change schools and put further pressure on the stressed public school system.

Mr McKim and Labor are known for their ideological opposition to schools that are not government-run. What they fail to realise is that non-government schools play a vital role in educating Tasmanian children and represent a significant saving to the public purse.

It is unacceptable that Tasmanian schools and students have to suffer because the Government can’t manage its money.

During the budget process, I challenged the Education Minister about these cuts, and he was unable to offer a reasoned response as to why these schools will are getting a double whammy. In fact, he seemed to not even understand the decision that his government had made.

The Minister must immediately outline to Tasmanians whether or not he really believes these unexpected cuts are fair, and what he intends to do to ensure that families are not forced out of non-government education into public schools at much greater expense to the Tasmanian taxpayer.

The cost of failed education experiments on Tasmanian schools children has left the Government desperate to recoup cash by closing schools and cutting teacher numbers.

The Government’s Preliminary Outcomes report has revealed operating costs in the Department of Education were $113 million higher than budgeted for in 2010-11 with over $70 million relating to the failed Tasmania Tomorrow experiment.

This is ten times the amount needed per year to keep every school on Mr McKim’s original 20 school hit list open!

We got an insight into how badly the Green-Labor Government has mismanaged the education budget when it was revealed in late May that the Tasmanian Polytechnic and Academy had incurred net deficits of nearly $18 million in just a 6 month period.

The financial incompetence of the Green-Labor Government appears to have no bounds with the latest revelation that they blew their own education budget by $113 million last financial year.

The fact is if the Government hadn’t rushed into failed reforms and wasn’t such an incompetent financial manager – they wouldn’t be in the situation where they are now dependent on shutting schools to make ends meet.

While Mr McKim may not be directly responsible for the Tasmania Tomorrow mess, he is responsible for making matters worse with the Greens refusing to vote with the Liberals last year to totally abolish the reforms and restore TAFE.

As a result the system is still broken, costs are still spiralling out of control, and communities face losing their local school.

The Liberals will oppose the disastrous forest deal, which will destroy Tasmanian’s economy, trading $700 million in economic activity per year for just $7 million in compensation.

Labor’s forestry deal is the biggest act of economic vandalism that Tasmania has ever seen and we will not support it.

And we are not the only ones. So far the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association, Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Timber Communities Australia, Forest Industries Association Tasmania, local councils and major saw millers have all spoken out against the deal.

We will stand shoulder to shoulder with the workers of Tasmania against this Green sell-out.  It’s clear that the Premier is dancing to the Greens’ tune. The Premier has no mandate to do this to our economy and the community. She should call an election to give the community the opportunity to decide.

After all, it will be the community who will pay for this act of treachery through job losses and the impending economic catastrophe that this disastrous deal will bring.

This morning we met with forestry industry representatives and we have told them that we will stand shoulder to shoulder with the industry to protect jobs and save our regional and rural communities.

It is madness to accept $7 million in compensation per year in return for slashing a $1.4 billion industry in half.  This $120 million in total is pitiful compensation for the $10 billion in economic activity and thousands of jobs that will be lost over the same period.

We will oppose this deal any way we can, including in Parliament. If we win the next election, we will rip up the deal and negotiate a way forward with the industry, based on our 13 point plan to grow forestry rather than slash it like Labor will.

Jeremy Rockliff is Deputy Leader of the Opposition; Peter Gutwein is Shadow Minister for Forestry.