There’s more than $600m to fix up crumbling schools. Another $15.5m for school uniforms and shoes for disadvantaged students, and free eye tests and glasses.
Ten new “technical schools” will be built and $300m spent to “rescue” the Tafe system.
There’s $50m to upgrade kindergartens and $150m for a fund to help poor families pay for school camps and excursions. And more than $13 million to “feed hungry school kids” every day.
The Victorian Labor leader, Daniel Andrews, made his pitch for election next month based on both populist and substantial education promises, $1.3bn in the first term of government.
His speech to formally launch Labor’s campaign to defeat a state government after just one term in office was low-key in style but packed with one education promise after another. So far, education has been little talked about, and it is considered one of Labor’s strengths.
“We will take our economy back to school and we will make Victoria the education state and we will make sure, friends, that every child gets every chance, because they’re worth every cent,” Andrews said.
The launch was steeped in Labor history, and at times an American-style personalisation of politics. Steve and Jo Gibbs, both wiping away tears, spoke of their son Matthew, who died last year after collapsing while playing soccer. He stopped breathing for 16 minutes, his father said, and waited too long for an ambulance.
A “dispatch error” meant a closer ambulance did not arrive. The ambulance service, and the government’s long-running dispute with paramedics over a pay dispute, is a key election issue.
Four former premiers were in the front row, a reminder of how dominant the ALP has been in Victoria in modern times: John Brumby, Steve Bracks, Joan Kirner and John Cain. If Labor wins on 29 November, the Napthine government will be first to lose after a single term in 60 years.
An even larger Labor luminary, Gough Whitlam, hovered over the launch at the Geelong Performing Arts Centre. The crowd clapped in unison to the “It’s Time” jingle, and cheered at reminders of Whitlam’s achievements – free higher education, free healthcare and recognising China – reforms of a different era but which still have power to stir Labor’s “true believers”.
State elections can be parish-pump affairs, but the federal leader, Bill Shorten, was there to remind Victorians that Tony Abbott was prime minister and that “we need a Victorian Labor government” while Canberra was raising university fees and intending to charge to visit a doctor.
It is expected to be a key refrain during the campaign that a state Labor government would fighter harder against Canberra than the Napthine government.
“I’m keen to see Tony Abbott out on the campaign in Victoria. We’re probably going to talk about him more than [the Liberals] are,” said Shorten.
As for Andrews, the 42-year-old is still hardly known by Victorians, and has struggled to impose himself as a credible premier. One of the key purposes of the launch was to humanise the former electorate officer and party organiser who has had no real career outside politics.
His wife, Catherine, introduced him, and they were joined by their children, Noah, Joe and Grace.
There was a video of Andrews explaining how his parents, Bob and Jan, taught him lessons growing up in Wangaratta. Bob drove a truck seven days a week; Jan was active at the school and with the local Catholic parish.
Andrews also revealed that his father was suffering a “rare and incurable cancer” and was pictured with his arm around Bob and sitting by his hospital bed.
Andrews is no orator, but his performance was well received by an upbeat and optimistic crowd. Geelong, the state’s biggest city after Melbourne, contains three marginal seats and is reeling from manufacturing job losses.
The launch was all about “putting people first”, with a recurring theme that the Coalition government had made cuts to services without concern for their impact on people.
“Gough Whitlam built our Tafe system and I refuse to sit back and watch it die,” Andrews said, announcing a $320m fund to “save our Tafe”. Ten new technical schools, including one in Geelong, would better forge links with local industries.
“We can’t afford another four year of tragedy; we can’t afford a health crisis and a jobs crisis a moment longer … We can’t afford the highest unemployment rate on the Australian mainland. We must do more and we must do better,” Andrews said.
Labor needs a uniform swing of just 0.9% to win the election.
