Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have news for the member for Ryan. He was elected to this place as a federal member of parliament, and I believe that he needs to justify the actions of his government—a federal government that does have responsibility for education and for the way the funds are allocated. We could also be forgiven for thinking that this debate was about the federal Labor Party, the opposition, and the member for Brisbane. Once again, this debate is on an education bill, which brings out some of the failings of this government, as will my contribution to this debate.

This government has constantly let down the people of Australia when it comes to education, particularly the people I represent in this parliament. The government has an appalling record on education. The actions of the previous Minister for Education, Science and Training, who constantly politicised education and used it as a tool to buy votes, are on the record for all the voters of Australia to see at the next election. It is interesting to note that many of the grants have gone to Liberal held marginal seats. It is an absolute disgrace.

I would like to congratulate all the schools in the Shortland electorate which have been successful in securing funds through the government’s Investing in Our Schools program. There were 36 successful schools in the Shortland electorate. They put a lot of work into their grant applications and I was very happy to support them.

Under this government, a number of inequities have developed not only in education but in all areas. The government’s unfair distribution of funds to schools has benefited rich private schools at the expense of public schools. In the Shortland electorate, close to 80 per cent of all school students attend public schools. I find it very disturbing that these 80 per cent of school students in the Shortland electorate are disadvantaged by the funding model that is used by this government. It is all very well to look after your mates, it is all very well to cater to your constituency, but as a government you have a responsibility to ensure that all students—children and young adults—have equal access to education and equal opportunities for the future. Education is about creating opportunities. Education is about the future of Australia. If this government wants to continue down the track of looking after or advantaging one section of the community, we as a nation will lose.

The government has chosen a catchy subtitle for this legislation—as it always does—and it gives a very false impression of what the legislation is about. The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006 will move uncommitted capital infrastructure funds from government schools from 2005 to 2006 and bring forward 2008 funding to 2006. It will move unspent funding under the Tutorial Voucher Initiative scheme from 2004 to 2006 and allow for funding to be carried over or brought forward to another year for all non per capita programs. It will also provide maximum general recurrent grants for a small number of non-government schools that cater for students with emotional, social or behavioural difficulties. A number of issues in this bill impact on the quality of the education available to young people. As I said a moment ago, we are responsible for ensuring they have access to a quality education.

Applications for the government’s Investing in Our Schools program were called for at the beginning of last year. The announcement of successful applicants was finally made towards the end of last year. In true Howard government fashion, the successful schools in government held seats were announced by the sitting coalition members between three and seven days earlier than in Labor and Independent held electorates. Details of the successful applicants in Labor held seats were given to and announced by senators prior to being given to the members on this side of the House who represent those electorates.

I managed to get the details of the successful applicants in the Shortland electorate not from the government but from the website. I contacted the schools and let them know they had been successful, because the government had not even done that. It was preoccupied with pork-barrelling and getting the most benefit it could from the release of this information. The successful schools, which had put all that effort into preparing their applications—schools which suffer from the funding formula because of the way this government advantages private schools—had to wait until after the government had gone through the exercise of promoting its members before it decided they were worthy of being notified. That is not good enough and I do not think it is the way education should be.

Another example of the way the government has exploited programs for its own advantage was the school flagpoles program that was brought out by the previous minister. First of all, it was hide and seek to see if you could actually find details of the program. We spent many hours in my office trying to locate details of the program and, when we finally did, we were advised that there was a strict protocol for getting funding. Part of this strict protocol was having highlighted on the flagpole, ‘This flagpole was erected with funds received from the Howard government.’ That sign had to be on the flagpole. The other thing that was very important was the flagpole had to be commissioned or dedicated before it could come into use and a coalition member had to go to the school to ensure that happened. Senators were being pulled in from all around the state to visit schools within electorates such as Shortland and the electorate of the member for Brisbane to officiate at flagpole ceremonies. The reason I have brought this into the debate is that it really highlights how this government is not about education but about promoting itself.

Returning to the Investing in Our Schools program, it is important to note that only one ALP electorate actually figured in the top 20 electorates by amount. It is important to note that marginal government electorates figured very highly in the top 20 electorates. It is also very important to note that this program has been racked by problems. It has had one problem after another. In recent times numerous schools—and I will not name the schools because I know the way this government works—have been contacting my office saying: ‘Where’s the money? Why haven’t we received the funding that we finally found out about from you, because the government had been very reticent in advising us that we had been successful? We’ve been contacted by those people who have quoted to do this work saying that the price has gone up because it’s been over 12 months since we submitted our application. Now the price to have this work done has increased.’ A number of schools within my electorate have a very good relationship with their local communities and some of the builders, plumbers and other tradespeople are prepared to provide the capital works at the price that they quoted. But other schools have had to come up with extra money because the government did not think through the program properly and did not make sure that the proper process was in place to ensure that once these schools had been notified of approved grants they actually received the money.

To my way of thinking, the first thing you do is put in place a process. You launch the applications, you have a closing date for the applications and then you go through a period when you decide on the successful applications. Maybe there are occasions when that can be extended. There has been quite a blow-out in this program’s extension dates and some people are still waiting to be notified whether their applications have been successful in the second round. That was supposed to be December, then it was supposed to be February and now the latest date, I believe, is April. So you have in place a process of a call for applications, closing of applications, assessing the applications and notifying successful applicants and then, finally, ensuring that the applicants actually get the money that they have been successful in obtaining through the grants program. Unfortunately, this grant process has not worked this way.

The other issue I would like to pick up on is the Tutorial Voucher Initiative scheme. The vouchers were to be used for students who were in third class in 2003. Many of these students are now in sixth class, just about ready to enter high school, and have not had their educational needs addressed. For those students in third class who failed the skills tests, showed that they would have ongoing learning difficulties and had problems in the areas of numeracy and literacy, the previous minister announced that he had the solution: ‘We will provide these vouchers to students who fail these exams and in this way we will prevent the problem being exacerbated; we will address the problem up front.’

Three years later, only 36 per cent of students who had been identified as being at risk have accessed that program. The government stands condemned for this. It is a very big black mark against the government. The member for Ryan stood up in this parliament and—surprise, surprise!—blamed the state government. It is no wonder that we on this side of the House get sick of hearing: ‘I know nothing.’ ‘It’s not my responsibility.’ ‘It’s somebody else’s fault.’ ‘No, I can’t take responsibility for that.’ ‘It’s the state government.’ ‘It’s my neighbour.’ ‘It’s got to be the local council.’ If that is an example of good government, I strongly suggest that the members on the other side of this House take a very close look at what they have been elected to this parliament to do. They have not been elected to blame somebody else. They have been elected to this parliament to deliver.

I issue a challenge to each and every one of those members to actually deliver—to make sure that students in their electorates who have been identified as being at risk actually get the assistance they need. This system was flawed from the start. Once again, it was a bright idea of the minister, who thought, ‘This sounds like something that will be effective,’ but it was not thought through or looked at properly. It took until 2005 before any of the students identified as being at risk could access this scheme. Now here we are in 2006 extending the scheme.

I have no problem with the concept of rolling over money and being a little flexible about the time it takes for funds to be spent, provided that those funds reach the people that should receive them. This government has a record of not being accountable for its actions, and that is my concern. We need improved accountability for the Tutorial Voucher Initiative program. We also need to make the government much more accountable and the process of allocating capital grants to schools in the Investing in Our Schools program much more open. The government has to get real about things. It has to act in the interests of the students, and it needs to move away from its pork-barrelling approach to education. Education is about Australia’s future; it is not about electing government members to marginal seats. (Time expired)

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