Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Both sides agree with choice. When you are called a clown by the honourable member for Canning, you really know you are in big trouble.

Why not have a debate on charter schools in this country? The Commonwealth could initiate it. Charter schools have worked very well in places like Washington DC, where some of the most disadvantaged people in the community go to public schools. We have seen excellent educational results in charter schools.

Whenever you go to a school, as I am sure all honourable members would agree, you find energy and commitment. It does not matter how tired I am when I walk into a school—whether it be government or private—I always walk out feeling better, because teachers and students are dedicated and there is a lot of energy around. It is always an uplifting experience. If we had a proper debate and some trials of charter schools in this country, we could see a very good development in the reputation and governance of public schools.

I know that many people would be unhappy with that. I know, for example, that some elements of the teachers federation are unhappy with that. I know that some of the educational bureaucracies, both state and federal, are unhappy with that. And I am not here to defend every element of state education department bureaucracy. But, instead of wanting to score points off the states all the time, if the Commonwealth wanted to have a national dialogue, it could have a summit about the future of charter schools and it could have a summit about the capital funding of our government schools. It could sit down and make some progress in relation to the capital funding of our schools. Instead, we see the minister for education walking into question time every day and attempting to score points off the state governments. I have no doubt that, in state parliaments around the country, state ministers are walking in every day and criticising the Commonwealth government. I do not think that is particularly fruitful either. I do not think that is a particularly helpful way of engaging in the debate. We are seeing this constant carping and criticism, when we should be getting on with the job.

The government talks about the Investing in Our Schools program ad nauseam. As I have said before, we on this side of the House welcome any initiatives to improve capital funding for any school, particularly in our own areas. We will fight to get that funding. I have worked very hard with principals of both sorts of schools in my electorate to get funding. I have been on the phone to the department and the parliamentary secretary’s office—and I have to say that I have always had a good response from them and a good working relationship with them. But we see the government winding down the general capital funding in real terms. We have seen no increase in real terms in capital funding since 1996. We have seen the percentage of the Commonwealth contribution to general capital funding in public schools fall quite substantially over the last 10 years. Yes, some of that has been made up through the Investing in Our Schools program, and we welcome that. But let’s not claim that Investing in Our Schools is this new invention, that it is the first time the Commonwealth has ever been involved in funding the capital works program of government schools, because it is not. It has been happening for over 30 years.

In fairness—I always like to give credit where it is due—the government has commissioned a report. We have seen Professor Caldwell’s recommendation that schools should be bulldozed and replaced by schools that are suited to learning in the 21st century. Nobody has suggested that that is going to happen overnight—of course it is not. It is going to take years to happen. I have seen estimates of billions of dollars for doing that. No government has the resources to do that quickly.

That underlines why the Commonwealth and the states should not be scoring points off each other. The minister should not be waltzing into question time to say that the states have let the system down. I see that the minister’s latest tactic is to refer to every school as a state government school and not a public school, just to underline the point that the Commonwealth, out of the goodness of its heart, is giving back Commonwealth funding—when the Commonwealth has been involved in funding government schools for more than 30 years. Instead of this constant point-scoring and political posturing on the issue of capital funding, it would be better if we had a summit and sat down with the state governments and worked together to fix the capital funding crisis in this country.

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