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

Thank you. I note that the member at the table indicated that the funding would be continuing, but it would be nice to hear an official announcement from the government. This would enable forward planning on behalf of the education bureaucracy and on behalf of schools themselves. Investing in Our Schools provides funding for minor but important works in schools. I have worked closely with several schools in my electorate, both government and non-government, to obtain that funding—as I am sure all honourable members on both sides have. Certainly I think I speak for all honourable members when I say that we will work to get funding under any project or program if it benefits schools in our area. While principals in my electorate have been frustrated with the administrative delays and problems, nevertheless we have been able to secure funding for some very worthwhile projects, and nobody is going to criticise that. But advance approval for the next three years might avoid some of the administrative hassles that we have seen and that have plagued this program.

There needs to be a serious national effort to upgrade the physical quality of our schools. This is not a measure for posturing. It is not something that should be used to score political points. This is something that all levels of government should be working together on. Parents do not expect their members of parliament and ministers of governments to be posturing on this. They do not expect to see question time used as a great political point-scoring exercise. They expect the Commonwealth minister and the state ministers to sit down together and to look at the extent of the problem of the lack of capital funding of government schools.

Professor Brian Caldwell, the former dean of education at the University of Melbourne and a consultant to the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training has said ‘these schools should be bulldozed and replaced by schools that are suited to learning in the 21st century.’ I do not say it is the Commonwealth’s job to fix that in its entirety. It is not the states’ job to fix it in its entirety. But why don’t we have a summit on this? Why don’t we have a summit about the state of capital works in our schools? Why doesn’t the federal minister sit down with the state ministers and have a summit on that? Why don’t we see some constructive work going into it? Instead we see this constant and consistent opportunism and point-scoring from the Commonwealth. We had a history summit. I do not have a problem with that, but why don’t we have a summit about capital works in schools? Why don’t we have a summit about the physical quality of our schools? I think the opposition would join with the government and congratulate them if they did that, and we would see a bipartisan effort.

I think the general reputation of people on both sides of parliament—state and federal—would be improved in the community if there were a bit of commonality and if the community saw us working to improve the schools, both public and private, that our kids go to. If there were a bit of that, the reputation of the government might improve and parents might say, ‘At least they are getting along together and working together to improve the quality of the physical being of our schools.’

As I said, this is part of the consistent opportunism we see from the government on this matter. We saw it in the history summit. I speak as somebody who thinks that history should be taught as a discrete and individual unit in every state. It should be taught as a stand-alone subject. I support the concept of a history summit, but why were the states not invited to the history summit? We have a situation where the Commonwealth minister holds a summit and does not invite the state ministers who actually have carriage of the delivery of the program. This is the sort of non-cooperative opportunism that we see from the government. We see it again with reports. We have seen this minister and the previous minister threatening to withhold funding from the states unless they agree with the federal government’s position on reports.

I do not have a problem with plain English reporting. I think there should be plain English reporting in high schools. I do not have a problem with A to E gradings in high schools. I think we could sit down with the states and talk about whether it is really fair to say to a five- or six-year-old, ‘You are going to get an F.’ We should discuss whether that is really the way to encourage them to do better and whether we can come up with plain English reporting which does not pigeonhole kids as young as five and six into being failures. If the federal and state ministers actually sat down together and worked through some of those issues, I think we could get a result through consensus. I think A to E is appropriate for high schools but I think it is inappropriate for primary schools—certainly for the early years of primary schools. If the ministers sat down together with the stakeholders, we could see some results. But we see this opportunism and this constant narking from the Commonwealth government.

We saw it again this week when it came to training. Honourable members may not have all seen it, but the minister for education announced that, unless states sent their teachers for more training, funding would be withheld. Again we see this belligerent attitude. Nobody is opposed to more training for teachers.

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