Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian government increased the budget 10.9 per cent. That means $218 million more would have been invested in Queensland schools if the Queensland government increased funding at the same rate as the Australian government. It goes on—South Australia is a disgrace. The South Australian government increased funding for its schools—the schools it owns and operates—by 2.1 per cent. The Australian government’s increase in funding for South Australian government schools was 11.3 per cent. If the South Australian government had increased funding at the rate of the Australian government there would be an extra $167 million in South Australian government schools.

That is the picture across the country. Overall, the state and territory government increased school funding by 4.9 per cent; the Australian government, in 2006, increased our schools funding by over 11 per cent. If the states had increased at the same rate as the Commonwealth there would be $1.4 billion more in state government schools. I have not heard a peep out of Labor over the state Labor governments’ failure to match the federal government increases in funding state government schools. I think that is a disgrace.

We hear squeaks from the member for Perth over reforms and revolutions and then he is pulled back into line by the unions and the state Labor governments. Here is a chance for him to show his true colours. If he wants to talk about reforms and increased funding, let him take up with state Labor governments why they are failing to invest the $1.4 billion that would go into their schools if they were to match the funding increases that the Commonwealth provides for government schools.

We have to drive higher standards through our education sector. We do not want to just throw money at issues. That is Labor’s only answer to anything. If they have an issue they throw money at it; they do not look at the root cause, expose the inefficiencies, look at the incompetencies, improve the fundamentals or raise standards by raising the bar. They just throw money. That is typical of Labor—spend, spend, spend! And the shadow minister has strong experience in this regard. He was part of the Labor government that racked up almost $100 billion in Australian government debt by the time the Australian people threw them out of office. That is a debt that has taken 10 years of hard work by the Howard government to pay off. That was Labor’s solution to every problem they had while they were in office.

What was the legacy of Labor’s economic vandalism? Under Labor, interest rates peaked at 17 per cent and averaged 12 per cent for homeowners. Unemployment reached 11 per cent. That was almost a million Australians unemployed. When unemployment was almost a million people, we also had the highest number of eligible applicants for university missing out on a place. Under Labor, you could not get a job and you could not get a place at university. If you had a home, you had to pay 17 per cent in interest rates. Under Labor, real wages fell by 1.7 per cent. Now the member for Perth wants to return to his glory days as an economic adviser to Paul Keating and destroy the nation’s finances. This was a shameful period in the record of the Labor government over those 13 years. It hit average Australians hard. It damaged small business. It destroyed the confidence of the nation—and that is what Labor want to go back to.

Our focus is on quality. Australia invests billions of dollars in education, yet higher standards will only be achieved through reforms that address the key issues. In schools, those issues are quality of curriculum, quality of teachers and national consistency. That is why we are continuing to press for issues such as greater autonomy for school principals. The member for Perth does not realise that a bill was passed in this House in 2005 in which we gave state governments the responsibility to consult with principals over the hiring of staff. We had to force them to do it. The member for Perth does not realise that this is in legislation. We are saying in this legislation: not only consult school principals over the hiring of staff but also give them autonomy, the power, to hire and fire.

The member for Perth knows that this is what school principals want, what parents want, what teachers want and what students need. But he cannot deliver on it because federal Labor is captive to the unions and the unions are going to withhold campaign funding if he steps out of line. It is like bungee jumping for the member for Perth. Down he goes—we have reforms and revolutions—and then he is back up again as soon as the unions pull on the bungee rope. He will not be able to deliver.

We have to focus on the quality of teachers. They are a precious national resource. After parents, teachers are the single most important factor in a child’s educational outcomes. Teachers should be recognised and rewarded on merit like other professionals. I am working with state governments to ensure that we can reward teachers through a performance element in their salary packages that focuses particularly on teachers in disadvantaged areas who are making a significant difference to their students’ achievements. Teachers also need greater support in professional development.

As I said in question time today, there also has to be greater accountability to parents at the individual school level. The states have a wealth of data about individual schools, yet they are keeping it secret. They are not telling parents, they are not telling teachers and they are not telling schools. The reason they do it is that it would expose the truth that not all teachers are equal and not all schools are equal. There are vast variations in how state schools are being funded. This is not good enough. The community has a right to know how individual schools are performing and whether their school is receiving a fair share of funding. We are going to ensure that the reporting requirements that are already in legislation are expanded so that the parents, the public and the community get a real idea, a real picture, of what is going on in our schools.

I am regularly approached by employers who complain about young people lacking basic literacy and numeracy skills. We are going to focus on that. We are going to ensure that young Australians reach the highest standards that they can in literacy and numeracy. Currently, they are being assessed only at a minimum standard, below which a child would fail. They are tested only at a minimum standard. We are going to undertake national assessments across the board to ensure that young people reach higher standards.

We believe in choice for young people. We believe that they should have choice in the school they attend, but that choice is being denied to them by Labor. Australian families will not and cannot trust Labor to deliver on education, as they are beholden to the unions. (Time expired)

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