Trish Draper (Makin, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007. This bill ensures the Australian government’s continued commitment to a strong education sector by providing government and non-government schools with the necessary support to guarantee improved educational outcomes for all Australian students. This support includes imperative educational items including capital infrastructure, important building projects and improvements in literacy and numeracy, all of which are vital to a student’s learning. Just one of the ways this will occur is through the Investing in Our Schools Program. This bill provides further significant investment for Australian school communities and, more importantly, it provides additional funding for capital infrastructure grants available under this Howard government initiative.

The Investing in Our Schools Program is an Australian government initiative providing $1 billion in funding for smaller infrastructure projects. Throughout the life of the program government schools have been allocated $700 million, with $300 million being provided to non-government schools. I can personally attest to the tremendous success and overwhelming popularity of this initiative from school communities who have accessed this funding initiative. Since the establishment of the Investing in Our Schools Program, schools in Makin have received over $4.1 million. This investment is significant, but the most overwhelming positive for school communities is that it provided for projects that they chose and wanted. These projects invariably are ones that local parents, students and teachers feel would make the greatest amount of difference for their local school community. This funding has been provided for small-scale projects that help to repair, replace or install items critical to schools’ needs. On a regular basis I have had the honour and the privilege to visit these schools to see the real results and the positive impact this investment has had on the learning environment of students and the entire school community.

Some of the schools in my electorate that have benefited from the program include Ardtornish Primary School, Banksia Park International High School, Golden Grove High School and Golden Grove Primary School, Greenwith Primary School, Gulfview Heights Primary School, Ingle Farm East Primary School, Modbury High School, Modbury preschool to year 7 at Modbury North, Modbury Special School, Modbury West Primary School, North Ingle Primary School, Para Hills East Primary School, Para Hills Primary School, Pooraka Primary School, Redwood Park, Ridgehaven, Surrey Downs, Tea Tree Gully Primary School and Valley View Secondary School. Mr Deputy Speaker, you can see that schools across my electorate of Makin have benefited greatly from this wonderful program.

Some of the projects for the programs included air conditioning, ICT facilities, play equipment, shade structures, play areas, playground equipment, floor coverings, toilet blocks, school grounds improvements and general classroom improvements. It has been a wide-ranging program and these projects would never have been possible without funding from the federal government. Unfortunately, state governments, which are supposed to have responsibility for funding these projects, have not made them a priority. It has taken the Australian government, under the Howard initiative of the Investing in Our Schools program, to fund those projects.

I am extremely pleased that this bill will see an injection of funding into the Investing in Our Schools program. It is a practical measure relating to the Prime Minister’s announcement of 19 February 2007 that the Australian government will provide an additional investment of $181 million to schools across Australia. Of this further $181 million, $127 million will be directed to the final round of funding to state government schools in 2007 and $54 million will be allocated for non-government schools over 2007 and 2008. To be equitable, the additional Investing in Our Schools funding has appropriate safeguards to ensure equitable funding arrangements and it will be targeted towards schools that have received little or no funding to date.

Whilst this $181 million is a welcome announcement, the government recognises that these specialised programs must complement increasing budgetary funding for schools. We all know that it is only possible to increase funding in areas such as education, health, and law and order when the government finances are in check and the government’s policies are providing the climate for a strong economy. To this end, 2006 will go down in history as the year in which the Howard government finally rid itself of the $96 billion black hole left behind by 13 years of the Hawke-Keating Labor government.

The current bill complements the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Act 2004, which reflects the government’s funding commitments and educational priorities by providing a record estimated $33 billion in funding to all Australian schools over the four years 2005 to 2008. This represents a 158 per cent increase in funding since 1996. Of this record level of funding, $9.3 billion was allocated in the 2006-07 budget; an estimated $3.4 billion has been allocated for state schools and $5.9 billion for non-government schools.

The Australian government believes that every parent, having paid their taxes, deserves some level of public assistance to support the education of their child, regardless of which school their child attends, and provides funding to all students accordingly. The additional funding provided by this bill demonstrates the government’s ongoing commitment to ensuring that students receive high-quality education in a high-quality school from a high-quality teacher no matter where they attend.

In addition to the Investing in Our Schools program, this bill also provides funding of $11.7 million under the capital grants program for non-government schools to maintain the current level of funding to the end of 2008. The Australian government funding for capital works provided through the capital grants program is supplementary to funds provided by state and territory governments and by non-government school authorities, which have the primary responsibility for providing, maintaining and upgrading their school facilities.

The bill will also provide nearly $9.5 million for the national projects element of the Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs Program for 2008. The additional funding will ensure continued support for strategic national research projects and initiatives aimed at improving the learning outcomes of educationally disadvantaged students.

Projects funded include the Literacy and Numeracy in the Middle Years of Schooling initiative and the annual National Literacy and Numeracy Week—with activities across Australia including national school and individual awards for improving literacy and numeracy, the Read Aloud Summit and the National Simultaneous Story Time initiative. The annual National Literacy and Numeracy Week is a key annual initiative, with a range of activities across Australia, including national awards for schools and individual awards for improving literacy and numeracy. Key national activities in 2006 included the Read Aloud Summit, National Simultaneous Story Time, and the Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards.

The annual National Literacy and Numeracy Week aims to: showcase the hard work schools and individuals in the community are undertaking in improving literacy and numeracy skills, recognise the outstanding results that have been achieved, raise community awareness of the importance of developing effective literacy and numeracy skills, and build on national initiatives to improve literacy and numeracy skills among young Australians. This is a wonderful initiative by the Howard coalition government, and I am pleased to commend this bill to the House.

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