Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007 appropriates additional funds on behalf of the Commonwealth parliament to provide infrastructure grants for Australian schools. As a matter of principle, any expenditure by the Commonwealth to enhance the facilities of our schools, whether to the government or non-government sector, is to be welcomed. However, we do not support the cynical way in which the government changed the guidelines midstream for the Investing in Our Schools program, reducing the amount of funding government schools can apply for from $150,000 to $100,000. Labor support the bill, but our concerns on this point are reflected in a second reading amendment, which I will formally move at the conclusion of my remarks.

Labor acknowledge the infrastructure shortfall our schools face and support the injection of additional funds into the Investing in Our Schools Program. We note, however, that as well as changing the guidelines for government schools, essentially cutting access to the funding for many schools, the Howard government has not committed to continuing this program beyond the current funding round.

Education is the cornerstone of our social and economic prosperity, with school education at the forefront of our success in an increasingly globalised and competitive world. Australia must increase the number of exceptional school graduates and the average performance of all our school graduates, and reduce the numbers of those who fail to complete secondary schooling. We need to ensure that all young Australians have access to the resources they need to help them maximise their educational potential. This bill will increase funding for capital grants in non-government schools and the literacy, numeracy and special learning needs programs. Labor support this increase in funding to our schools as we believe that a greater investment in education is the key to securing our long-term prosperity.

The bill provides an additional $181 million for the Investing in Our Schools Program and transfers $48.7 million of uncommitted funds for government schools from 2006 to 2007, bringing the total commitment for government schools for 2007 to just over $362 million. One can only question why such a significant amount of funding, nearly $50 million, remained unspent when, by its own admission, the government has been flooded with applications. I hope that the government has not just been playing politics and delaying the allocation of this money so that it can be spent in the run-up to a federal election.

Meanwhile, as I indicated earlier, government schools across the country have had the rug pulled out from under them after discovering halfway through a program that they are no longer eligible for the amount of funds under the program that they had previously been relying upon. When the program was announced as part of the coalition’s 2004 election commitments, the then Minister for Education, Science and Training, Dr Nelson, indicated in a letter to all school principals that:

… the maximum amount an individual school community will receive is $150,000 over the next four years.

The same amount was included in the guidelines for previous rounds of the program and in the advice issued on the website of the Department of Education, Science and Training at the time. That said, schools could apply for several projects up to a $150,000 limit over the life of the program. The guidelines for the latest round, however, which were released on 19 February this year, indicate that government schools are now eligible for a total of only $100,000 in funding.

When the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education, Science and Training selectively leaked and then formally announced the additional funds for the Investing in Our Schools Program, they failed to draw attention to the fact that they were changing the rules, making many government schools ineligible for the additional funds we are discussing here today. The Prime Minister made the announcement at Balcatta Senior High School in the electorate of Stirling in Perth, Western Australia. Minister Bishop when she was there said that she was delighted that Balcatta Senior High School was able to access federal funding for air conditioning and ICT and computer equipment for the school library. What she did not mention, though, was that under the new guidelines for the program Balcatta Senior High School would not have been eligible for the funding it received, which totalled over $140,000.

The minister has defended this change to the guidelines and was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald on 15 March this year as saying:

It was never intended, nor was there funding for, all schools to receive $150,000.

When did we see that in the 2004 election commitments of the government or at any time thereafter until now? The minister may like to tell this to the schools that will now miss out on these funds—schools like Capel Primary School from the south-west of Western Australia, which has approached my Perth office, which received close to $100,000 through the program in 2005. While there is no certainty that Capel primary would have received additional funds through the final round of the program, they are now not even eligible to submit an application, potentially missing out on $50,000, an amount, on the advice I have received, that would take the school over 10 years to fundraise. In New South Wales alone at least 50 primary schools which are hoping to apply for funding are no longer eligible under the new guidelines.

While the announcement of new funds failed to highlight the funding decrease for government schools, the Howard government is also hiding the fact that it has failed to guarantee the future of the Investing in Our Schools Program. By announcing the extra funding for this program, the Howard government on the one hand is saying that our schools need more funding for infrastructure but on the other hand is changing the rules midstream and then leaving them hanging in the balance wondering if they will have access to vital funds after the current round.

Mr Rudd and I have made clear this week that a federal Labor government will have a schools infrastructure funding program. That occurred on Monday when Labor released an innovative new policy directions paper for local schools working together. The Local Schools Working Together pilot program will provide capital funding for government and non-government schools in growth regions across Australia. Financial incentives will be available in the first instance when new government and non-government school communities choose to share infrastructure.

The pilot program will provide $62.5 million in capital funding for an estimated 25 pilot projects across Australia to encourage new models of schooling. The program will be evaluated after three years and will be targeted towards, but not limited to: newly establishing schools in areas of high growth and communities where infrastructure is currently under strain, underdeveloped or simply unavailable; projects between schools from the government and non-government sectors which address areas of critical need, such as the development of science and language laboratories and information and communications technology infrastructure; and new or upgraded facilities for existing schools which demonstrate it is viable to share facilities or resources with a nearby educational institution. This program builds on Labor’s education revolution and our previously announced commitment to provide up to $200 million in capital funding to build 260 childcare centres on school sites.

The Investing in Our Schools Program does not allow for innovative projects such as those envisaged through Labor’s Local Schools Working Together pilot program. This prevents collaboration between the educational sectors in cases where there would be a clear benefit to local schools and their students from sharing new resources. There are already examples of resources sharing between private and public schools in Australia. In South Australia, the Golden Grove ‘experiment’, as it has been called, has been running successfully now for more than 15 years, with a government, a Catholic and a joint Anglican-Uniting Church secondary school all operating from the same site. Mr Rudd and I visited the co-located schools—

See this speech in context