David Fawcett (Wakefield, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment (2007 Budget Measures) Bill 2007. I strongly support this bill, particularly the investment that this government has made over the last 11 years into all education sectors, including early learning, primary, secondary, vocational training and higher education. It has made significant investments over the years, and I think it is important at the outset just to correct some of the assertions made by the Education Union and by the member for Fowler, who has just left the chamber.

Federal funding for state schools has increased by some 70 per cent in real terms since 1996, while enrolments in state schools have increased by a mere 1.2 per cent over that time. The result is that, while some 67 per cent of students are in state government schools, they receive around 75 per cent of total taxpayer funding. What the Labor Party and the Education Union consistently fail to recognise is that taxpayers’ money is funded not only directly from the Commonwealth government but also through the state governments, which, at the end of the day, own the state schools. The funding that schools receive is a combination of money that comes directly from the federal government as well as via state governments.

We have seen federal funding, which goes directly to government schools, increase from $0.9 billion back in 1996 to $1.9 billion in this year’s budget—a substantial increase given that the actual number of enrolments has only increased by 1.2 per cent. The Australian government’s recurrent funding for public schools—and that is only one source of our funding—is actually linked to state government funding, and has been, by the same formula, since 1985. So the more state governments increase funding for their schools, the more the Commonwealth automatically increases its own funding.

In addition, however, the Commonwealth also provides funding for specific purposes, such as the $1.2 billion that has gone through the Investing in Our Schools program, and the $1.8 billion that has gone into the Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs Program. So, in the 2006 budget, which is the one with which we can compare at the moment because we have the state figures, the Howard government increased total funding to state government schools by 11 per cent, while state governments only increased their funding by 4.9 per cent on average. If all the states had matched the federal rate of increase in funding to state government schools, there would have been an additional $1.4 billion for state government schools.

The last point is brought out very passionately by the independent and Catholic school sector. They note that the very fact that parents are prepared to contribute a large amount—in fact, generally the majority of funding—to support independent schools saves state and territory governments more than $9 billion each year. I believe it is important that, rather than have people try to recreate a class war in Australia, or spread lies and misinformation about funding to create discontent, we should recognise that parents do have a choice as to where they would like to send their children to school. As taxpayers they are also entitled to government assistance. And, as the figures clearly show, the majority of assistance from taxpayers goes to children who are in state schools. A lesser amount goes to children who are in private schools, where parents also make a considerable contribution to their education.

Over the period 2005 to 2008, a record $33 billion will be provided by the Australian government for schools across Australia. This significant investment has been made because we recognise the value of education. But it is also important to recognise that we have only been able to make this significant contribution because of the good economic management of this government, which has paid down the $96 billion debt which was left by the previous Labor government. That debt absorbed some $8½ billion every year in interest, and that was money which could not be spent on things like health or aged care or education.

In addition, the Howard government is boosting this funding by the Realising Our Potential package, which is some $843 million over four years, as announced in this year’s budget. This package provides a number of measures, but I particularly welcome the $121.1 million for regional and remote non-government schools. This means that students in more than 400 regional and remote schools will be supported to achieve better outcomes.

Some of those schools are in the north of my electorate of Wakefield, and I welcome this additional funding for them. I do note, however, that other schools—government schools—in country areas in South Australia have recently been bemoaning the fact that their funding formula has changed. They face issues because, with smaller student numbers, it is difficult—particularly at the high school level—to provide a range of curriculum areas for students to study. I think it is very poor that the state government has now adopted a unitary funding model that puts country schools on the same basis as city schools. But that probably adds even more value to things like the Country Areas Program that the Commonwealth government provides to these schools, both state and non-government schools. It recognises that these children can be educationally disadvantaged, and so it provides this funding so that there are a wide range of projects and options available—excursions, or support subjects like other languages, or musical or sporting events. Even things like vocational training are supported through the Country Areas Program.

This is an area where, yet again, the Australian government is stepping in to meet a shortfall that has been left because of the poor spending priorities of the South Australian government. Student achievements against the national literacy and numeracy benchmarks show that students in non-metropolitan areas achieve below the level of their peers in the metro areas. So I very much welcome this funding.

The second measure in the bill looks at a humanitarian settlement initiative. Through this measure, an additional $127.8 million will be committed over the next four years to supporting newly-arrived humanitarian entrants. The previous speaker questioned why the federal government was providing this money to state as well as to non-government schools. Well, clearly it is because the whole immigration program, working with refugees and migrants, is something the federal government is heavily involved in, and we believe that the best way to integrate people into our community is for both parents and their children to have every opportunity to learn English. That is why we support the literacy and numeracy program, through the Department of Education, Science and Training, as well as the Adult Migrant English Program, to make sure that people have the opportunity to learn English, to learn the skills to engage in further study, in our community or, importantly, for those who are able to, to work within our community.

The Realising Our Potential budget package also includes a number of other things that particularly affect the schools and families in the seat of Wakefield. The National Literacy and Numeracy Vouchers program provides assistance to parents of students who have not achieved minimum literacy and numeracy standards in years 3, 5, 7 and 9. This scheme has received much criticism from the ideologues who oppose the concept of actually identifying how well people are doing. But I have had parents ring up and say how grateful they are that finally there is a benchmark that their child is being assessed against, and that it has validated their individual concerns about where their child is at and has provided the impetus for that child to receive additional support. This is one concrete example of the Howard government’s determination to work with parents to get better early childhood education outcomes.

I am particularly pleased to report to the House that in the city of Playford in the Wakefield electorate a regular meeting is held between the elected members from all three levels of government to come together to discuss ways to work collaboratively for the benefit of the community. At the last meeting, we discussed specifically how we could get local community groups, state schools, the council and the federal government to work together to get clearly identifiable contact paths for parents to use, particularly those from lower socioeconomic areas, to access tutors who could work in the home or the school environment to provide a targeted tutoring program to students who need support.

This package also introduces the Australian government’s summer school for teachers. This program offers teachers more professional development and upskilling in important areas such as literacy and numeracy, maths, science, English and Australian history. This is an opportunity for teachers to actually improve their skills and to receive a payment for doing that.

There has been a lot of criticism about ranking schools and identifying how well they do, but the grants of up to $50,000 for schools to reward them for improving literacy and numeracy outcomes, I think, are important. It does not say, ‘You have to compete against some other school in another part of the city.’ It says: ‘Where are you today? How much improvement have you made over a period of time, given your starting point?’ And it then rewards the school for the effort it put in to achieve that improvement. I think that is a very good incentive for schools to look for better ways—and many of them are currently doing this—and it provides schools with a very tangible reward to put into better resources for the children learning there.

One of the things I have done in my time in this parliament as a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Vocational Training is participate in an inquiry into the quality and scope of teacher training in Australia to identify how we could do it better and to identify why so many teachers train but then leave the profession so quickly. We interviewed a range of schools, training providers, universities as well as student teachers. A number of things came out of that inquiry, and one of the most important was the need to improve the practical component of teacher education. I am pleased to see that in this Realising Our Potential budget package there is a specific initiative to try and ensure that the experience of student teachers in the practicum is of a high quality and of sufficient length to prepare teachers for the classroom. Finally, in terms of this package, I am very pleased to see funding to develop core curricular standards in year 10 for a number of subjects and in years 11 and 12 in subjects including English, Australian history, biology, chemistry and physics, as well as funding for the development of national teacher training, registrations and standards.

Australia has an increasingly mobile population. As I look at families who work in areas such as the Defence Force, I see that they regularly move around the country. It is a real issue for their children as they move from state to state. They come across different standards and different curricula, and sometimes they are forced to drop back a year because of an incompatibility between the state systems. I am pleased to see this funding being made available for core curricular standards, and I call on each of the state and territory governments and the education ministers within those governments to work cooperatively with the federal government to achieve this outcome for the benefit of our children.

All of these initiatives are building on things such as the very successful Investing in Our Schools program, which in the electorate of Wakefield has seen some 62 schools benefit from around 150 projects. Some $7.3 million has been invested in projects in Wakefield—which the schools have certainly welcomed. Angle Vale Primary will receive $34,000 in one project to upgrade their networking and IT. Balaklava Primary will receive $150,000 for similar projects. Blakeview Primary will receive $118,000 for fencing and new flooring. Elizabeth Downs Primary will receive nearly $150,000 for play equipment and other upgrades. That program has been very valuable because it has allowed school principals and parents to identify priorities within their schools to meet the needs of their children.

There is one other area I wish to touch on and it relates to students from regional areas. There are a range of measures the government has in place to support students studying at schools in regional areas, but many families feel that the only option they have for their young people to achieve the educational outcomes they desire is for them to go and study in the city. This government has put some developments in place in this regard which I welcome. For example, rural students in receipt of youth allowance will receive additional assistance by gaining access to a higher away-from-home rate of payment, rent assistance and remote area allowance and a fares allowance for up to two return trips home each year, as well as other benefits such as the low-income healthcare card and the pharmaceutical allowance. Importantly, for farmers, under the family assets test, farm assets are discounted by some 75 per cent.

I consistently hear, though, from families living in country areas that it is still a real struggle for them to afford quality education, particularly if they have been paying boarding-school fees and then move on to support their young people as they go to university. While I welcome the initiatives providing the additional loading for children in country schools, I believe we need to continue to look at ways to support families who live in rural and regional areas and seek a good educational outcome for their children.

In summary, I support this bill because, yet again, it shows that through the good economic management of this government we have been able to make a record investment in education in Australia across a range of areas, particularly in the areas we have been discussing today: the benefits to new arrivals to Australia and regional students, and the development options for young people in terms of literacy and numeracy standards and improving the quality and standards of our teachers—already some of the best in the world, but this will give them the opportunity to reach the standards of excellence they wish to achieve to support the students whom they pour so much of their lives into. I commend the bill to the House.

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