Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008 provides some interesting insights into how this government operates. This should be a very important bill because it addresses very important matters. I would concur with the member for Bennelong about the importance of these matters. But where I suspect we differ is about how one goes about addressing these matters.

What we see in this bill is the way that the government pretends to deal with a lot of matters. Earlier today the member for Warringah made a very good point: this bill is a show bill; it is a window-dressing bill. It is a window-dressing bill from a shopfront government. I am a new member in this place, but what I have seen from those opposite as a government is basically all front and no shop when it comes to these issues. It is all out there on the hoarding, and you can see all the pretty lights, all the colour and all the movement, but once you get past the front, there is no shop.

This is a further measure in this government’s bid to cover the incompetence of state governments, which are Labor at every level, with their blame game. I want to talk a bit about these things. Let us first look at the minister’s stated intent for this bill. Truancy is a serious issue. It affects proportionally those in more marginalised sections of our community—the socioeconomically disadvantaged, ethnic communities and, in particular, our Indigenous communities. We are typically dealing with families and kids at risk. The problems are deep and the consequences are indeed great. Right around the country truancy rates are up. They are lower than in the United Kingdom but higher than in the US, Canada and New Zealand. We believe there are 20,000 children who should be in school who are not in school. What puzzles me about these statistics, and particularly what the member for Bennelong was saying, is that somehow this was the fault of a federal government. It was a federal government who apparently did not act on issues relating to truancy. If I read my Constitution correctly, it is actually state governments that were responsible for truancy rates. So the question is posed of the previous federal government, but no question is posed by those opposite about the actions of states.

The Deputy Prime Minister, in her introductory speech on this bill, said that we need to improve literacy and numeracy standards. She has set those as standards, I believe, in terms of the success of this measure, and she talked about increasing year 12 retention rates. So it is worth reminding ourselves of some of the things that the Howard government actually did do to address some of these matters that fell within their responsibility as a national government—not a state government that actually runs schools, and not a state government that is responsible for employing teachers and funding the development of schools, and funding the classrooms and doing all of these things, but as a federal government where they could act in their own areas of responsibility.

It was the Howard government that introduced national literacy and numeracy testing for children in years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Prior to that, there were no standards. There was no national testing. We just did not know. I think, above all else, that is a measure which demonstrates the coalition’s commitment to standards in education rather than shopfront measures. There was $457.4 million for a $700 literacy and numeracy vouchers program for students who were not meeting those benchmarks. There was bonus funding for schools that had excelled in raising literacy and numeracy standards, not just those that excelled in the standards themselves but those schools that had taken measures within their schools, with their parents, with their communities and had worked together to lift standards. These schools were rewarded under the coalition government.

The national agreement for reporting on schools attendance was achieved at a COAG meeting in July 2006 and subsequently followed up with various education ministers. As the member for Warringah pointed out, this is a deal that the states have never honoured. This is a deal where they had agreed to provide truancy information for the purposes of national understanding and reporting, and they would not do it on an aggregate basis. This bill is suggesting that they will do it on an individual basis where there is the risk that if that information is provided to Centrelink then that family will be affected—not just the child, not just the parents, but any other child or any other member of that family who is dependent on that source of income. This government expects the schools and the states to hand that information over.

What we have here is a war on truancy. It goes with the war on binge drinking; it goes with the war on obesity. Maybe we will have a war on wars as well. There is a war on all of these things. This comes straight out of the state government play book. It comes particularly out of the Blair government play book. With all of these wars, be it on binge drinking, obesity—or the fat tax—or whatever else, you will soon not be able to leave your house in this country without first ringing the Prime Minister’s office and checking to see whether that would be okay today.

All of these wars have something very familiar about them, which is that they are phoney wars. They are not real wars; they are phoney wars designed to send very subtle signals to the electorate rather than address the problems on the ground. It is all about the message; it is not about the problem. With this measure, the government is seeking to ride on the coat-tails of the Howard government’s doctrine of mutual obligation. That doctrine was set out by the Howard government and put into practice on the ground with Work for the Dole and a number of other measures. These honoured the idea of a social contract whereby responsibilities went with rights.

Those opposite try to portray this measure in that context. They try and do it but they are not serious. Their hearts are simply not in it. Since this matter was first addressed in the budget and later announced on the eve of these sittings, there has not been one question in this place to the Deputy Prime Minister or the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. We have had a host of questions in this place to the government for it to parade its moral obligations, responsibilities and doctrines, but it has not talked about them. It has not done that on one occasion since this parliament resumed. Beyond that, we have not heard once—we have not heard a peep—from the minister for families on this matter. I would be very interested to know what she really thinks about the measure. There has been not one question and not one speech from the minister for families on the measure.

The government’s proposal betrays a try-hard approach in its attempt to live up to the legacy of the Howard government, which put in place a genuine and real mutual obligation doctrine. One of the concerns about the way in which the government have tried to do this in their try-hard sort of way is that they have tried to talk very tough and have gone well beyond—and I think unreasonably so—anything the coalition government suggested. When we looked at this measure and tried to introduce it without the cooperation of the states, because the states would simply not participate in the program, we found that we were left in a situation where they would seek to get a headline in these matters but the details of likely action would be remote.

We know that the government has 18 members on its side of the House who do not support this bill. We know members on that side of the House do not support this bill. I am wondering what brought them to the position of supporting it. I suspect that it is this: while they want to talk tough about suspending payments—I would say that suspending payments would considerably disadvantage families—what they are really saying is: ‘You won’t have to worry because it’ll never actually happen. We’re just looking to try and talk tough on this bill but we’ll not put in place any meaningful mechanisms that would see any of these things actually eventuate.’ The reason is that the states will simply not hand over this information.

The member for Warringah made a very good point. He said: ‘If there is a deal, an agreement or an arrangement with the states to provide this information, even in these trials, then table that document in this place. Tell us that this bill and this mechanism will work by demonstrating in this place that you have the cooperation of the states. Show us that this information will be available to Centrelink when it is required in order to put this mechanism into place.’ That information has not been there for reporting of national truancy statistics. It was not there when the coalition sought to provide information to support its own measure, which was limited to income management. It was not there then, but apparently it is going to be there now. So where is the government’s agreement with the states to ensure the provision of the data that will enable this scheme to work?

The other matter concerning this bill is the ‘blame game’ game. This was a perplexing challenge for those on the other side of the House while they were in opposition and coming up to the last election. They had a very big problem. People were fed up with the performance of state schools and state hospitals around this country. People were completely fed up. Who and what could be responsible for the failure of state schools and state hospitals around this country when there were wall-to-wall Labor governments? Where on earth could they run to and hide when it came to schools and hospitals prior to the election? So they decided to blame blame itself. It was blame that was the problem. Blame was the reason that we had problems in our schools and hospitals. It was not the fact that state governments were conscientiously incompetent. It was not the problem of the states that they were unable to run these important institutions for the public. The problem was blame. It is the perfect Orwellian irony: blame blame itself. How convenient it is to blame blame when Labor is in power at every single level of government around the country. That is very convenient indeed. When you are running every single shop in the place, how convenient it is that there is nowhere the finger of blame can be pointed, particularly when every finger is coming back to the Labor Party.

Blaming blame has become the government’s way of getting around the position of responsibility. It was not the problem of state governments and their inability to run schools; it was actually the problem of Alfred Deakin and Edmund Barton. The government would have us believe that state governments cannot run schools and hospitals because somehow Edmund Barton and Alfred Deakin put schools and hospitals in the wrong box in the Constitution. It was not because states could not do it; it was because the Constitution was messed up. So it was not their conscientious and appalling incompetence; it all had to do with matters regarding the Constitution. It is an absolute farce that we would think that Canberra would be better than the states at running our schools. It is a farce to think that the solutions to these issues could be better run at a federal level than closer to home and on the ground.

In these situations, Canberra is more likely to fail than succeed. So it is time to understand one thing: where does the responsibility for our schools lie? The ‘blame game’ game cannot allow the states to avoid their responsibilities under any circumstances. Now, I am sure that there are people, particularly in my home state of New South Wales, who would love it if there were no state government—especially no Iemma state government; but, unfortunately, there is one. While there are state governments in this country, they must be held accountable for what services they are to provide. It is not simply a matter of saying that we need to end the ‘blame game’ game and stand together at press conferences and all smile at each other. For anyone to think that that will somehow change the situation is absolute nonsense. The ‘blame game’ game is an absolute hoax designed to avoid the accountability of state governments that have been elected to do certain jobs. But they are not doing those jobs. So what we find in this measure is an opportunity to try and shift responsibility for state schools from the states to the federal government. This is interesting because the Parliamentary Library says very clearly that the states have always had responsibility for school attendance. So the states should live up to that.

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