John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

What this bill does not make clear is to what extent a qualified audit can justify the minister’s threat to withdraw funding. That is the point I am trying to make. It is one thing if the future viability is clear—that it is not going to continue—and there have been terrible mistakes made. But a lot of things can happen before that point is reached. So I am making the point as expressed to me by the schools in my constituency. They want to know what extent of a qualified auditor’s report pre-empts or creates this outcome for them. As I say, auditors are often extremely conservative and very professional in the way they present their reports. That is a point that I put on the record. The interjection from the member for Denison could well be correct, but I want to make sure I am on the public record saying so on behalf of my schools.

The second point relates to the changes occurring to national curricula and the necessity to teach the four basic disciplines of maths, science, history and English. If they are the priorities, it would be a good outcome for me. I was fortunate when I was at school to love maths and science. I struggled a little with English, which is fairly clear from my contribution here, I imagine, but the nation desperately needs qualified technical people, and very often nowadays we have to import those people from overseas because we have not had that focus on making maths and science an exciting area for young people to take an interest in.

The framing document for this was recently released, so things are all up in the air with respect to the outcome for independent schools in my electorate if they want to place an emphasis on religious education—for example, Islamic schools that wish to reinforce their faith and value systems. Other parents have made a decision for their children to attend Christian schools and Catholic schools. They all want to know how a requirement that they comply with the national curricula will impact on the particular emphasis in their schools, a view which is very strongly supported by their parent communities.

The last point I would like to raise about the concerns expressed to me is the additional reporting requirements for schools in relation to their funding sources. Perhaps the member for Port Adelaide may have been generally correct when he asserted that this level of anxiety is closer to paranoia, but it does make one very suspicious of what is behind this substantive new power for the minister. The conclusion that I draw is that it is designed to undermine the SES model. Other speakers have made reference to that and my schools have expressed anxiety about it. And it is not right to say that coalition speakers raising this concern are simply paranoid. It is something that the new government is going to have to work on in its communication and consultation with the broad breadth of the school industry and education in general.

It was not helpful that in this debate the member for Throsby said that the SES model lacks integrity. Other government members, including the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard herself, and the Assistant Treasurer, have made comments about the SES index in particular. The Assistant Treasurer stated:

The regime established by this government and continued under these bills for determining the funding arrangements for schools is the socioeconomic status index—the SES index. This is a fundamentally flawed index. It replaces the Education Resources Index, which was much more based on the needs of the school and the capacity of the school to reach educational standards.

When my schools, which are not large, capital based schools, read comments like that from senior ministers, they automatically interpret them in plain English as a government intent on moving away from a model that served their interests very well.

This bill requires schools to report on their additional monetary support, and that support can come from a whole range of sources. It can come from the alumni of the schools themselves—former students who were so impressed by the start in life their school gave them that they make a contribution. It can be raised by parents clubs after hundreds and hundreds of fundraising activities. We have all been involved in those activities as our own children have gone through the education system. They are extremely hard work. Activities could include running the barbecue, cooking lamingtons, running school fetes and a plethora of other activities that people engage in to raise funds for their schools. In Mallee, often some of my smaller rural schools will use a form of share farming. They shear sheep and sell the clip for the school’s benefit. They might sell part of their crop, whether it is dried grain, grapes or stone fruit. All schools are involved in those activities. The government has this implied threat where it wants to know in detail where schools’ funding is coming from, and again I say that members of my school councils are expressing concern at the final direction of this new measure that the minister has proposed by the introduction of this bill. I am not opposed to the bills; I am just expressing those concerns on behalf of my constituency, which is my job as a member of the House of Representatives. I am delighted to put those comments on the record.

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