Damian Hale (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to make my contribution and voice my strong support for the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 and the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. The Schools Assistance Bill will appropriate $28 billion and provide funding certainty for non-government schools from 2009 through to 2012. This bill is very important for the 16 non-government schools in my electorate of Solomon because it provides funding certainty. The Education Legislation Amendment Bill will see the continuation of the appropriations from 2009 to 2012 for a range of targeted programs and projects that support improvements in Indigenous education outcomes and assist in closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. These improvements will see more funding flow to Indigenous students.

Our government’s commitment to Indigenous affairs is focused on closing the substantial gaps that exist between the socioeconomic outcomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations. In the Prime Minister’s national apology to the stolen generations back in February this year, he said:

Today’s apology, however inadequate, is aimed at righting past wrongs. It is also aimed at building a bridge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians—a bridge based on a real respect rather than a thinly veiled contempt. Our challenge for the future is to now cross that bridge and, in so doing, to embrace a new partnership between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians … But the core of this partnership for the future is the closing of the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians …

Education and closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians are two issues I am absolutely passionate about. As a very proud father of five Indigenous kids, I am totally committed, just like all my colleagues are, to succeeding in these two crucial areas.

By way of background, education is a subject that has always been very close to my heart. Both my parents are teachers, my sister is a teacher and I have almost finished a teaching degree. Collectively, there is a combined teaching experience of over 80 years. My grandmother was also a schoolteacher. Most of this teaching experience has been gained in the Territory. There is a great wealth of knowledge in Indigenous education. In fact, my father was the principal at Karama Primary School for many years—10 to be exact—and was in charge when the school won a national award for excellence in Indigenous education. At the time, the school had 145 Indigenous students out of a total student population of 510. Under the leadership of my father, the school implemented innovative staffing and education practices by raising the ratio of Indigenous staff employed in the school to reflect the fact that almost one-third of the student population came from Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander backgrounds.

In 2006 the gap in the national benchmarking test results of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students for years 3, 5 and 7 in reading, writing and numeracy was somewhere between 13 and 23 per cent. The Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 seeks to address these figures, because more needs to be done to accelerate the pace of change if we are to achieve our challenging targets—halving the gap of literacy and numeracy achievement, halving the gap in attaining year 12 or equivalent and halving the gap in employment outcomes for Indigenous Australians. The government is working with government and non-government education and training providers to achieve these targets. We are establishing national collaborative arrangements that will assist us to collectively work towards these targets.

However, the government must maintain an ability to provide national leadership and perspective to close the gap. This bill will provide more than $500 million over the next four years to facilitate this leadership by establishing the evidence around what works and highlighting good practice. This funding will allow us to continue to work with Indigenous communities, philanthropic organisations, corporate leaders and national organisations to build the partnerships that are so crucial to improving outcomes for Indigenous Australia. This bill provides appropriations to continue our election commitments such as funding for an additional 200 teachers in the Northern Territory. We are also going to ensure that good programs such as Indigenous work mobility programs and Indigenous leadership programs continue. Together, we also aim to see every Indigenous four-year-old in remote communities have the opportunity to access an early learning program. This bill will reduce the red tape and improve flexibility for education providers to focus on education outcomes for Indigenous Australia.

During the election campaign, Labor made it clear that Australia needs nothing less than an education revolution—a substantial and sustained increase in the quantity of our investment and the quality of education for all Australian youth. This is required at every level of education, from early childhood education through to the education of mature age students. Education is the platform of our economic future. Our prosperity rests on what we commit to education now.

One thing I learnt from my parents is that education is not something that you just go through the motions with. Education is not something that you just do to win an election. Education is the commitment we make for the society that we want to become. Unfortunately, for a long time in Australia there has been a debate focused on competitive relationships between government and non-government schools—a very counterproductive ‘us versus them’ debate. Unfortunately, only today the National and CLP senator for the Northern Territory, Nigel Scullion, got on radio and mischievously resurrected the old divisive ‘us versus them’ school debate. When discussing the bill on radio today, the senator cast doubts about the future of the very hardworking and committed non-government schools in Darwin. In suggesting that schools may close as a result of this bill being passed the senator is doing nothing more than misleading people and playing politics with education. Let me assure the good people of Solomon that this government recognises there are different pathways in providing high-quality education. In fact, this bill actually gives funding certainty to non-government schools.

This government believes educational experts in consultation with the community, rather than politicians, are best placed to develop a world-class national curriculum. As promised by the Rudd Labor government, the new national curriculum is being developed transparently and in consultation with government and non-government education authorities, teachers, parents, students, academics, professional organisations and business groups. There are schools around Australia in both the government and non-government sectors that struggle with limited resources.

Funding is important, but a more fundamental debate is needed about how to improve the quality of school education for all students. We need an ambitious national strategy to improve our schools, driven by the goal of higher quality. To thrive in the future, we need a schooling system which delivers high-quality education for all students regardless of their address or their school. Since the beginning of 2008, the Rudd Labor government has been working through the Council of Australian Governments to develop a new framework for investment and reform in Australian schools. The COAG reform framework means that, for the first time, all governments in Australia will agree to a single set of objectives, outcomes, outputs and, hence, educational priorities and reform directions for the education system. This will result in a national education agreement to be finalised through COAG by the end of this year. This will provide future Commonwealth funding for government schools.

This legislation provides the funding arrangements for non-government schools. Separate non-government school legislation for 2009-12 is required to ensure that funding will be appropriated in time for payments in January 2009. As well as meeting these commitments, the legislation will make important changes to funding for Indigenous students in non-government schools. This legislation gives funding certainty to schools in Darwin and Palmerston, with a focus on quality, and it applies transparency and accountability requirements. For parents to fully understand the choices they make for their children, we need to be more transparent and consistent so that they can examine their options. In order to target resources in a way that will improve the education system, we need richer sources of information. We need to know where efforts are bearing fruit and where they are not so that we can take effective action. For schools, teachers and education authorities to learn which strategies work in which circumstances, we need comprehensive information about both performance and circumstances.

With the states and territories, our government has announced the establishment of the New Schools Assessment and Data Centre. The data centre will ensure performance and other information about early learning outcomes for every school is effectively analysed and used to inform program implementation. Within a year, we want to see increased information on individual student performance available to Australian parents and, within three years, a report that shows not just how their child is doing but how their child’s school is performing compared to similar schools. This framework will mean consistency of reporting on the variables and the outcomes that are relevant and important in understanding the effectiveness of schooling. They include national test results and participation in international assessments and they include aspects of the student population like socioeconomic status, numbers of Indigenous students, numbers of students with disabilities and numbers of students learning English as a second language. This framework will lead to better informed parents, better informed policy makers and a better informed public debate. The framework will also require reporting on the income streams into schools so we can properly analyse what difference extra resources make. All of these are consistent with Labor’s election commitments to deliver an education revolution, provide funding certainty for non-government schools and, most importantly, ensure that no school is disadvantaged.

The Schools Assistance Bill 2008 is a major block in building a fair, transparent national framework for schooling. It will help create a basis for reporting and accountability that is consistent across all schools in all sectors. Perhaps the most significant initiative in the bill—and one that seeks to provide enhanced support—is contained in two linked programs: the Indigenous Supplementary Assistance, ISA, program; and the associated measure, the Indigenous Funding Guarantee, IFG, program. The ISA program will provide almost $240 million dollars for four streamlined programs that provide funds for supplementary recurrent assistance schemes, homework centres, Indigenous tutorial schemes and English-as-a-second-language schemes for Indigenous language speakers. Funding is allocated on a ‘per Indigenous enrolment’ basis, with remote area loadings and indexation of funding built into the program. The IFG program is a transitional measure that will ensure non-government providers have their funding maintained at 2008 levels. This capped guarantee scheme means that providers who might otherwise lose funding under the new arrangements will not lose precious resources.

In my own electorate of Solomon, measures such as the Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme are vital tools that serve a real need. I am delighted that, for many Indigenous kids in Darwin and Palmerston, non-government schools will have an in-school tutorial program funded at a level that supports quality learning outcomes. These tutorial schemes help our local Indigenous students stay on track in class and assist with the completion of homework. These are programs that work, and I am extremely happy to see them receive funding security.

I have 16 vibrant, energetic non-government schools in my electorate. They deliver quality education to thousands of kids in the Darwin and Palmerston area, from the early learning years through to the primary grades and the all-important secondary grades. I love visiting the schools, and I will name a few of them: St John’s College, where I went as a student for five years; St Andrew’s Lutheran School, where I did the hokey-pokey a couple of weeks ago with the children in year 2 and was a very big hit; O’Loughlin Catholic College, where I have assisted them with their football side; Marrara Christian College, where my father still works from time to time and where I unveiled a plaque for their new basketball area; Palmerston Christian School, which is another very well-regarded and respected private school; Kormilda College, which does a fantastic job in enabling kids from remote Indigenous communities to board and get an education; and the Essington School in the northern suburbs of Darwin, out on the peninsula of Nightcliff, where I had the great privilege of opening their fete recently.

I speak to the students, teachers and parents. They tell me about their schools and their communities, and I am always impressed by the quality of the young people that our schools produce, the professionalism of the teaching staff and the dedication of the parents of the students. It was only a few weeks ago, as I mentioned earlier, that I went back to St John’s College to present some awards. It was quite a humbling experience to be back and to speak to the school. It was also great to catch up with the principal, Sister Philippa, her fantastic staff and of course the kids. In fact I met up with my old woodwork teacher, Mr Noel Muller, and his wife, Carol, and it was amazing how many of the people who taught me some 22-odd years ago were still there, still getting around and still educating after all this time. I must admit there was a little bit of reminiscing about the old days, and things came back. We had come a long way: we did not have air-conditioned class rooms back then, but now they have these interactive smart boards. If it is anything like my computer in my office, I probably would not be able to use it.

I recently also had the privilege of advising the principal of Marrara Christian College, Mr John Metcalfe, and the principal of Kormilda College, Mr Malcolm Pritchard—two very dynamic, non-government schools in Darwin—that their schools were successful in obtaining funding for trade training centres. Kormilda College and the Northern Territory Christian College were successful in obtaining up to $1.5 million each. The training centres will provide metals fabrication and a construction training workshop along with an engineering studies centre for students from St John’s College, Marrara Christian College and Kormilda College. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff of all those schools in my electorate and congratulate them on the fantastic job that they do.

The Prime Minister said in his address to the National Press Club in August this year:

… I want people to understand that our reforms are essential to Australia’s future—because quality education is good for our economy, good for our community and good for individuals. It will help create jobs and higher wages, and will create better opportunities for all Australians.

The Government wants the next generation of Australians to be the best educated, best skilled, best trained in the world.

We don’t apologise for this ambition—

and we stand by this commitment. He went on:

Today, we take one further practical step towards achieving the education revolution that Australia needs.

One step further to building a stronger, fairer and more secure Australia, and one capable of handling the great challenges of the 21st century that now lie before us.

I absolutely agree with him.

In conclusion, it being the start of Carers Week, I thought it would be appropriate to mention carers and the fantastic jobs that carers do within our communities. My mother is involved in a carer role: there is a young guy with cerebral palsy within our family, and Mum is doing some respite care with him. We certainly have an affiliation with what carers do. Certainly it was a great pleasure today to be down at Old Parliament House for the opening of Carers Week. We acknowledge the carers; we certainly respect the contribution they make to our community. A lot of it is unpaid work: it is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year. They do a fantastic job and they should be honoured and respected for the job that they do.

As far as education is concerned, this is a good bill: it is good for Australia, it is good for Australian kids, it is good for Australian communities, it is good for Australian families. Education should be something where we do not have an us against them or a private schools against public schools against independent schools way of thinking. This model will look after all schools to give all children the best chance they have got—that is, a solid education to make sure they do well in their lives and fulfil their potential. I commend the bills to the House.

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