Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Schools Assistance Bill 2008 and the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 are complementary, hence the two being dealt with together. My comments will canvass both, sometimes discretely and sometimes fused. The Schools Assistance Bill will appropriate an estimated $28 billion in funding for the non-government schools sector for 2009 to 2012. The bill maintains the current SES funding and indexation arrangements consistent with meeting the Rudd Labor government’s election commitments of 2007. It also contains two other key reforms consistent with Labor’s national priorities.

The first key reform is additional funding for all non-government schools where 80 per cent or more of the students are Indigenous and for non-government schools in remote and very remote areas where 50 per cent or more of the students are Indigenous. Previously, there was no such guaranteed funding to the maximum level. This bill will provide an additional $5.4 million to the eligible schools. It also brings together several components of funding for schools with Indigenous students which were previously scattered across a range of programs through the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000.

I understand that, in addition to allocating extra dollars, the new bill will also reduce reporting and a red tape. I had a local example of this with a school that contacted me. Even though they were reporting on the same students and the same issues, they had to do two lots of reporting, state and federal, which created an enormous amount of work. When they had asked previously—some time ago—whether that could be coalesced, the answer was no. That is why it is important that we have the COAG process that is being undertaken because that allows issues like that to be worked through in COAG and be subject to reform. The government’s enhanced COAG process and activities enable agreements to take place on issues like that, so that those real problems at a local level can be resolved.

The bill brings together the Indigenous funding guarantee and the Indigenous supplementary assistance, which will provide an estimated $239 million over four years. Also, for the first time, it will be indexed at the same rate as other recurrent school funding. It is estimated the increase from indexation will be an additional $24.5 million, which is a significant amount.

The second key reform is the new reporting requirements for non-government schools. This brings in a new framework in transparency in Australian schooling. Transparency is only ever a good thing, especially where our children and their education are concerned. The reporting requirements will be consistent with transparency measures for government schools and will help to enable proper understanding of how all schools perform. I know that, at first, when transparency requirements are being introduced there is often a debate within the particular communities that are affected and sometimes there is some discomfort as well. But transparency is always in the public interest and it is therefore always in the interests of our children.

The activities that will yield the information necessary to meet the transparency test are in the following areas. The first is national testing—and, again, testing is one of those issues that is always debated quite heatedly and strongly, and sometimes there is discomfort about it, but it is in the interests of our children. The other areas are national outcome reporting, the provision and publication of individual school information, and reporting to parents. What this means is that there will be some common data sets around record handling and what needs to be recorded, as this determines what is reported. The key issue is that all schools, government and non-government, need to be included. Non-government schools have not previously been included in the overall reporting framework.

The minister, in her second reading speech, in particular underscored the importance of education that is reflected in the Rudd Labor government’s education policies—notably in our overarching policy framework with the education revolution. I know sometimes we bring personal stories and experience of ourselves and others to the debates in this place, and this one is no exception. I owe a lot to education. I have a view that is shaped and informed by that experience. Earlier in my life I was in an educationally disadvantaged situation, leaving school at 13 and not really having any high school to speak of. But it was broadened by later engagement in the education sector with my teacher training; being involved in educational politics in the New South Wales Teachers Federation; in the New South Wales TAFE TA; working part time; part-time lecturing; community adult education; serving on boards; and teaching young people with disabilities and in sporting areas and working in refugee camps in conflict zones. The education experience I have had goes beyond the schools, whether they be private or public. That shapes what I think and what I feel and some of the passion that I have around education. It is a right, and it is a right for all. I know that in the Rudd Labor government’s education revolution and in our framework that that principle underpins a lot of what we do. It certainly underpins my approach to my engagement with the education area. Minister Gillard also said:

Education is central to the future of our society.

Indeed it is on many levels, and the comments I have just made attest to that. There is a whole range of indicators around education, including, if we just look at child health and the level of education of mothers, the more educated the mothers are, the healthier the children are. That is one of the best arguments for education. I am probably straying from the bill a little bit, but I just wanted to make some points about education in general. Minister Gillard also went on to say:

It is a central part of building a stronger, fairer Australia, ready to meet future challenges and able to make the most of its talents and resources.

This is precisely what our education revolution is about—ideas. Ideas do matter, ideas are important, they shape our society, but these ideas are backed up by action, and that is a powerful combination, particularly in the area of education. Without a solid education system, we cannot have a stronger, fairer Australia. As we say, education is a great leveller, or should be, and it is needed to ensure Australia stays strong to meet the future challenges that are upon us: the many skills shortages in the workforce and climate change, among others.

Some initiatives of our education revolution, which is central to what we do with legislation, include the new computers, which are already in schools. I have been able to get around the schools and see some of those and it is certainly very pleasing to see them being rolled out. The new trades training centres are on their way. There is the education tax refund, which is very welcome indeed. And then there is the 15 hours for four-year-olds at preschool. That will be rolled out over coming years and I know that is being assiduously worked on by the Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care, the member for Bennelong, who is in the chamber at the moment. There is a commitment to parents for their children’s education needs of $4.4 billion, and that has been available since July.

A number of key reform initiatives are being pursued as well through the COAG process, and they are driven by the government as collaborative and cooperative reform. COAG has agreed to a number of national targets in this area. Some of them will be met through the national education agreement, an agreement among governments in Australia that the minister says will set the terms of funding and accountability for schooling over the next four years.

The minister further says in her second reading speech—and is it a really important point that I wish to reiterate here—that Commonwealth funding for government schools does not require specific legislation. I would like to note here that I agree that government schools are also in need. That is a constant; it is not a new thing. All schools are constantly in need with changes that come in within the school environments—and public schools certainly are in need of enhanced funding.

In 2007, during the election campaign, I signed what was called the pledge in company with teachers and their Teachers Federation representatives. It was outside Grafton High School and I was saying that I would support and advocate for such funds. The key amount the teachers were saying was around $2.9 billion. I know there has been some work done by the unions to quantify that and I am still ploughing through some of those documents on education, where we should be aiming for brevity. I know that every time we get a document to read, it is like the books I can see in front of me, so I am still ploughing through it. But what I would like to say is that it is actually the states that have provided the core funding of government schools. I note that here and I noted it at the time. Unless there is a change then that will continue. The states have their obligations to fill as well in this regard to ensure that that funding is there.

When there are some schools in need, who feel they are missing out, it can and does have an impact on morale, and that is one of the things we always have to be mindful of when we are having debates like the one we are having in this House on these bills. I have said to parents, teachers and students that there is no longer a debate to be had about government and non-government, public and private within an either/or framework. The debate that never took place—it is a debate that never took place under the previous government, one of the many left unattended—is the debate on how to ensure the following things: equity for students; excellence in teaching; strong support for teachers; and the same or similar resources for all in schools, in education communities, with some particular attention to our regional and rural and isolated students. I also had the privilege throughout these debates to have met with the association.

The previous government’s approach to education, from what I can gauge—and some of that was directly as a member of a university council—was that there was more attention paid to or obsession with the so-called governance, which had little substance and no leadership in it, than with educational outcomes. For the first time, under this bill non-government schools will have a legal obligation to participate in the five key reporting activities in a transparent, clearly marked framework, along with government schools. The outcome, of course, is better information for schools, for the school communities, for the parents and for the families, and improved educational outcomes is always the ultimate goal. All Australian students will be included, for the first time, and it is paramount to have that inclusiveness. Previously, the school funding legislation, which did not focus on the educational outcomes but on about 20 separate requirements in terms of regulation, monitoring and red tape, caused an excessive level of that regulation, monitoring and red tape.

I alluded to my situation at the beginning of my contribution. What I would like to say in general about education is that education was able to give me a life that was richer and more meaningful, and I know it can do that for all young people. In my concluding remarks I would like to compliment and commend the teachers in my local schools and their respective parents and citizens associations and other interested citizens, whom in my seat of Page put an enormous amount of work into local schools and education, as indeed do teachers—beyond their regular working hours. I know that they would welcome some of the reforms in these bills. I would like to commend the bills to the House.

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