Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to make a few short comments to put my views and my support for the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 and the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 on the public record. I want to acknowledge, first, the hard and dedicated work that has been put in by a whole range of people, from the school communities, the department, the teachers and the unions through to the minister, who is ultimately responsible for these bills.

I would just like to put on the record that there is a genuine desire and a genuine commitment by the Rudd government and by Labor to move forward on education. The debate of old is just that—old—and I think a bit tired. The debate I am talking about is the one we hear from time to time in this place—the class warfare debate, where it is about one school versus another school or about who gets how much funding. These are simplistic debates that do not provide a real basis for saying that we are trying to improve the lot of all our kids in the education system, regardless of their school, regardless of the area, regardless of their background and regardless of the particular funding mechanism which provides for their education. I think that ought to be the basis on which all of us in this place can have a common goal.

If we talk about shared values and we talk about what is important, this issue would have to be one of the most important things of all: the way in which we provide a strong, solid basis to a fair system, which means that any young person going to any school in Australia has access to a bare minimum standard—a quality standard. That means that they will have an opportunity and a chance at life and education beyond the old hackneyed debates—the tired old debates—between people who keep raising excuses about why you cannot change the system or how you should leave the system in one particular way, to suit their own political ideologies. For me that is wrong. And I am talking about anyone on any side. I am not going to point a finger in one particular direction. I just think we ought to be a little bit more focused on the betterment of all schools.

When we talk about schools I think there is a disconnect. We tend to talk about the school and forget the primary goal of the school, and that is to educate young people. For me, it should not be a matter of having to make a critical decision of which school will end up being the one that provides that opportunity. It should be a decision for parents to make based on the quality of education and, depending on the area in which they live, which school can provide that education for their child. The reality for most parents is that they just do not get a choice. It really is the school in their local region that is the sole provider. There are plenty of examples, whether it is in remote areas, rural areas, or regional areas—wherever it might be. In some areas there are more choices than in others, and again we will hear plenty of debate about all those issues, but the core value comes back to the same principle: what is the role that government should play in ensuring that there is a decent level and standard of education in this country?

I certainly strongly believe that these bills are part of that process. I firmly and strongly believe that we are keeping our election promises and moving to meet the commitments we made to the Australian people in the 2007 election with these bills. It is something we have acted on very quickly and of which I am very proud. Kevin Rudd and Labor talked about and put in place a new standard. We have called it the education revolution, and we are in the process of making that revolution happen. We are doing it through a range of mechanisms: by providing more real funding than has ever been provided in the past, by providing more computers than have ever been provided before, by ensuring that teachers are recognised for the work they do and for the part they play, by working very hard to bridge the gap between those schools which have the fewest advantages and those with the most advantages and by saying, ‘We need to bring people up to a minimum standard; we need to make sure that there is a standard out in the community that is acceptable to everybody.’

We want to make sure that we bridge the gap between the highest performing students and the lowest performing students. We want to make sure that the things that we provide through our policies and through legislation are a fair reflection of how we deliver on all of those election commitments. I believe that that is what we are doing. The simplistic and tired old debates of government versus non-government should now be falling on deaf ears; they no longer should apply. Over a period of time, that is the goal; that is what we are aiming for and driving for. That is not what should be the basis of debate tonight.

The bills that we have before us do a number of things, and neither is hugely controversial or a major departure from Commonwealth funding arrangements for schools. The Schools Assistance Bill will provide for continued funding arrangements for non-government schools, and future Commonwealth funding for government schools will be provided through the national education agreement, which is currently being negotiated through the Council of Australian Governments. We are not only providing for and continuing the funding with a view to reviewing those arrangements in the future but also working very closely with other governments in Australia and partnering with them to make sure that we deliver on our promises and do the best that we can for the Australian school system.

This bill also fulfils the government’s commitment to retain the current system of general recurrent funding for non-government schools, the socioeconomic status or SES funding system, over the next four years. There are some minor modifications, and there will be a routine revision of the SES funding scores for the next four years. There will be no school that will receive less funding because of any reassessment of the SES score, so we have set a baseline guarantee that schools will not lose out. There are no losers in this. This is not about creating losers; this is about creating winners and making sure that funding is there for schools that need that funding.

The bill also provides additional funding for non-government schools that have significant numbers of Indigenous students, and this is something that I think needs to be put on the record and clearly stated. There is a massive gap in Australia between lower performing schools and higher performing schools and also, particularly in remote and rural areas, with Indigenous students. We need to do something significant that will deliver real results to increase the number of Indigenous students who do better, who have better access and more opportunities and who become less reliant on government and more reliant on themselves through a better education. That is an important fact to consider, and part of this package that we present will go to that cause. This bill will make the maximum rate of general recurrent funding automatically apply to non-government schools in remote and very remote areas that have 50 per cent Indigenous enrolments or more. I think this is a great commitment that we are making to ensure that Indigenous students get a hand-up and some fair access.

The bill also provides funding for capital grants and continues funding for existing targeted programs. These include short-term emergency assistance, education in country areas, teaching English to new arrivals, literacy, numeracy and special learning needs. The bill also provides for students with disabilities. As I said before, the funding for Indigenous students is a very important part of these bills, and the aim of the Indigenous supplementary assistance, the ISA, is to reduce the reporting and red tape for schools and provide them with increased flexibility to focus more on the educational achievement of their students and less on the administrative and red-tape provisions. This funding will be increased by $18.1 million over the next four years and will be provided through a guarantee. Together the ISA—the Indigenous supplementary assistance—and the Indigenous funding guarantee will provide $239 million over four years for the education of Indigenous students in non-government schools.

There are a number of specific conditions for Commonwealth funding for schools which I think are important to note and which schools need to be aware of. Schools are basically required to act in six key areas. One is participation in national student assessments. I think we need to ensure that right across the country students are performing to a standard. You need a way to measure it, and I think a key component of that is not just the measurement but what you do with it afterwards. I am quite excited about the prospect of using this to assist schools to make sure they have access to the sorts of resources they need.

Schools will also need to participate in national reporting on the outcomes of schooling within their school and in providing individual school performance reports to the minister so that the minister is in a position to be able to make a number of assessments about school performances. Schools will also need to provide plain-language reports to parents so that parents have a better comprehension and a better understanding of the way that their child is performing not only against their peers within the school environment but also on a national and collegiate basis as well. Schools will also need to provide publicly available information about the school’s performance and be part of an implementation of the national curriculum. These are all key parts in ensuring that, while government, through legislation and funding, plays its role in ensuring that we move forward on these issues, schools also play their role. In the end, these bills represent a follow-through on our commitment to schools and the education revolution. They will ensure that we move forward in providing the best possible opportunities and outcomes for every single student in this country. No longer should the debate be about one school versus another school; it should be about making sure that every single student has the opportunities that they need. I commend the bills to the House.

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