Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

If the member wants to put that question to the minister, he may do so—or ask a more important, relevant and sensible question than he asked in question time today. As to this particular legislation, I think it is important to note that what we have said in relation to the Gonski review, and what we have said to Indigenous students and to the private school community and the public school community, is that we in this government believe strongly that the arguments in relation to private versus public education are well and truly gone. We believe that parents have the right to send their children to whatever school they want and that kids have the right to go to a good public school as well. The public school system is the backbone of education. That is why so many students go to a state school, as we call them in Queensland, at primary school level, often then going on to schools such as St Edmund's College or Ipswich Grammar School or Ipswich Girls' Grammar School for seniors. But it is really important to make sure that we fund the system appropriately and well.

I have said before that this legislation gets us through to looking at the review and deciding how we are going to take funding in the future. But, as I have also said before, the previous government put in about $32.9 billion over the previous four years of their government. That was their commitment. That sounds like a lot of money, but we made a greater commitment to education: we put in $64.9 billion in funding for government and non-government schools over 2009 to 2012.

That is very important. There are also the national partnerships which assist not just Indigenous but also non-Indigenous students. We can see that. I was recently at Leichardt State School, a school in what we used to call a working-class area in my electorate, rebuilt through the State Schools of Tomorrow program and the state government's work in that school, and rebuilt, through the BER funding, with a new multipurpose hall and new library—a national partnership school which has made a huge difference. If you go there you will see that the connectivity between the local Indigenous community and the school is very strong—really strong. Lee Gerchow, the principal, is doing a fantastic job. And that is the difference that good funding for Indigenous students and non-Indigenous students can make in an area where there is a high Indigenous population. You can see that. We have seen the NAPLAN results. We have seen the improvements in attendance at that school. We have seen the improvements in literacy and numeracy. I support this legislation because it will make a big difference in the lives of the schools in my community. (Time expired)

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