Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I refer to the Victorian education department's analysis of the Gonski review, which was published in the Sunday Herald Sun just a couple of days ago, which showed that 3,200 schools across the nation would be worse off under the Gonski reforms. It is not just the wealthy schools across the country—which we know those opposite dislike and have targeted in the past—this was down to the very poorest schools in the community. I had four schools in my electorate that were targeted and on this hit list—four low-fee Catholic primary schools. St Luke's, for example, in Wantirna services an ordinary middle-class community and charges fees of $1,200. According to this Victorian education department analysis, it is going to lose $218,000. That is $750 per student. If this school is to make up for that lost funding in school fees, it will have to increase its school fees by something like 60 or 70 per cent, up to around $2,000. Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School in Bayswater is going to lose a similar amount. St Jude the Apostle Primary School and Holy Trinity Primary School in my electorate will also be affected. There are 3,200 schools across the country that will be affected, in the electorates of members opposite as well as in every single coalition electorate.

We will not be providing bipartisan support for cuts to non-government schools or to government schools. You can have our guarantee upon that, Mr Deputy Speaker. They will get bipartisan support for the intent to lift the performance of our schools, but you do not do that by cutting the funds of 3,200 schools across the nation.

Government members interjecting—

Those opposite are interjecting, saying: 'No, no, of course we are going to give extra money to schools!' The Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, just yesterday afternoon, was asked a simple question: he was asked to guarantee that no school would be worse off under the Gonski proposals. It was a simple question. Do you know what he did? He evaded; he could not guarantee it. He has been asked repeatedly to guarantee that no school will be worse off in real terms. He cannot guarantee it, because he knows he has a hit list.

The last time Labor put forward a non-government-school funding policy was eight years ago, and we know how that policy went. It was the famous Mark Latham hit list policy of 2004. In those days only 59 schools were targeted. Today, 3,200 schools across the nation have been targeted. We will not be supporting that.

A few things are required. I will highlight at least three that the coalition has been putting forward as constructive mechanisms to improve the performance of our schools. The first one of course is to guarantee that every school will have real funding increases of six per cent a year. That is the first guarantee. Those on the government side cannot guarantee that. The second thing is to put in place mechanisms to improve the performance and quality of teachers. We know that that is the single most important measure to improve school performance. We also want to give school principals greater independence so that they can manage their school appropriately. We like the model, of 100 independent government schools, that the Western Australian government is introducing. We believe that that type of model should be rolled out further. Finally, there should be a strong and rigorous school curriculum which is benchmarked against the best curriculums in the world, not against some of the weakest. Those are the things which need to be put in place in order to improve school performance. If the government were to propose those things, it would get bipartisan support.

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