Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens are also working through the amendments that were tabled yesterday. We share the sense of disappointment that it is being debated in one of the final weeks of parliament. This is something that, as I said during my speech on the second reading, ideally we would have done years ago. The funding model of former Prime Minister John Howard was an unfair funding model. It grew the gap between public and private schools. As we know, public schools are where you find the most disadvantage being addressed, so that was a model that needed to be changed. To repeat the point that we made previously, someone who started primary school in the year that former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was elected will have finished primary school under that unfair John Howard funding model, despite there being several years of a changed government. And they are probably going to finish high school before the full impact of this new package.

That leads to one of the concerns that we have had and that we will continue to pursue, which is reflected in an amendment that I circulated, which is that we are very concerned that, as we get closer to election time, we want to make sure that any model that finds its way into legislation is one where—especially if it is being back-ended for budgetary reasons—the money goes first of all to those who most need it, and that is the most disadvantaged public schools. In the light of the substantial amendments tabled by the government, it is not immediately clear how our proposed amendment in a technical sense would relate to the amendments proposed by the government, so I just want to indicate to the House and to the chair that the Greens will not be pursuing the amendment here. We will pursue the issue in the Senate after we have had a chance to digest how our amendment might relate to the proposed amendments of the government.

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