Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to raise some points with the minister about this matter because, even as I have been sitting here right now, I have received a letter emailed to me from a Catholic school principal in my electorate. I have not even had time to read it but I want to read the questions that Mrs Helen Kingsley from Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School in my electorate has raised about this matter in a letter to the Prime Minister that has just been sent to me.

Mrs Helen Kingsley asks for clarification about the following outstanding issues:

When will the final financial outcomes for each of the six years of the rollout, 2014 to 19 inclusive, for each of catholic school (both Catholic Education Commission and non-systemicly funded) be known?

Minister, can I have the answer. The second point she raises with the Prime Minister is:

Can you explain your claim on Sunday 19 May that the average non-government school in New South Wales will lose $800,000 if the new funding model is not at adopted?

I would like an explanation too, Minister. The third point Mrs Kingsley raises is:

What guarantees do we have that the full funding for the model will actually be found or delivered by 2019?

A very important question indeed, Minister. The final question Mrs Kingsley asks is:

How can the Commonwealth predict funding for 2016 at this stage given the 2015 review of indexation?

These are the concerns we are hearing all around the nation at the moment because of the lack of detail in this bill. I was on the inquiry into this bill and I want to record for the House that we had 10 pages in that bill to inquire into, which basically said, 'We believe that children are our future; teach them well and let them lead the way.' Minister, we all agree that is a great proposal for education in this country. But you have put forward 71 pages of amendments. All of the detail that matters to schools in this country is in that 71 pages. And you said 1 pm yesterday is enough time for Mrs Kingsley of the Catholic system in my electorate to consider the detail of your amendments. I can tell you, Minister, it was not.

My further question to you in this matter is: will you now allow the House to conduct a further inquiry into the actual detail of this bill, because every single witness that came before our inquiry said, 'We do not have sufficient detail'? You can read the dissenting report from our members here on this side, which explain to you that with 10 pages every single witness could not identify how the funding model would affect their system, their school or their sector. Every single witness said, 'We cannot talk to you about it because we are in confidential negotiations.' Every single witness came forward and said, 'Sorry, we do not have the detail about what will happen to school funding in Australia under this bill.' That is because they did not have the detail available to them. So that inquiry was a complete farce, and we were required to report before the 71 pages were made available. You required that inquiry to report to this House before we had seen the 71 pages of detail.

Minister, tell us: how can anyone in this chamber vote on this bill without having had a proper inquiry into the detail? I have already started to look through the 71 pages. I can tell you they are very complex. It would be unfair of me to ask you to explain the detail of your amendments, because I am sure at this stage you could not explain to this House the detail of those amendments on how the funding model works and how it affects each sector: the independent sector, the Catholic sector and all of the different education sectors affected by this bill.

Minister, if you cannot explain the amendments to this House and if we cannot explain then because we are just reading them for the first time today to understand what the loadings are, what the indexation is and how these affect each sector, and if the sector itself is writing to me as we speak in this chamber and asking serious questions about what the funding will mean for them—what these amendments will mean for them—how are we supposed to cast a vote on this bill? How are we supposed to cast a vote on this bill without a proper inquiry into its detail? You have provided significant detail on the funding, and we need the time to consider it. We need much more time to consider how it will impact on all the different schools in all of our electorates around the country.

Minister, if what you say is true and this is an important matter and it really means a lot to you—I noted in your second reading speech that you said 'right a moral wrong'—then certainly what you are doing is not the only goal. How you are going to do it is the purpose of legislation—how? And the 'how' you have not explained to this House. We have not had sufficient time to consider the amendments. The detail already appears to be quite complex. It is very complex for the schooling systems around Australia, and that complexity has been noted in media reports this morning. So, Minister, I have asked all of these questions, but will you allow for a further inquiry so that this House can consider the detail?

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