Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

It is with great disappointment that I rise today to outline to the House the gross failure of this government to properly invest in Australian skills, training and education and to outline the impact that that is already having on jobs across our nation.

I ask: what does it say about a government, when presented with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make every school a great school, that they simply turn away? What does it say when instead of stopping state education cuts, which are slashing the quality of education across Australia, and reforming our schools, the government choose to instead to turn a blind eye? And what does it say, when they are looking at rising youth unemployment, that this government decide that all they can do is cut the job programs that do exist for young Australians? Faced with mass job losses and economic changes, they do absolutely nothing to upskill displaced workers. Faced with declining international rankings, they have a minister who is more interested in schoolyard politics than he is in improving our schools. They have the opportunity to make sure that no child is left behind, yet they choose to revert to a broken funding system and a lottery of orders. They are prepared to leave every student and every school worse off. They say one thing and then they do another.

I will tell you exactly what all of those facts say about this government: those facts say that this government is out of touch. It does not understand what is important to Australians—a good job and a secure future. It says that it is lazy, it is too busy with petty politics to follow through on its promise to deliver once-in-a-generation reforms to every Australian school. It says that this is a small-minded government, a government that wants to drag our nation back instead of building the prosperous future that all Australians deserve. It says that it is heartless, that it will rip away the opportunity that education and skills training can deliver to every Australian—particularly to those Australians who might otherwise fall between the cracks.

But most significantly it says that this government are just nasty and deceptive. They made incredibly clear promises to the Australian people before the election, promises that they have wriggled out of, promises that they have thrown away—a betrayal of tens of thousands of students, of parents, of teachers, of educators. It shows that this government just do not get it, and they do not get it because they do not care. By failing to keep these promises and by walking away from Labor's Gonski reforms this government are setting their sights on a smaller future for Australia. They are setting their sights on a system which is not only impacting on jobs right now—we will be looking at the example in Western Australia today in just a moment—but will also impact on jobs for years and years to come. That is the real tragedy of what this government are doing when it comes to education and training.

Let us just refresh our memories: before the election there was a very different picture that was being painted by the now Prime Minister and the now education minister. Before the election they said:

So you can vote Liberal or Labor and you'll get exactly the same amount of funding for your school …

That is what was said on 29 August: 'exactly the same amount of funding for your school'. But what did we hear from the Prime Minister in question time today? 'You've got to look at the small print. You need to look at the asterisk. We mean exactly the same amount just for a few years, just from prep til year 3, but beyond that we don't really mind what's going on in the schools.' Before the election the now Prime Minister said:

As far as I am concerned, as far as Christopher Pyne is concerned, as far as the Coalition is concerned, we want to end the uncertainty by guaranteeing that no school will be worse off …

Well, isn't that great, before the election guaranteeing no school will be worse off—except that since being elected they have refused to repeat this guarantee. They will not stand up in this parliament and guarantee that no school will be worse off because they know that it is utterly false.

They know that the actions of this government in six months have already ensured that every school is worse off—but that is not what they were saying at the polling booth, this very mean and sneaky government. On 29 August the now education minister said:

We have agreed to the government's … school funding model …

That's funny, isn't it? I recall that after the election he stood in this parliament and said: 'Oh no, we're coming up with a whole new model. That's all been thrown aside; that's all been discarded.' It shows that this government have broken every single promise when it comes to education. They have broken every single promise that they made to teachers, to schools, to parents and to students across Australia. They were proud—there are members sitting opposite today shaking their heads at me who were proud to stand at polling booths saying, 'You will get the same amount of funding if you vote Liberal or Labor'. Well, we have seen those signs but unfortunately we have also seen that this government have torn them up already.

What an absolutely cruel joke this has become: whereas the now Prime Minister used to say, 'I am on a unity ticket with Kevin Rudd when it comes to education', what we can actually see now is that he is on a unity ticket with Colin Barnett when it comes to education, and it is a unity ticket which is aimed at nothing more than slashing school budgets and pulling money out of school services.

Let us have a look at what they promised compared to what they are giving. A unity ticket, where Labor's reforms would have delivered $14.65 billion in additional funding in our schools; just $2.8 billion under this government. Six years of guaranteed funding under Labor—which we are absolutely committed to, which we have always been committed to and which we will fight to ensure that the Australian public gets; just four years under this government. A fraction of the money and none of the reforms.

And there is another side to all of this: not only are they not meeting their own funding commitments, but they are also letting the states off the hook. While those opposite would have us think that it has got nothing to do with Canberra, nothing to do with the Prime Minister and nothing to do with the education minister when states like Western Australia rip money out of their schooling systems, the truth is actually very different. Under the model that they told the Australian people they had signed up to, there were some very clear conditions. There were conditions of three per cent indexation each and every year. There were conditions that a co-contribution of $1 would be made by the states for every $2 that was invested by the federal government. But, importantly, there was another very simple condition: that, if you were to receive Commonwealth funding for your schools, state governments would have to guarantee that they would stop the cuts.

But what have we seen in Western Australia? In Western Australia we have seen over $183 million ripped out of their schools by their state government, by Colin Barnett, with the approval of Prime Minister Abbott and education minister Christopher Pyne. What we have seen in Western Australia is 342 fewer teachers at a time when the entire Western Australian and Australian public were told we were going to build up our education and our school system—342 teachers ripped from the system. We have seen 500 fewer support staff across the education system. This is what we have seen already, in just six months, because those opposite misled the Australian public and are now are too weak to stand up, meet their commitments and fight for education funding and the best future for all of our students.

But we know it is not just about schools. At a time when, on the one hand, over in Western Australia and elsewhere around the country, this government is out saying: 'We have a skills shortage; we have to increase the number of 457 visa holders—we simply have to, in order to meet the requirements for skills in our community,' what are they doing on the other hand? They are cutting the trade training centres—ripping out a billion dollars. They will not build a single additional trade training centre. So, on the one hand, we have skill shortages and, on the other hand, we are cutting a billion dollars so that we cannot train any Australian young people to fill those shortages. Shame on the government!

At a time of rising youth unemployment, we have a program: the Youth Connections program. It is operating in communities right across the nation. It is out there, specifically geared towards disadvantaged youths who are in danger of becoming unemployed in their youth. What is the government doing, at a time when they are watching youth unemployment increasing? They are threatening the funding and refusing to even acknowledge that this program should continue post the budget.

I tell you: we will all be watching—everybody in those communities will be watching—because we can see that this government has massively failed when it comes to the education system, when it comes to building the trade training centres and when it comes to the youth programs which are required to make sure that we are creating jobs right now and that our population is trained and skilled for the jobs of the future. The other thing we have seen—

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