Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The member opposite says 'great decision'. It is just a shame that they have forgotten their own history. In 1969 there was the States Grants (Secondary Schools Libraries) Act. That was for financing library facilities—again, a federal government supporting schools. In 1972, there was the State Grants Act for broadening capital expenditure; in 1970, recurrent funding for non-government schools; in 1972-73, a Labor government ensured that there was recurrent spending for government schools; in 1974, targeted programs to assist with special education needs, professional development and, indeed, support for disadvantaged schools.

Members of the House: one of the bases upon which this government seeks to reject this bill is that it says there is no role for the federal government in the funding of schools and making requirements. What a pack of hypocrites! How ignorant of their own history that they would now turn their backs on 50 years of support for government and non-government schools through the Parliament of Australia. I remind this government, who was so quick in its ideological desire to create extreme and unfair policies for this country: ignore your own history at your peril. This parliament is the custodian of the right of Australian children to have a good education. The right to a good education is now in the care of this parliament. Unless this parliament acts upon it, unless we continue to fight for the right of children to have a good education in this country, we will realise to our cost—not only to the cost of the children of Australia and their parents but to the cost of the future of this country—that the right to a good education will be more easily lost than it was won.

We will fight hard to defend the right to a good education in this country. We will fight hard to ensure that we do not see the creation of a permanent underclass in this country. It is appropriate that we guard jealously the sensible use of Commonwealth funds. Since this government was elected and made its offering to pay some money to the states and territories, we have seen some states and territories take their own funding out of schools. We have seen the looting of schools in the Northern Territory by their own administration. We have seen the sacking of teachers and educational assistants in Western Australia by a state government that is freed of the leash of any requirements. What happened is that the Commonwealth government, which would hold itself up as some sort of guardian of fiscal prudential interests in decision making, wandered along to the state governments, with what the state governments could only have believed to be their good luck—and said, 'You can have the money, no strings attached.' Sorry, did I say 'no strings attached'? There is one string attached. Only a government with obsessive detail to the irrelevant and who ignores the important would say on the one hand, 'It is not our responsibility to tell states how to fund schools'—except when it comes to chaplains. Why didn't we recognise that this party is no longer the party of Menzies, no longer the party of ensuring that the Commonwealth takes an interest in the education of our children? Of course, there is always one exception to prove their complete hypocrisy. They have made it clear when it comes to school chaplains that we do not want psychologists and welfare workers who are not attached to religious organisations. The government have put this requirement to the states of Australia. They are saying on one hand that we are not going to fund you properly in the future; but, on the other hand, we will make sure that your chaplain belongs to a religious organisation. The state governments scratch their heads when they deal with this government.

In this budget, which emphasises even more the need to pass this bill, we have seen the states realise the anti-education party of the government. State Premier Campbell Newman—someone whom I am not normally in agreement with, thus proving that even a stop-clock can be right twice a day—has said:

We’re all in agreement that what the government is doing

that would be the Abbott-Hockey government—

in relation to health and education is not acceptable.

Mike Baird, perhaps not in the most elegant of prose but certainly pithily, described cuts to education in New South Wales as 'a kick in the guts to the people of New South Wales'. Victorian Premier Dennis Napthine, no doubt feeling the hot breath of an election in September on his neck, in November said of these education cuts:

These are simply unaffordable and unsustainable, and those who will be affected are ordinary Australian families …

This is why this bill should be supported—because we will not stand idly by and watch the education system of Australia be attacked, looted and robbed.

I remind this House, in closing, that many Australians put a high value on education. Many people without money depend upon a well-funded public education system not as a luxury like Foxtel but as something that is a doorway to opportunity for their families. I commend this bill to the House.

See this speech in context