Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I recently had the pleasure of officially opening the Broome cluster education conference at Broome Senior High School. It was there that I was able to witness firsthand what can be achieved when schools collaborate and work together under a unified vision with the sole aim of improving the lives of our future generation through education. With approximately 300 education staff from across the Broome Independent Public Schools cluster in attendance at the conference, it was clear that there in Broome the vision of the IPS initiative that was collaboratively designed by the federal and state governments not only has been implemented but is thriving. Professional development days such as these help to ensure our educators are able to provide the best education possible for our students, whether they are our teachers who work directly with students in the classroom or the staff who assist and educate on the periphery.

This conference also provided me with the opportunity to acknowledge the Broome cluster's principal Saeed Amin and his staff, whose hard work and dedication saw Broome Senior High School named WA school of the year in 2012. In the same year, the school had a 100 per cent success rate for university offers for those students who had applied to study university courses.

On a federal level, the Abbott government is continuing to encourage local public schools throughout Australia to consider participating in the IPS initiative. The government recently announced $70 million in funding to achieve this. The aim of this initiative is to help government schools to become more independent by increasing their own local government, community and parental engagement. The government's Students First education reforms include a goal of assisting 25 per cent of public schools, about 1,500 schools, become independent by 2017.

We are working closely with state and territory education authorities to increase school diversity and give all Australian students choice for a quality education. The Abbott government has reaffirmed its commitment to schools in the budget by providing additional funding of $54 million in 2017-18. We also surpassed this commitment by restoring the $1.2 billion in funding for Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory to secure a truly national agreement on school funding.

Without the commitment of our educators and the vision of schools, such as those in the IPS cluster, this initiative would never reach its potential. I look forward to seeing how Broome Senior High School—along with Roebuck, Broome and Cable Beach primary schools, who make up this IPS cluster—continue to develop and improve their vision.

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