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

In response to that, I would say the member opposite might want to listen before he makes a contribution. I have spoken about Indigenous boarding schools. More importantly, he may want to read the bill and not just the speaking notes that the member for Sturt gives him because he will actually see that there are many other measures which this bill addresses, including putting back school improvement plans, which I am addressing.

We know that until the Liberal party decided to face the reality that Australians actually do care about schools and about real education reform, those opposite had to face the reality that parents, teachers and students across the country supported the Gonski reforms, which included the school improvement plans, which this bill is delaying, and wanted a government that would make sure every student in every school had the opportunity to achieve their very best. So just a month out from the election, Mr Abbott back-flipped on his position on schools. He called a press conference and made a clear promise to Australian voters that:

Kevin Rudd and I are on an absolute unity ticket when it comes to school funding.

He was backed up by the member for Sturt, now Minister for Education, who stood in a marginal seat and looked down the barrel of the camera as he declared:

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

Before the election, the now minister was also crystal clear about the coalition's commitment to the Gonski model and to needs-based funding, telling voters:

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

If that were true, this bill delaying school improvement plans, would not be before the parliament. The now Minister for Education then went on to say:

We are committed to the student resource standard, of course we are. We are committed to this new school funding model.

And finally as Australians entered polling booths on Election Day, they were faced with huge signs which read:

Liberals will match Labor's school funding dollar for dollar.

It really could not get any clearer than that—no asterisks, no small print, no qualifications—that they would match the funding and that they would introduce school funding reforms. But of course we have seen that that did not turn out to be the case at all.

Voters across Australia were absolutely betrayed by every member opposite. Voters across Australia thought that the school reforms, which had been announced and had been implemented, were safe. They thought that they could vote Liberal or Labor and they would get the same school reforms and the same system, which was so desperately needed and overdue. They thought that Labor's Gonski reforms, the biggest reforms in 40 years, would be delivered no matter who won on 7 September. But, unfortunately, that hope was desperately short lived. The government's deliberate deception of voters took just weeks to be revealed, when the education minister declared that he would go back to the drawing board on school funding. Then, just three days later, he said he would keep the Gonski model but for just one year. He promised to develop a new school funding model by early 2014.

He is clearly a man with a very high opinion of himself; I do not think anyone has ever doubted that about our education minister. He thought he would be able to do a better job in just a few months, in coming up with an entirely new school funding model, than education experts and the independent Gonski panel had been able to do over two years of solid work on this matter. Schools, parents, teachers were all shocked. They had been betrayed and they were immediately up in arms. But the government was having none of that and refused to take responsibility for its own broken promises. First, the education minister blamed journalists for not being able to understand school funding. Then, in what will surely go down as one of the most arrogant and condescending comments ever made by a politician, the Prime Minister turned the torch on Australians themselves. In the comfortable atmosphere—for him—of Andrew Bolt's cosy studio, the Prime Minister said:

We are going to keep the promise that we actually made, not the promise that some people thought that we made or the promise that some people might have liked us to make.

It was at this point that the government's trickery, their deception, was totally laid bare. Let us be very clear: the government told the Australian people that they would get the new school funding model and that 'they were on a unity ticket'. The government, through this piece of legislation and through every indication since the last election, have shown that that was nothing more than a ploy to con the Australian people into voting for them, thinking that they were getting school reform.

The following day, after an emergency meeting, the government were shamed into a humiliating backflip. Begrudgingly, and with not one fibre of their heart in it, the Prime Minister and education minister dragged themselves to a press conference. They said they would keep part of what they had promised. But they did not mean it. And they have been undermining the Gonski reforms ever since.

This history is absolutely crucial to the bill which is before us today. It puts into context the government's proposed changes to school improvement plans and funding for special schools. It makes it crystal clear that these changes are nothing but just another step in the government's deliberate campaign to undermine all those elements of the Gonski reforms that they were shamed into just over a year ago, that they have never had their heart in and that they intended pulling apart, even though they were not prepared to tell the Australian public that before they went to the polls.

Since the government's acrobatics in November and December last year—and I think we well remember how many different positions the education minister had in just a few days—the Prime Minister and the education minister have cut all additional funding for the fifth and sixth years of the Gonski reforms. But worse than that, in its first budget, this government has cut $80 billion from schools and hospitals over the next decade, the biggest ever cut to Australian schools. That is what this government has announced in its own budget papers.

Mr Nikolic interjecting—

It may not be in the speaking points that the member opposite relies on, from the education minister, but he should actually take to reading the budget, as he should take to reading this bill, if he thinks it is not about school improvement plans.

The government have also cut $100 million a year more support for the Students with Disabilities Program and have failed in the promise they made both before the election and after the election for more funding for students with a disability through a new loading in 2015. The government have let state governments off the hook by promising not to enforce their funding obligations under the Gonski agreements. How is that for accountability?

This government has locked school funding to just CPI from 2018, with its very own budget papers assuming that CPI will be just 2.5 per cent. At the same time, the ABS Education Price Index currently runs at 5.1 per cent. That is a huge cut in real terms, which will be felt in every single school across Australia. Then, on top of all that, this government had the gall to blame Australian voters for its broken promises on schools and for the complete trashing of the unity ticket on schools, claiming that the Australian public misunderstood when they thought they were going to get the Gonski school funding reforms, that they were explicitly told by members opposite before the election. It is an awful record that is built on absolute deception, falsehood and betrayal. It is a record that has left the Prime Minister's credibility when it comes to education and schools in tatters. But, more importantly, it has left our schools facing the biggest funding cut that we have ever seen in this nation's history.

If some of the provisions of this bill are an indication as to where the government are heading, it is clear that they have zero plans for redemption, that they are just getting started. The government must absolutely be condemned for their record on school funding and on betraying the Australian public. Their pushing back of school improvement plans is yet another measure to reduce accountability and transparency so that they cannot be held to account for the full damage that they have caused. It is of great concern.

We will not hold up this legislation because we know it is important that funding goes to Indigenous boarding schools as well as independent special schools

But we will absolutely point out each and every time this government betrays not just the voters of Australia but also the future of Australia's school system and, in turn, the future opportunities of every young Australian, the future opportunities for our economic development and our productivity, the future of the education system—which should be one of the most important things that this government recognises that we should work together on, after we have had the biggest review in 40 years, which those opposite arrogantly now claim that they know better than the experts and all of the people who contributed to the review, whether it is the academics, the principals, the teachers or the parents. Those opposite claim that the education minister can come up with a better solution—an education minister who has an appalling record when it comes to schools after just a year in government and looks set to introduce yet more damage and more destruction in such a very important portfolio area.

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