Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

We do not bother with election bunting in Port Adelaide because we know that the member would not be able to work in any other role if he was not in the parliament. We feel sorry for him and his children. His wife and children expect to be able to be fed. That is the generosity of spirit that you see in the coalition in South Australia.

The member for Port Adelaide also mentioned having a passing acquaintance with the education system. As he would remember, I knew him at university. We were known to knock about together on occasion. He certainly only had a passing acquaintance with education at Adelaide university; he was much more focused on student politics and climbing the greasy pole. But my advice to him is: the higher up the greasy pole you go, the greasier it gets. I notice, Member for Port Adelaide, that you are about to be elected as the national president of the ALP. My advice to you is: the higher up the greasy pole you go, the greasier it gets. So just keep that in mind.

I am very pleased that the member for Port Adelaide has raised school funding—very pleased—because the education union, parents around Australia and Labor states and territories are all wondering whether the Labor Party has committed to the extra many, many multibillions of dollars that were envisaged in the school funding model beyond the four years of the funding agreement. I note that only last week the member for Port Adelaide was asked, as the acting shadow minister for education, whether Labor was committing to those funds, and he could not commit. He did not commit. I read his comments; he did not commit. And he has not committed today. Bill Shorten has not committed. The Leader of the Opposition was asked many times on Neil Mitchell's program whether he would commit to that school funding; he danced around the issue and did not commit. Chris Bowen, the shadow Treasurer, has not committed to the billions of dollars of money that Labor knows they do not have. And I think you will find, Mr Deputy Speaker Irons, that at the next election Labor will again be on a unity ticket with the coalition when it comes to school funding, because they and we will both be committing to the model going forward.

We will certainly see spending on school education increase; it is increasing in this budget by eight per cent this year, eight per cent next year, six per cent the year after that and four per cent the year after that. School funding is going up every year in the budget estimates because we believe that school funding is important.

But funding is only important insofar as it ensures that a quality education can be delivered. Funding on its own does not deliver school outcomes. What we have seen in the debate over the last couple of years is parents realising that school funding is one thing but the quality of education is quite another.

The OECD in their PISA studies have shown us that the No. 1 issue in school education in Australia is the quality of teaching. In the last PISA report, the OECD said that, in Australia, in eight out of 10 reasons why a child will do well or poorly, it is the classroom to which they are allocated—in other words, it is the teacher to whom they are allocated in a school. One out of 10 reasons is their socioeconomic status and one out of 10 reasons is 'all other factors'.

So the government has a students-first policy. It has four pillars. Having settled the funding—having brought Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia into the school funding model, which meant $794 million more for Queensland, which would have been denied them under the previous government; so, having settled all that—we are focused on the national curriculum. And, from 2016, next year, a new national curriculum will be in place that will declutter the primary school curriculum, concertinaing four subjects into one so that teachers can focus on science and maths and English. We are reforming teacher training at the university level to have a focus on STEM and languages and practical outcomes. We are engaging with parents through a parental engagement strategy. And we are, importantly, increasing autonomy across the whole of Australia in the public school system through our Independent Public Schools initiative. Every single state and territory, including Labor states and territories, have signed up to the Independent Public Schools initiative. In this way, we are actually addressing not just funding but also the quality of education that students receive.

See this speech in context