Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I rise today to speak on the motion brought by my colleague and member for Sydney, in relation to schools funding. Before the 2013 election those opposite promised that they would match Labor's funding model 'dollar for dollar'. Who could forget? Australian voters certainly have not. They saw the posters on election day. They heard the solemn commitment from coalition candidates. They assumed that if a Liberal-National government were elected that funding to their schools would be safe. That was an entirely reasonable assumption to make, given the solemn promises that were made.

Sadly, however, we learnt very quickly after the election that the Liberals' definition of matching was, in fact, to rip $30 billion out of our school system and to drive a stake into the heart of Gonski's needs based funding. This means of course fewer teachers, less one-on-one attention for students in schools and, inevitably, leaving students behind. Disadvantaged students and communities will of course suffer the most and, shockingly, the Turnbull government's funding shortfall is equivalent to cutting one in seven teachers across our nation.

The schools I represent in Newcastle will lose a massive $33 million in the next two years alone. It is particularly distressing, because we are just starting to see some of the amazing benefits that the Gonski funding is delivering to schools cross the country—I have had the pleasure of seeing firsthand the benefits of Gonski in my local schools.

Many schools have used that extra funding to provide additional teachers and to have specialised support staff deliver more individual attention to students through tailored learning programs, greater subject choice, extension classes and extra curricular activities to ensure that every child is engaged at school. Students have benefited from smaller classes, intensive literacy and numeracy classes, access to speech pathologists and more support for kids with special learning needs.

All of this of course will be put at risk as those opposite proceed with these senseless cuts. But it is actually schools in the National Party electorates that will feel the pain of these cuts most in their regional electorates, because they in fact are the greatest beneficiaries of Gonski. They have received on average almost three times the boost to education funding compared to their Liberal counterparts, and more than one and a half times the funding received in Labor electorates. Of course, this makes sense because the model directs funding to areas of greatest need and addresses significant underfunding that regional schools have struggled with for years. In fact the Deputy Prime Minister's seat of New England will be amongst the electorates hardest hit, and yet the Deputy Prime Minister has not voiced a whimper of dissent against this plan.

An opposition member: Shame!

Indeed it is shameful, and neither, however, has the Deputy Speaker Mark Coulton, whose electorate of Parkes is the single-greatest beneficiary of Gonski. It is shameful that the Deputy Prime Minister and his national colleagues in this place have sat back mutely and watched as their own government cuts viciously from schools in their own electorates. With their silence, they are selling out their communities and betraying the children and families they are here to represent.

Labor believes that every child in every school deserves the support they need to reach their full potential. While the Prime Minister has turned his back on needs based funding and has even suggested that the Commonwealth should pull out of funding public schools entirely, Labor understands that the best returns are achieved when we invest in schools and kids that need it most.

It is hard to overstate the importance of education—not only as a basic right but as a key economic enabler. Instead of investing in education in the next generation, the Turnbull government is plundering our schools so they can splash $50 billion of precious public money on a tax cut for big business instead. We know that a sizeable chunk of that tax funded corporate gift will end up in the hands of foreign shareholders. We also know that a further $7.4 billion will be gifted to the four big banks.

I suggest that this is an untenable situation. Before the last election, 31 of Australia's top economists backed in the Gonski as the biggest and best investment for our future generations. That is what this government should be doing, not paying its corporate mates instead.

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