Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is always a pleasure to rise in this House and speak about the importance of education for our community and the wonderful opportunity that we have created in this bill, the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2017, to increase funding over the next 10 years to schools right around Australia. It is my pleasure today to rise in the House to speak in support of this bill, which will provide a needs-based funding model for every school across the country, particularly in my electorate of Forde over the next 10 years.

The Australian Education Amendment Bill 2017, or Gonski 2.0, as it has been colloquially termed, is delivering a real Gonski needs-based funding model that those opposite did not deliver. We are delivering record—and growing—funding for schools. Over the next 10 years, a record $242 billion will be invested in schools recurrent funding from 2018 to 2027, including $81 billion over 2018 to 2021. Funding for schools will grow from a record $17.5 billion in 2027 to $30.6 billion in 2027. The funding, importantly, will grow, on average, faster than broader inflation, with total Commonwealth funding growing by approximately 75 per cent over the next 10 years and funding per student growing at an average of some 4.1 per cent each year. Every school and every student in my electorate of Forde will be better supported well into the future through this school funding model. In my home state of Queensland, schools will receive a funding increase of some 91.5 per cent over the next 10 years. At a national level, funding per student for all sectors will continue to increase in real terms as a result of this truly needs-based funding model.

Importantly, when we came to government after the 2013 election, we were the first to invest additional funds in the Queensland education system through an $800 million investment that those opposite never provided. That went straight to our local schools across Queensland and resulted in programs such as the Great Results Guarantee, which ultimately became, with a change of state government, the Investor Success Program. When I speak with my principals around the schools in my electorate, they speak of how great that additional money has been in helping them run programs specifically tailored to the school cohort. Over the next 10 years, funding for government schools will continue to grow, to nearly $100 billion, from 2018 to 2027.

With this bill, the coalition is putting an end to some 27 special deals with states, territories, unions and the non-government school leaders that have distorted funding needs and would have some schools waiting up to 150 years to get their fair share of school funding support. This school funding plan will mean that schools in my electorate of Forde will receive their fair share of support sooner and will ensure that they do not suffer as a result of Labor's special deals.

While the government believes in a strong level of funding for schools, how that funding is used is just as important. That is why I support the government's new inquiry, led by David Gonski, which will look into improving results for Australian students by focusing on the most effective teaching and learning strategies in an effort to reverse declining results and seek to raise the performance of schools and students. Our reforms are aimed at setting up our schools for the future to deliver a fair needs-based funding model for all Australian students.

Last week I was very pleased to be joined by the Minister for Education in my electorate of Forde, where I represent some 41 schools and around 32½ thousand students. We had the pleasure of visiting Upper Coomera State College, where we met with school leaders and with Principal Chris Capra. The school runs an extremely successful cafe program to give students practical work experience. The minister and I had the pleasure of dropping in for a coffee and asked the students about their cafe and what they were learning from the experience. They shared the enjoyment they are getting from learning those basic, practical work skills. I would like to thank Zarraffa's Coffee franchisees for their support of the cafe and provision of equipment and coffee. It is just like going to any one of my local Zarraffa's stores.

Afterwards we visited the library to join a STEM class with some of the primary school students. The government understands the importance of technology and innovation as the future of Australian industry, and we can see every day the increasing importance that technology and innovation play in our lives. So it is important that our school students are brought up in an environment where they are exposed to technology, coding and a range of other subject areas that, when I went to school, we probably did not even think about. We are supporting our students through initiatives that encourage studies in STEM projects. It was terrific to see the year 6 students try to navigate a sphere through an obstacle that they had to actually program themselves. It was a lot more difficult than it looked. After every exercise, the teacher would change the course, and so they had to reprogram the sphere. Looking at these subjects and what is being done in our schools today, we see the change since I was at school. This is about preparing those kids for the future, for jobs that may not even exist today.

On leaving Upper Coomera State College, we visited Leapfrog Childcare Centre at Ormeau to chat with the educators there. As part of our overall education package, as a separate part of that, it is important that we put in place childcare reforms in this budget as well. This was a great opportunity to discuss those opportunities with our local childcare centre operator. Importantly, when you go and talk to the local childcare centre operators—and even when I talk to the schools, as I do on a regular basis—you discover the increasing level of interaction between our schools and our childcare centres to ensure that the kids who are going through child care are properly ready to go to school. What they are seeing as a consequence of that is the kids' capacity in their early years of school; they are much better adjusted and much better prepared because they have actually gone across to the school and understand a little better what the school environment is really like.

We then held two forums—one with our local school principals and one with local teachers. I am very pleased to say that these forums were very well attended and the feedback we attended was extremely positive. I would like to thank the minister for making himself available to speak with not only our school principals but some of the leading teachers from schools across the electorate of Forde. Principals and teachers alike expressed their satisfaction and their approval of the fact that they actually had an opportunity to speak with the minister directly.

But what was equally important was that we had one of these forums early last year. At that particular forum, we said to the teachers and to the principals in particular that we were focused on a needs-based funding system and that we would be increasing funding above what they were already receiving. Many of these principals had said to me that, with the Great Results Guarantee money that they receive—or Investing for Success (I4S) money as it is now—they were able to run programs that they had not previously been able to run and they wanted to continue those programs. A number of principals at that forum last week shared their pleasure and their delight for their school community and for the students and their teaching staff, who do such a tremendous job every single day. Not only do they now know that they are going to receive at least the same quantum of funding they received previously; we are actually going to increase their funding next year. So not only can they continue their existing programs that are starting to achieve some significant results in their school—in fairness to Queensland Education they have done a really good job of allowing the state school principals to prepare the programs that are applicable to the student cohort in their school—they are not dictated to on how they have to spend the money.

So this additional funding that we are now putting into the system with this bill is only going to build on that fabulous foundation that we as a government put in place as a result of the extra $800 million that we provided to Queensland schools in 2013 after we came to government. It has put at ease the minds of the principals and the teachers, who now know they will have the funding and the capacity to run these very important programs. It is this funding plan, and what we are looking to do with schools more broadly, that has an objective of setting our students on a path to academic excellence and to achieve real needs-based funding for students from all backgrounds in every town and city, in every region and state and in every classroom. It gives the capacity for our schools to run different programs that work for different kids in different situations.

Across my electorate of Forde I have a wide variety of schools, with a wide variety of students from a wide variety of socioeconomic backgrounds and with a wide variety of capacity. I know that schools in my electorate have the capacity to bring in extra teachers or extra support staff to help those students that may be finding the education process a little bit difficult or are struggling with a difficult subject. It is amazing, when I talk to some of these teachers and students, how some students are fabulous in one subject but really struggle with another subject. If the school has these extra resources they can help those kids in those subjects where they may not be so strong. Those kids have the capacity, in the subjects they are strong in, to actually help their fellow students in a collaborative effort we see increasingly in schools. It is not only this encouragement to the teachers and to the principals, but the capacity for students to achieve their best.

This is what this education funding package is all about: recognising the importance of putting in place the resources necessary to ensure that our students who go to our great schools all around the country have the capacity to be their best. It is a reflection of what the budget more generally is designed to do and what this government's objectives are more generally—that is, to create the opportunities for Australians in all walks of live to strive for their goals and to achieve their best. I am proud to be a member of this government which is putting in place a plan for education funding, creating certainty for the next 10 years for the school community across Australia and for those in my electorate of Forde. I do want to see the students in my schools succeed and be their best. I know they have a tremendous contribution to make to the future of this great country. I commend this bill to the House.

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