Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to speak on the education legislation that is currently before the House, the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2017, and I notice in the galleries upstairs we have a number of school students visiting Parliament House. For their benefit, I think we should say that the investment in education is the best investment that we can make because every dollar we spend on these students is an investment not only in them so that they can fulfil their potential and to give them a world of opportunity in the future, but also because they will provide an opportunity for us—the future of our country. Therefore, we should acknowledge those visiting today but also acknowledge the fact that they have a very significant role to play in the future of this country and that is why this parliament should be fixated on what we have got to do about investing in education and it should not just be going through this spurious argument that is taking place at the moment where, when they say they are putting money into education, in fact they are not fulfilling what is required for needs based funding.

I have heard member after member on the other side talking about the contributions that have been made to local schools. I would like to read what the secretary of the New South Wales Department of Education, Mr Mark Scott, said in relation to that. He said: 'The Commonwealth budget contains an increase of $820 million to NSW schools, but there remains a shortfall of $1.8 billion.' The Liberal Minister for Education in New South Wales has certainly made his comments very succinctly. He said:

We made sure we found the funds we needed to meet the obligations under the agreement we signed in good faith with the commonwealth government …

We have funded the full six years of our agreement with the commonwealth.

… we come in good faith, we have a deal with the commonwealth government and we expect that deal to be honoured.

The New South Wales government did enter, in good faith, an opportunity for investing in education into the future.

Now we see the government making war on the systemic Catholic schools, the parish schools. We have had His Grace Archbishop Fisher saying that schools will be forced to dramatically increase their fees and some may be forced to close. For systemic Catholic schools, it is funding a system: they do take money from richer, more prosperous areas and invest it in areas of low socioeconomic status where parents may be on low incomes and so might find it harder to pay school fees. They offer faith-based education, but they certainly want to make sure it is affordable education. Mrs Christine Scanlon, the principal of the All Saints Catholic Primary School in my electorate, said: 'The problem with this government is they don't understand how Catholic systemic education works.'

Debate interrupted.

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