Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What an Orwellian nightmare education policy has been these last four years under this government. I think we all remember the former Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, standing in front of the cameras and saying they were going to be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions and no cuts to the ABC and SBS. It was like a litany of broken promises that then proceeded forth under the policy implementation phases of this government. Of course, we all remember those corflutes out around our electorates saying, 'The Liberals will match Labor's education funding dollar for dollar.' There was no little asterisk or footnote that said, 'But only through the forward estimates—not the full Gonski plan.' There was no qualification on that commitment. Obviously the community went forward on that basis, assuming that those commitments would be met, and were brutally disappointed with what happened during the backtracking on that policy. We heard this rhetoric: 'Funding isn't relevant to the education dilemma we face in this country. It's not important. It's a complete mistake to think that money has anything to do with this.' That rhetoric never satisfied the public. It never met the truth test for the public.

Of course now what we have seen from this Prime Minister and this government, in this next Orwellian phase, is that they have done the alcoholic's thing and recognised that there is a problem, saying, 'Yes, needs based funding is important, and funding is a part of the equation.' We have had this complete backflip from all the rhetoric that we heard over the last few years, and they have admitted that there is a problem. But then they say, 'But it doesn't need the funding levels that Labor has committed to and, by the way, if you are saying there is a cut, a difference, there isn't.' But we know there is from an exact quote from the Liberal Party document that announced this latest version of their policy. The words are very clear:

Compared to Labor's arrangements, this represents a savings of … $22.3 billion over 10 years

There is no question that this is a cut to the full national plan that Labor had introduced—the National Plan for School Improvement—to the schooling resource standard and to the fair funding level that Labor had agreed on with the stakeholders of 95 per cent of the school resourcing standard. That is the truth of the matter. That was the commitment Labor made and the arrangements that were entered into.

As the Leader of the Opposition mentioned, we always talk about sovereign risk in breaking agreements in the Defence contracting sector. Here was a massive sovereign risk issue that relates to the most fundamental problem that our nation faces. We heard all this wonderful rhetoric from the Prime Minister about the new economy, about being agile and about innovation and start-up support—all this stuff about the Industrial Revolution 4.0—but typically with this Prime Minister there was no substance following behind that. There was no recognition that, if that is the economy that we want, if that is the challenge that we face, then the most important investment that we can make is in knowledge infrastructure.

That has been compounded with a savage assault at both state and federal level on our TAFEs. Just recently we saw reports in New South Wales that there is a skills shortage of up to 54,000 workers, according to businesses in New South Wales. I spoke this morning about the shipbuilding part of the budget this year we have seen from the government. They talk about the great shipbuilding plan ahead while we have lost thousands of skilled workers in that space because of the failure of the government to bridge the gap—the so-called death valley—by bringing supply vessel construction home to Australia. The problem in meeting that skills shortage will be: where are they going to go to meet that demand? If they continue to savagely attack the TAFEs in the way they have, there is going to be a big issue there. That hurts nowhere more savagely than the rural and regional areas.

Coming back to this bill, that is one of the keys to that original plan. The original National Plan for School Improvement was really focused on particular programs. The funding was not there for its own sake; it funded the National Schools Partnership continuation, rural and regional loadings, Indigenous kids' loadings and disabled kids' loadings. These were critical programs. I have watched what transformations were achieved in schools in my region, in places such as Bega Public and Eden Public. We have significant challenges in schools like that. We have high levels of Indigenous kids. This is making a real difference. The full application of this program is so critical.

We cannot argue with the effect on New South Wales schools. I have a spreadsheet here of the 65 schools in Eden-Monaro that have been savagely affected by these cuts. This information comes from the New South Wales government. These 65 schools will lose $11.5 million in the next two years. To back that up, we have had the New South Wales Minister for Education, Rob Stokes, claim that this new policy will result in 'millions and millions less than we were expecting into schools in New South Wales over the next two years'. That was the New South Wales education minister. He is, of course, a coalition party person. The New South Wales Department of Education secretary, Mark Scott, wrote to all principals, stating the state education system stands to lose $846 million in 2018 and 2019.

In my own electorate of Eden-Monaro, the Deputy Premier of New South Wales and member for Monaro, Mr John Barilaro, has produced a petition for his constituents calling on the federal government to fully fund this program in the budget. So we have the Deputy Premier of New South Wales now running a petition to call on this government to meet those agreements it had with the state.

That is also being echoed by the New South Wales P&C Federation, which on 3 May said, 'We are adamant that the Federal Government must not renege on the funding promised under the Gonski agreement signed in 2013.' The Australian Education Union has called on Minister Birmingham and said:

Not only does Minister Birmingham have no plan to ensure all students attend a school with enough resources, he doesn't seem to care if they do.

…   …   …

Malcolm Turnbull has effectively abandoned the most disadvantaged schools and their students.

So we have heard from the ministers, we have heard from P&C and we have heard from party officials within the state of New South Wales. They have been saying this for quite some time now, including going back to Premier Mike Baird and his days in office.

I will take as an example a school like Karabar High School, which runs a very important distance education centre which services and supports a lot of students in my remoter areas of Eden-Monaro. Without that distance education function, they would not be getting specific educational support in particular subject areas that are not available to them because they do not have access to the teachers. I can imagine it is not easy to get a Japanese education teacher to come and teach in a remote high school in Eden-Monaro. This distance education centre function has really done a fantastic job of filling those holes. Karabar High is going to lose $980,000 over the next two years. Bega High is similar; they are the two worst-affected schools in my region. Queanbeyan South, with its very large Indigenous population of students, is really critically dependent upon this funding. This is going to really savagely hurt my schools. There is no question about it. These schools will feel it and understand that they are going to feel it.

When we talk about achieving these funding levels, I think one of the worst aspects of this is—one of the hidden features which is really something that underpins a lot of the faults in the budget the government has just produced—is that, in terms of the indexing mechanism, 75 per cent of the growth calculation is based on this assumption and forecast of a 3.3 per cent wage growth increase through this period that is forecast in the budget. That is beyond heroic. It contrasts dramatically with the mechanism that Labor set, which was not an indexation to wage growth; it was a set-in-concrete 3.6 per cent growth mechanism. This 3.3 per cent wage mechanism also underpins a fatal flaw in this program, which will be revealed in time—unless, of course, we can change governments in the meantime and get this policy back on track.

Many of my colleagues have also referred to the Catholic system. This is a critical issue in my region as well. A lot of the schools in the ACT have really been savaged by these cuts. I do not think people fully appreciate or understand—certainly, the government does not—that a lot of the lower socioeconomic group families in my region send their kids to Catholic schools in the ACT, so that SES sort of mechanism does not actually capture the full story for the schoolkids that they support in my region. Kids from Yass, Murrumbateman, Gundaroo, Sutton, Braidwood, Bungendore, Captains Flat, Cooma, Michelago and Bredbo all come to schools in the ACT—quite a lot of them. In fact, it is quite a startling figure for Queanbeyan. It is somewhere around 67 per cent of the high school kids from Queanbeyan who go across the border for school. That is largely to schools like St Clare's College, St Edmund's College and Mary MacKillop College.

Mary MacKillop College is a great example. It provides fantastic support for our kids with disabilities from the region. They would not have been able to find that support in any other place. The principal of Mary MacKillop College is wonderful man who is doing a terrific job at that school. He came to the large gathering we had at St Clare's College a few weeks ago, which was just packed out. The parents there were just packed to the rafters, concerned about these cuts to the schools. Principal Michael Lee brought along one of the disabled kids to highlight how this particular child was going to be affected by these cuts.

Since then, Michael is also posted an open letter to the parents of Mary MacKillop students. It is quite startling. It is right on the front page of the Mary MacKillop College website. I recommend people go and visit it. This letter from principal Michael Lee to the parents says:

I have tried to communicate with you in a calm and informed manner and have passed on information from CE Director Ross Fox and the NCEC. Some things to remember:

1.The base funding of all students at MacKillop has been frozen for 10 years and then will be cut. This includes students with disabilities. This was confirmed to me over the phone by Minister Birmingham's office. This is a disgrace and is not fair!

2.After 10 years, MacKillop's funding will be cut by $777 per student, a net loss of $4.6m.

3.Over the same period, Canberra Girls' Grammar will receive additional funding of $8.8m. I do not begrudge CGGS getting this money but it does not fit any fairness test in my mind and does make one question the Prime Minister's claim that the Gonski 2.0 model is "fair for all."

That is a telling point from the principal.

He finishes, in the last paragraph of that letter to his parents, with stating:

… Clearly the Gonski 2.0 funding model is unraveling as the government's figures change and are challenged.

They are doing their best to work within the situation that they are confronted with. The confusion, the chaos and the uncertainty that has been thrown into school planning around this is incalculable. The impact on the development of curricula and the establishment and support for the courses that students in our region need is now under a massive question mark.

This is just not right. We have put many options on the table for budgetary savings. We are prepared to be cooperative and collaborative with this government to find those savings and to work together across the table to achieve that. Of course, there is going to be political argy-bargy and all of these things, but this is an area where I think we could sit around a table and seek some agreement. This is funding that is absolutely critical.

We know right now that we are falling behind our region. We are seeing a world where change is dramatic. Moore's Law from the computer sphere is now applying across many areas and sectors, none more so than education. We are seeing the development of the concepts of through-life learning that are so important, because the evolution and dramatic changes within workplaces and the careers of our kids will be dramatic. We need to be able to focus on giving our kids the analytical, imaginative and cognitive skills and tools that they will need to meet the challenging world ahead of them and to provide the framework imaginatively in our education structures that enables them to have that lifelong learning capability. If we are going to set the pension age at 70, unless we provide that through-life education support, then we are joking. We will not be providing the sort of society and future that our kids need and deserve.

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