Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I know that the member for Fisher was elected only in the most recent election so he might be forgiven for not knowing the history of Gonski reforms and for not knowing that the previous Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, before the 2013 election committed to the full funding of the Gonski reforms. There was not a sliver of paper between Liberal and Labor on education and yet what we have before us now is a motion that seeks praise for a $22.3 billion cut from that trajectory—there will be $22.3 billion less for schools than was agreed by the previous Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, in the final days before the election in 2013. When you spread that $22.3 billion out and you look at the effects on local schools in my electorate of Parramatta, it is $18 million less for the 33 government schools over two years alone. The schools that are hit hardest are the schools that can least afford to be hit at all. We have Arthur Phillip High School losing $622,000 in 2018 and $1.38 million in 2019—so just over $2 million will be cut from Arthur Phillip High School. Parramatta Public School will lose $504,000 in 2018 and faces a cut of nearly $600,000 in 2019. That is $1.1 million less than they would have received if this government kept its commitment in 2013 to fully fund the Gonski reforms. Granville Boys High School has 566 students from some of the most disadvantaged families in our community. It will receive $337,000 less in 2018 and $750,000 less in 2019. It is hard to imagine why anyone on the government side would stand up and seek praise for these reforms, because they do represent a $22.3 billion cut from the promise they made in 2013.

The member for Fisher also said taxpayer fund are not limitless. That is one of their excuses for cutting this money, but you can't on one hand say you can't afford to meet that $22.3 billion promise for schools and on the other hand give a corporate tax cut of $50 billion over the same period—a tax cut that will cost $15 billion per year each year after that. You can't say, 'We didn't have the money to meet our commitments and fully honour the Gonski agreement' while on the other hand give a tax cut of over twice that size to the big end of town. We really are seeing here a government that's taking from the future of our children to fund corporate tax cuts for some of the biggest businesses in Australia. It is not just the government schools, either. Catholic education leaders have been speaking out about this plan to cut funding from the trajectory. When you look at schools like Holy Family and St Oliver's you see that the systemic Catholic schools do not charge high fees, they are not wealthy schools—they need funding clarity and certainty. They have been well and truly speaking out against this government's plans. The government's decision to exclude systemic Catholic schools, even from the consultation process, rang alarm bells. Again, the member for Fisher wouldn't remember that the Gonski reforms took years of negotiating. There were years of consultation when we went out and talked to schools, to parents and to state governments about what schools actually needed.

Under these reforms, as this government calls them, only one in seven public schools will reach their fair funding level after 10 years. They remove the extra funding agreed with states and territories for 2018-19, which would have brought many of those under-resourced schools up to their fair funding level and it locks in sector specific payments of 80 per cent for non-government schools and just 20 per cent for government schools. It is the very opposite of a sector-blind movement and the very opposite of what children in our communities need. Any member of parliament who goes out to some of their poorer schools in the most disadvantaged areas will know that the government's plan for schooling is a giant fail. (Time expired)

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