Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to talk about the Gonski 2.0 funding package and what it will mean to the over 25,000 students and their families in my electorate of Boothby. This landmark reform package overhauls the very messy funding system we inherited from the previous Labor government, which saw 27 individual deals done across Australia. In South Australia we saw one of the worst funding arrangements, with the vast majority of money loaded into the unfunded fifth and sixth years of the deal—money that never existed; typical Labor! Not only did federal Labor fail South Australian students but so did our state Labor government. Their funding decreased in real terms for schools—falling from $2.45 billion to $2.394 billion in 2014-15, a decrease of 2.5 per cent. Thanks to our coalition government and the hard work of the Minister for Education and Training, a fellow South Australian, we now have a stable and uniform needs-based system and funding model that will see over the next 10 years an extra $263 million delivered to schools in my electorate of Boothby alone.

Our school communities in Boothby, including principals, teachers, parents and students, know that our government is delivering a funding model that is fair and equitable. Some of the stand-out examples of better funding for primary school education include Westbourne Park Primary, which will receive an extra $4.5 million, and Edwardstown Primary, which will receive $3.2 million. Colonel Light Gardens Primary, which is where both my grandmother and great-grandmother taught, is receiving an extra $5.1 million in federal funding. Secondary schools in Boothby are also seeing large increases, with Hamilton Secondary College receiving an extra $10.4 million, Aberfoyle Park High School receiving an extra $10.2 million and Brighton Secondary School receiving an extra $14.6 million.

The best story though is that of Suneden Special School, which truly is a very special school. It is quite near my electorate office. This year it celebrated its 50th year of supporting children with the highest needs in our community. These children have very severe disabilities and they need an incredibly high level of support. Suneden will see their funding per student grow from $20,000 a year to $54,000 a year under our funding program. I am so pleased that these high-needs students and their families will reap the benefits of this unprecedented increase in funding. I recently toured the facility with the Minister for Education and Training. We've just supported them with some upgrades to their educational infrastructure, the playground and the classrooms. It is just remarkable. It really is an example of best-practice needs-based support for students who need it most. With such large funding increases across the board, especially for those students who need it most, it makes you wonder how underfunded state Labor and federal Labor were previously leaving these students.

It's not just about how much money we give, of course. Year on year we have been increasing funding to schools but we are still seeing some results decreasing. We understand that it is not just about funding; we need to fix our school education system, which is why we have implemented a number of policies that will ensure we see better educational outcomes for students. We have launched the Quality Schools, Quality Outcomes policy, which is evidence based and aimed at ensuring funding is spent in the most effective way. Our ambitious reform agenda will strengthen teaching and school leadership, develop essential knowledge and skills, improve student participation and parental engagement, and build better evidence and transparency. In particular, the key reforms include a year 1 literacy, numeracy and phonics test to assist in early identification of learning difficulties; initiatives to retain teachers—one of the biggest issues facing the industry—and a focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. I was very pleased to attend last week the launch of a maths conference in my electorate aimed at encouraging maths teachers, who are ambassadors for their fellow teachers and for students, to encourage more people to get involved with maths.

Between our government's increases in funding and targeted outcome-driven policies we will begin to see Australian students learning more and being better equipped for life in the 21st century than ever before. I am grateful to the member for Fisher for bringing this motion to the House today. I congratulate the Minister for Education and Training on his significant achievements in education funding. As somebody who has a brother and a sister who are both teachers and are married to teachers and a mother and a grandmother who were teachers, I really do understand how important our teachers are, how hard they work and what wonderful support they provide to our students.

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