Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to speak on the Education Legislation Amendment (2019 Measures No. 1) Bill 2019 before the House today, as I, like many of my colleagues on this side, take education seriously. I only wish those on the other side of the chamber shared that sentiment. I'll speak a little bit about that later in the course of my remarks on this bill today. I'm very proud to represent the south-west corridor of Brisbane and Ipswich, where there are around 53 schools, which I have the pleasure of representing. At each one of these schools there are amazing principals, amazing teachers, amazing support staff, amazing cleaners and, of course, amazing students. Every principal or teacher I speak to is in it for exactly the same reason—the kids—be they prep teachers with our young five and six-year-olds, just starting school, learning the alphabet and learning to count, right through to the amazing and wonderful teachers who support our year 12s, who have just come out of the fire of year 12, their final year of schooling, before heading off to university or TAFE or to begin their careers. All of them believe in the value of a good education. All of them put their students first to ensure they have the best chance of success. I'm also really proud to acknowledge the work of each and every one of the educators in my electorate, in particular my sister Susan, who has been an educator for over 30 years. Like thousands of teachers across the country, she loves her job and puts her heart and soul into it every single day. Like many teachers, she works long hours, often into the night, and is not afraid to call me day or night with her great ideas about how we can improve education. On my phone, as the member for Blaxland would appreciate, the ring tone when she calls me is Darth Vader. I am fully aware of her frontline experience and I value it every single day.

We as members of parliament are charged with the duty of ensuring our schools, principals, teachers and students receive the support they need, which brings me back to the bill we are considering today. The bill makes amendments to several pieces of education legislation—namely, the Higher Education Support Act 2003, the Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (Student Loan Sustainability) Act and the VET Student Loans Act. As the shadow minister, the member for Sydney, has indicated, we will not be opposing the changes put forward by the government but I do want to speak strongly on the second reading amendment by the member for Sydney, which outlines the significant concerns we have on this side of the House about the government's long track record of failure after failure when it comes to supporting our schools and students. It is not an issue we hear the Prime Minister speak about a lot and we don't hear a lot of commentary from the government. We note that, if the government were committed to giving kids in the most remote schools, and indeed all schools, the best chance to get ahead, they would be adopting, as we've heard from the previous speaker, Labor's sector-blind, needs based approach to funding, which would have seen the most disadvantaged schools get the most funding in the shortest amount of time. But, as facts speak for themselves, that sadly is not the case. Like so many times before, this government has shown they aren't serious when it comes to supporting our schools. If they were fair dinkum, every public school in the nation would be sharing in an additional $14 billion to support needs based learning and development. The attitude from this government is: schools have enough. Public schools educate two-thirds of students in this country. Just over 2½ million children attend fantastic local public schools. In particular, it's public schools that educate the majority of kids in poorer families, children with a disability and Indigenous kids.

I want to ask a question of the government: why doesn't the government give these schools the proper funding they deserve? We've got classrooms that desperately need IT and infrastructure upgrades to keep up with the learning needs of the 21st century. We have teachers who dig into their own pockets just to buy the supplies needed for kids in their classrooms. We have principals pleading for funding so that they can plan for the future in order to ensure our growing population has the education needed to meet demand. In fact, a recent school infrastructure report estimates an additional 229,000 school-aged children will live in Queensland by 2036.

I recognise the work of the Palaszczuk Queensland Labor government in doing all it can to support this growth with $705.3 million in the 2019-20 state budget allocated for recurrent funding grants and a further $100 million allocated for capital assistance grants for non-state schools. Since 2015, Education Queensland has delivered 13 new schools in the fastest-growing areas of the state. We hear a lot from the opposition about alternative approaches, which is the robotic response to everything, so what was the alternative response before 2015, before those horrid, toxic three years of the failed experiment of the Newman government? It was to close schools. It was to shut schools down, sell off land, sack teachers and sack teacher aides. That was the commitment of the LNP, and it's still the commitment of the LNP in the state in which you were a former minister, in that failed government, Mr Deputy Speaker Hogan. You know, Mr Deputy Speaker, and each and every member of the LNP in Queensland knows, that was utterly rejected. That approach to slashing, sacking and cutting services has been rejected by Queenslanders.

I'm very proud to be a member of a party that, in a state government, has not closed schools and has not sold off land but has built schools, delivered schools and increased funding for educators in our state. We saw the terrible example of the state LNP leader, Ms Frecklington, criticising teachers getting a pay rise. I think it's a brave politician who turns up to a school in his or her electorate and says, 'You don't deserve a pay rise. We think you don't work hard enough.' That is not acceptable if we are to be a smart, educated nation. We heard examples from this side of the chamber when the member for Bowman talked about teachers having too many holidays. We heard the member for Bowman saying—

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