Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020—a bill that alters the way non-government school funding is allocated, in that it seeks to introduce a new method of calculating a family's capacity to contribute to the cost of their child's private education. I state up-front that Labor will not oppose this bill, but I would advise the House to also support the member for Sydney's amendment.

The legislation before the chamber is a significant departure from the current funding allocation arrangements, so the Labor Party has referred this legislation to the Senate's Education and Employment Legislation Committee to ensure that it receives proper scrutiny. It would be a speedy inquiry because there is some urgency because of some GST complications. Nevertheless, we do need to have a look at it. We do need to get this right. It is important. All members of parliament would care about our children's education. I say that from my previous life before I became a lawyer, when I spent 11 years as a high school English teacher. I've always seen education as the great transformational opportunity in life. It's the wonder of Australia that we provide strong, solid education for all. It is why, traditionally, we've been a very egalitarian society. Since we've provided funding to all, whether they be in the bush or the city, all Australian kids should be able to receive a world-class education. But the change being put forward by the coalition is significant. It would calculate the capacity to pay based on a direct measurement of family income using de-identified ATO information for the actual parents at a school, rather than the average of the neighbourhood in which the students live, which is basically calculated by census collection districts data. This reform was recommended by the independent National School Resourcing Board and, before that, by the original Gonski review.

Labor supports this move. It provides a more accurate and reliable measurement of a school community's capacity to contribute to the cost of education in non-government schools. Currently, if there is an elite school and a low-fee school in the same neighbourhood, parents coming from the same neighbourhood would receive basically the same socioeconomic status score, even if one school takes in all the students from the low-income families and the other school takes in all the students from the very wealthy families. Under this new arrangement proposed in the bill, the low-fee school's capacity-to-contribute score would be lower due to the lower incomes of the actual families whose children attend that school. The elite school's capacity-to-contribute score would increase because the families with children at that school can afford to contribute more to the cost of their children's private education.

I'll give a specific example of a school that I know well—St Brendan's Catholic Primary School in Moorooka, a school not far from my house that one of many two sons attended. I know St Brendan's church. It was where my parents were married and it's was where my mother was buried. So I know that church well and I know the school well—Mrs Cole and all those who do great work there. St Brendan's Moorooka in the southern suburbs of Brisbane only has 70 students, but almost half the students, 46 per cent, are from the most disadvantaged educational background. Forty per cent have a language background other than English and 17 per cent have a medically diagnosed disability. Under the current SES scoring system, St Brendan's has a score of 102, putting it above the national average, which is not actually a true reflection of the school community. The DMI score puts St Brendan's at the minimum level of capacity to contribute, which more realistically reflects the situation of the school community, meaning increased funding would flow to St Brendan's. I should say that my children do not go to that school now, so I'm at some length from it. On the face of it, there have been many stories like the story of St Brendan's. The implementation of this change should mean a fairer funding distribution within non-government schools compared to what currently occurs.

As I've said, the Labor Party have sent this bill to a Senate inquiry to make sure it will work as intended and have a fairer distribution of funding to non-government schools. I do note that there is some capacity for the minister to do something like the old funding maintain deal under previous quadrenniums of education funding for schools that miss out. Some might call it an education slush fund, but I wouldn't be that unkind. It would be for the minister to make sure that schools that are worse off in that gradual transition can be accommodated. So we might see people writing off to the minister.

As a former teacher, I absolutely agree that school funding should be guided by need. It should be the basics for every student in Australia and then loadings based on need. That's an appropriate way to approach education. Although this bill is intended to make funding for non-government schools fairer, sadly, it will not do a single thing to make funding for public schools fairer. I want to focus on public schools because, remember, public schools educate two out of three Australian children. Around 2½ million Australian students go to a public school. Some go to both, but 2½ million Australian lives are going to be impacted by government decisions. Public schools educate not just two out of three but 80 per cent of the disadvantaged students, 82 per cent of the poorest kids, 84 per cent of Indigenous Australians and 74 per cent of kids with disabilities. So that's not two in three; it's well and truly above.

Unfortunately, public schools get the least help from this government. Public schools are not the priority of the Morrison government. They haven't been the priority of the Abbott government or the Turnbull government. The Liberals and the Nationals will only fund public schools to 20 per cent of the schooling resource standards, but they fund private schools up to 80 per cent. In fact, this government's plan is for public schools to never, ever reach 100 per cent of the schooling resource standards, the costs associated with educating a student. They will make sure that non-government schools are funded to 100 per cent of the SRS—and some above—but not public schools. Public schools can only ever expect, under this government's watch, to get to 95 per cent, and some of those will be lucky to get there.

How can Australia's schooling system be so unequal when it has been the foundation for an egalitarian society? This is a fundamental departure, I would suggest. Under their agreements, by 2023 almost all private schools will be funded at or above their fair level of funding, but almost all public schools will remain below it. That's not sector-blind, needs based funding. Remember what Gonski was talking about: sector-blind, needs based funding. That was the philosophy. That was what the economic driver was. That's what Gonski recognised as a banker—remember, he wasn't a teacher; he was banker who saw the economic benefits in investing in education. And where do you get best bang for your buck? By having sector-blind, needs based funding.

The coalition government is not even trying to reflect some level of equality. Every parent knows that school funding is important. I could go through my private schools and my state schools. All parents are passionate about their children receiving the best possible education. I know that they give up their time to run lamington drives, to have sausage sizzles, to have trivia nights and raffles. They don't do it for the fun of it; they do it to give their children a better chance in life. I know that every dollar counts when it comes to educating our children. This government is happy to spend $3.4 billion to deliver targeted, needs based funding for private schools, but they refuse to provide a single dollar extra for underfunded public schools.

Before the next member of the coalition jumps up and says, 'We're spending record amounts in education,' I remind them of the basic mathematics that there is a record number of Australians now. Of course you're spending record amounts of funding in schools; there are more Australians than there have ever been before. The Grattan Institute has argued that teacher wages and increases in student numbers have meant public schools have not had a real increase in funding. We know that this year more students are enrolling in public schools than in any other sector. The growth numbers are in some of those areas such as disability. The increase has been greater than the general population increase.

What does this mean? It has implications for resources—not only teaching resources, not only physical resources but the physical classrooms and buildings needed to accommodate the extra 150 students over the past five years. An ABC investigation into public schools last August found there was an urgent demand in public schools for basic facilities such as new classrooms, toilet maintenance, leaking roofs, heating and cooling. It is not unreasonable for a parent to expect that their local public school will have adequate classrooms, adequate bathroom facilities, roofs that don't leak, classrooms that are not so uncomfortable that children can't concentrate to learn. These are basic requirements for learning. Coming from Queensland, where it does get a bit warm in summer, I particularly appreciate the commitment by the Palaszczuk government to provide air conditioning in schools. That is a great commitment to providing top-class schools.

Every child deserves a good education. Teaching resources are obviously critically important as well. The inequality that is being entrenched in school funding agreements comes at a time when we have seen a long-term decline in students' reading, mathematics and science skills. Australian students have recorded the worst results in reading, maths and science since international testing began. I remind you that we are in the 7th year of this coalition government. Our schoolkids are now around a year behind in these basic subjects. Australia has fallen behind the Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland and Estonia. If no action is taken to reverse these falling standards, Australia's performance in maths will be the fifth worst in the developed world by 2030. In reading Australia would drop to 23rd and in science Australia would drop to 31st. In short, we would have slumped from one of the best performers in the world to one of the worst. This is alarming, and the Morrison government should be addressing this decline urgently. They are now in their 7th year of government: seven long years of wasted opportunities, and they have done nothing to turn around these plummeting results. If our kids are not learning to read, write and do maths and science, this government is failing our kids and failing Australia. They are failing the ageing Australians who will need the jobs of the future that come with those STEM-type subjects.

We know that funding is important to address this decline. When Labor was in government, we started to see improvements at the school level because we demanded that schools spent the extra funding well. I can give you many concrete examples. I will particularly point to Kuraby State School in my electorate. They are a strong culturally and linguistically diverse community, and they are making investments in early education, as so many state schools do, where they turn kids around so quickly and the benefits come later in life. At Eagleby South State School—not in my electorate, but I wanted to mention it, because it is not too far from my electorate of Moreton—they hired and trained extra reading aides and introduced a new reading program. The year 6 and 7 reading age at that school went from 50 per cent up to 70 per cent. They are real changes.

This government seems incapable of addressing the decline in the literacy and numeracy standards of Australian schoolchildren, so I'll give you a few tips. Most of this is really common sense. We need to get back to basics. You need to learn to read before you can read to learn. We need to raise teacher entry standards so we can have the best and brightest people teaching our children. We know that the best performing schools take teachers from the top 30 per cent of achievers. Teaching should not be a last choice; it should be something that people are proud to do. We need to use evidence, like we do in medicine, so we teach the basics well, and obviously we need to properly and fairly fund all of our schools. We need to have targets and a plan to get there—for instance, a target that Australia is placed in the top five countries internationally in reading, mathematics and science by 2025. Labor had actually agreed to a detailed plan with the states to improve school performance in reading, maths and science in 2013, but the new coalition government under Tony Abbott junked that plan in late 2013, calling it red tape. They are in their 7th year of government now. Children who started primary school back when the Abbott government came in are now in high school. What have they done? They have locked in unfair funding. They think the schools with the greatest need deserve the least amount of funding.

The coalition's failure to address these alarming declines in educational standards is not only failing our children but has long-term implications for Australia's economy. There is evidence that a 1 per cent change in literacy is associated with a 2.5 per cent change in labour productivity. The economy under this coalition government is already in strife. Living standards have been eroded by stagnant wages, falling private investment, stalling productivity, record high underemployment and household debt. Economic growth is at its slowest since the global financial crisis, and more headwinds are coming our way. It doesn't bode well for Australia's future when the Liberal government can't get the basics right for our economy and it can't get the basics right for our education system.

The Morrison government has no plan to address any of the challenges that are facing this country—no plan to fix the economy, no plan to address the decline in educational standards and no plan to properly fund all schools. We need a leader, but all we have is fluff and spin and shiny, glossy brochures. I support this bill, but I also support the amendment moved by the member for Sydney, noting the government has damaged Australia's schooling system. I commend this amendment to the House.

(Quorum formed)

See this speech in context