Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank all of those in attendance for coming to hear my contribution. I don't know if they'll stay long—

Ms Price interjecting—

It's hardly my maiden speech. I'm pleased to be able to make a contribution to this debate on the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020. I indicate that we in the Labor Party are supporting the legislation and that I'm also strongly supporting the amendment moved by the shadow minister for education and training. I remind the House that, under this legislation, the funding of non-government schools is a shared responsibility between parents, guardians and the Commonwealth and state and territory governments. Under existing legislation, non-government schools are transitioning to receive a Commonwealth funding share of 80 per cent of the school resourcing standard by 2027. The funding share is to be discounted by a school's capacity-to-contribute percentage, which calculates the capacity of the school community to contribute to the students' education. Certain non-government schools, including the majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander schools, are exempt from the CTC reduction and will receive full base funding.

Since 2001 the CTC had been determined using an area based SES score calculated every five years from census data, with schools assigned a score that is the average of certain SES indicators for the areas in which students reside. This means that the SES score for an area is based on the averaging of the characteristics of all people residing in a certain geographical area, not just the families of the students attending the school. This was the best available data when the measure was implemented.

The new DMI model will be based on the median income of parents and guardians at the school. Schools will collect names and residential addresses for all students, which will be provided to the department of education. The department will then provide the data to the Australian tax office, which will match it against income metadata and provide de-identified income data back to the department. A school's DMI will be based on a three-year rolling average to minimise year-on-year fluctuation. The bill also contains transition measures aimed to smooth the change from the current arrangements to direct measure and minimise adverse impacts.

Over 2020-22 schools will be moved to the new DMI when it is most financially beneficial for them to do so. In 2020 and 2021 schools will be provided with three different options for working out their CTC score. Schools would automatically receive the most beneficial of the three options. The new direct measure will apply to all schools by 2022.

The bill enables adjustments to the rate at which schools move to their 80 per cent Commonwealth SRS share, to smooth out any fluctuations presented by the phased implementation of the DMI methodology. Non-government schools which are transitioning down to an 80 per cent Commonwealth share of SRS will have an extension of two years from 2027 to 2029. All non-government schools will have their starting Commonwealth share reset from 2020 to 2022 to ensure schools are not unnecessarily disadvantaged by moving away from the SES methodology to the new direct measure of income. These transition arrangements are being funded through the $3.4 billion budget allocation. And then there are circumstances where a school can be considered a majority Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school, impacting its funding requirement.

Labor, as I say, is supporting this legislation. We have referred the bill to a Senate inquiry so it receives the scrutiny appropriate for a significant change to legislation such as this.

I should take note that whilst there is broad support across the education sector—I'll come to my concern about the failure to fund the public education system. There is broad support amongst private educators for this legislation. However, I need to point out that there is a coalition of regional independent schools across Australia who are very concerned about this legislation. They've put out a press release under the name of Stephen Higgs, the chair of the Coalition for Regional Independent Schools, and they are very concerned. They say they represent 50 schools from states and territories, and they say they'll be stripped of millions of dollars a year under this new model, forcing them to cut programs, increase fees and, in some instances, potentially close their doors. I've encouraged those schools to make representations to the minister. Clearly there are opportunities within the way in which the legislation's been framed for the minister to make exceptions and to deal with the concerns raised by these particular individual schools.

The problem I've got is that, while we're pumping $3.4 billion into the private education system, we're not putting a similar amount into the public education system.

See this speech in context