Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As the seconder of this amendment I am pleased to speak on it. The appropriation bill before us does some important things. I would note, firstly, that it is the seventh year of this government. Since they took office their penchant in education has been to always be focused on the numbers and rarely focused on the outcomes. This bill puts in place a change in the funding regime that is limited to the independent school sector, where it would cover non-government schools—that is independent and Catholic schools.

The bill in itself and the move to implement the new system, which allows the assessment of each school and its parents' capacity to make a contribution to that education, is a much finer discretionary tool than the one we currently have, which uses the SES which is built into the ICSEA scale. I would support this bill simply on the fact that it rights an aberration that has been long held in the Commonwealth funding of non-government schools. That is the aberration that allows somebody to set up an independent school in a low socioeconomic area with no intention of drafting students from that low socioeconomic area but attracting significant Commonwealth funding on the back of their geography. To be specific, I think of Geelong, where we have a school in a low socioeconomic area of Corio that attracts enormous Commonwealth funding which does not reflect the nature of the students in that school or their parents' capacity to pay, quite bluntly.

In that sense I think this is a good amendment. I know that some of the independent and Catholic schools in my area would welcome this. I've spoken to them at length. As someone who was a school principal, I understand the funding models that we're using here and I understand the demography of a school and how that, with parents' capacity to make a contribution, often impacts on what a school can offer in terms of its broad facilities. There are many schools in my community in the seat of Lalor that are what we call low-fee schools, which may be independent, Catholic—I think of two Muslim schools in my community—growing schools with large numbers of students and large numbers of families for whom that's a choice. I know that this will make a difference to them, because it will allow the use of people's actual incomes to help determine the funding model that will be in place.

But I want to make a clear point about that as well. We know from what the government has provided us that it's going to make a difference to a considerable number of schools and that there's going to be an adjustment period. It's going to make a considerable difference to a number of schools. There are I think 810 private schools that will be better funded because of this discrete measure and 59 schools, I think, that will lose money. I assume that the school in Corio will be on that list and will find itself not funded to the extent that it has been. That is, quite bluntly, outrageous and this is the first attempt the government has made to change any of that.

This measure will be most accurate where most of the student population's parents are PAYG salary or wage earners and are paying tax as they go, because their taxable income has fewer deductions. We know what they're earning, we know what their taxable income is and we all know that there are many fewer variations that they can have in establishing their taxable income. For those families that are in business, let's say, it may not be as accurate. I expect that in communities like mine this will be a fairly accurate indicator. Further, I'd go to the point that has been made in Victoria time and time again, which is that this is about a family's capacity to pay. For the private sector, that's a reasonable basis to be funding schools on. But we know in Victoria through our government system that the best indicator of a child's projected outcomes in education is parental education levels, which shape parental attitudes to school, which shape student attitudes to school. The more highly educated the parent body is, the more likely it is that the school will achieve higher outcomes. This was the beginning of the understanding, the beginning of the regime that saw Labor pursue a sector-blind, needs based approach. This legislation adjusts something to support non-government schools but flies in the face of that integral part of a needs based, sector-blind system. It does something but it does not add one cent to government schools from the Commonwealth, it does nothing to change the inequity that we see in our school system and it therefore does nothing to improve the quality of our education overall.

If we asked most Australians if they wanted a world-class education system they'd say yes. If we asked most Australians if they wanted a fairer Australia they'd say yes. If we asked most Australians if they wanted to grow the economy and created a more prosperous society they'd say yes. But what this piece of legislation highlights, in the fact that it is focused purely on the non-government sector and adds not one more dollar to the public sector, is that those opposite say 'no' to all of those questions. That's what this legislation does. It reminds us that when those opposite had an opportunity they voted against equality. They voted against a world-class education system, because they voted against a system that was going to be sector blind and needs based. They are now seeing it in sector terms as this legislation demonstrates to us so clearly. They are seeing it in sector terms, not as an opportunity to develop Australia's world-class education system. I say that because this government has abandoned all reform in the education space other than monetary reform. This legislation before us highlights that again. It's about monetary reform. It's about parents' capacity to pay. It is not about creating positive educational cultures. It is not about ensuring that every child in our school system is supported so that they can achieve their potential. That's not what this legislation is about. This legislation is about dollars and cents, and that is all it's about. It's not about education at all.

I want to make that point really clearly: the amendment goes to the government's failure—to their neglect of public education. The bill speaks to that, in the absence of public education being included. It goes to the fact that our standards are slipping and they have abandoned the reform agenda—absolutely abandoned it. If it hasn't got a dollar sign in it, they're not interested in it. They're only interested in ensuring that the status quo—that is, the inequality entrenched into our school system—stays where it is. That's what they're committed to, and they've failed to come up with a long-term education policy for the nation and the economy. There's nothing clearer than the fact that we're here today. They're implementing an idea that has been around for a decade, after seven years in government. Seven years in government, and now they're going to implement this simple measure that could have made a difference and could have changed significantly the waiting, even in the non-government sector.

The other part that we need to highlight in this bill is that 810 private schools will be better off under this measure, or more 'fairly funded' under this measure—fairly funded purely through the lens of the private sector—and 59 will lose funding. But then we go to the detail and we find that there's going to be a two-year transition period. These 59 schools are transitioning again. This is going to implement a system that says, 'These parents in this school have the capacity to make this kind of a contribution.' So why do we need two years to do that? It brings to mind all of the rhetoric that we heard when this government tore up the sector-blind, needs based funding model. They tore it up, and we were all in this chamber when that happened, when they voted not to do the right thing. It absolutely tore up our chance of getting the kind of equality we need for a first-class education for all of our students, and the rhetoric was around the 27 deals. We kept hearing the Prime Minister at that time, Malcolm Turnbull, talking about the 27 separate deals and how they were going to do a better job. Now they're going to enter into, possibly, 59 separate deals with 59 individual schools to transition across to a new funding model. So 27 arrangements with different sectors and different states was too much to bear, but we're going to build this system and then we're going to have an opportunity for schools that are worse off to transition.

I want to look at schools that are worse off and the options that are being put in place here, because some of it's quite unbelievable. 'Over 2020 to 2022, schools will move to the new direct measure. In 2020 and 2021, schools will be provided with three different options for working out their capacity to make a contribution score. Schools will automatically receive the most beneficial of these three options.' I ask myself: what year is it? My answer is: it's 2020. 'The first option is to use the current SES methodology using the 2011 census data'—2011 census data! The second option is the 2016 census data and the third option is the new system. Whichever one works best for that school, they can move into it. For a start, I don't know how the 2011 census data can possibly be relevant in this case. It seems to me that the government is hell-bent on making a change with this legislation, but making the fall as soft as it can across the sector, because it doesn't want to come here and tell us that it had to make 59 separate arrangements with 59 private schools to make this work. So it's set up a fudge, if you like, around that process. The fact of the matter is that a fund goes with this legislation where those schools may be able to appeal this process and sit down with someone in government and figure out how they might transition across. That means how they might not lose money—how they might ensure that they continue to be funded in an inequitable way.

Everyone in this place knows my background. Everyone in this place knows that I spent 27 years in public education. Everyone in this place knows that it saddens me every time I come in here to speak about education that the focus from those opposite is not on reform. It is not on a scientific approach to our classrooms. It is not about building teacher capacity. It is not about supporting schools to do the best work that they can do. No, it's about money. On this side, the money arguments are actually about building equality into the system. The money arguments are about supporting reform to ensure that every child gets every chance in every school in this country.

To emphasise that, in 2019, there were 3,948,811 students enrolled in 9,503 schools across this country. Of those students, two-thirds were enrolled in government schools, 19½ per cent enrolled in Catholic schools and 14.18 per cent enrolled in independent schools. In this place, all this Commonwealth government wants to do is suggest that the Commonwealth funds private schools while states fund public schools. Well, if we want a world-class education for every child in this country, it will require federal action. It will require Commonwealth attention, because otherwise the state-to-state variation is going to hold our children back. It supports the fact that the in-school difference and the between-school difference are already holding our children back. Our slipping of standards and our slipping of achievement against international standards is demonstration of that.

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