John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the member for Parramatta's motion. This year we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the establishment of Australia's first Catholic school. The school was founded by Irish Catholic priest John Cleary in October 1820, in Hunter Street Parramatta, just down the road from Bennelong, and taught just 31 students. Over the past two centuries, Catholic schools have become the largest non-government providers of schooling in Australia, with one in five school-age students attending a Catholic school. This represents 770,000 students in 1,762 schools across the country employing over 100,000 teachers and staff. Catholic schools will continue to represent a vital part of the Australian educational landscape in the future.

This government is committed to continuing our support for Catholic schools. Under our Quality Schools package, we'll be providing record funding for Australian schools in all schooling sectors, amounting to some $315.2 billion between 2018 and 2029. Catholic schools across Australia are benefiting financially from these arrangements. Recurrent funding for Catholic schools is estimated to grow from $5.1 billion in 2013 to $7.9 billion in 2020-21 and $10.6 billion in 2029. This is an increase of $5.5 billion over 2014 to 2029—an average per student increase of 5.2 per cent each year from 2014 to 2020-21.

Bennelong is one of Australia's most multicultural electorates. While it is famous today for the large Chinese and Korean diaspora of Eastwood, the fifties and sixties were a time of mass migration of Italians and other southern Europeans to the up-and-coming suburb of Ryde. They brought with them their family, their cuisine and their religion. Alongside the churches, a flurry of new Catholic schools popped up to join the many established ones already in the community. As a result Bennelong has 12 Catholic schools educating students between kindergarten and year 12. They span the electorate—from our Lady Help of Christians, at the top of Epping, to St Michael's near the river in Meadowbank. Many of these schools are among the highest-quality schools in Sydney. Many have fantastic facilities and great records. But it is the quality principals and teachers, many of whom I have known for years, who are responsible for the great outcomes of all the students who go through these schools. I have been delighted to work with these schools for many years through my school initiatives like the Bennelong Cup table tennis competition, in which 40 schools participate, and the Bennelong STEM challenge. I've also been delighted to attend schools for graduation ceremonies, building openings and, before 2020, fetes and other regular celebrations, which I'm looking forward to returning to shortly.

I've still been able to have some local connection to these schools. On 27 May, I was delighted to meet with year 6 students at St Michael's Catholic Primary School when they visited Parliament House. I was happy to spend some time chatting with the students about the issues that were important to them. Unfortunately, parliament was sitting during a similar visit from St Gerard's Catholic Primary School more recently. I was also very pleased to visit St Charles Catholic Primary School at Ryde and our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Primary School at Gladesville. I was there to present the schools with new Australian and Aboriginal flags. While I was there, we were also able to celebrate the cause of this motion today, the 200th anniversary of Catholic education in Australia. It is great to see this incredible milestone being celebrated across our community.

I can attest to the quality of Catholic schools personally. My office has had such a good reputation locally, purely because of the hard work of one Daniel Severino, my case worker, who was also the school captain of Holy Spirit Primary Catholic Primary School in North Ryde. When we attended there one day, he modestly said, 'My name is on the honour board.' When I said, 'Why is that, Daniel?' He said, 'I was the captain of the school'—they also taught modesty. If all their graduates are as professional, dedicated and hardworking as Daniel, Holy Spirit alone has done a great service to our community and this country. (Time expired)

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