Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

In a small town like the one I grew up in, Coonabarabran, in north-west New South Wales, schools are a really big deal. Whether it's the community based preschool originally built by parents back in the seventies because, hey, someone had to do it; the Catholic school in Coona that still educates young people through to year 10; or the local infant and primary schools scattered in smaller towns like Binnaway and Baradine around the larger regional centre of Coonabarabran, each environment is not just a place of learning for young people but an actual beating heart of a community.

For me, my learning experience was pretty much a straight run from Coonabarabran infants school to Coonabarabran primary school to Coonabarabran High School. While being part of such a small community meant everyone knew everything, I'm grateful to my public school education, to the teachers that guided and coached me along the way and for the opportunities my education has afforded me. Yet, recently returning to my hometown, I was struck by the fact that the gap in what students there can expect and will experience today may be wider than it was for me. As with all public schools, the community out there is operating in a constant state of juggle as they try to meet every students' learning needs without the necessary funding.

Meanwhile, in my community of North Sydney, while there is much I love about it, the overcrowded public infant and primary schools, which are incredibly well respected but also generally feature demountables stacked on areas that were once green play spaces, and the lack of multiple publicly funded co-ed high schools are not on that list. Yet my community in North Sydney cares deeply about education. The local government area of North Sydney has one of the highest concentrations of educational facilities in the country, with 21 primary and secondary schools in just a 10½ square-kilometre area.

Recently, we had a couple of great new public schools open in our area: Anzac Park Public School and Cammeraygal High School, which both opened their doors during 2015 and 2016. In a relatively short period of time, both of those schools have contributed significantly to our community whilst ensuring young bright minds across North Sydney have access to some of the best learning experiences in the country.

In this context then, while I welcome this bill, which will increase the Commonwealth's minimum share of funding for public schools, I question whether it goes far enough to address what is a fundamental problem in our public education system, that being chronic underfunding. In that context, I strongly encourage the government to acknowledge the differing needs and circumstances of the states when making these funding agreements, as not all states are equal, with the state of New South Wales currently struggling to fund everything it needs following the recent GST reforms. I'd also encourage the government to go further by guaranteeing a Commonwealth funding share of 25 per cent at a minimum to make sure our public schools can meet the needs of our children regardless of where they live or their family's socioeconomic status.

Since 2013, in the wake of the Gonski review, Australia has based its goals for school funding on the schooling resource standard, which estimates how much public funding is required to meet students' educational needs. Under that model, the obligations to provide the funding needed are shared by the Commonwealth and the state and territory governments, with our current agreement seeing the Commonwealth contribute a maximum of 20 per cent for that while states and territories contribute 75 per cent. Thanks to my public school education, even I can do the maths on that and can see there is a current funding shortfall of at least five per cent that has persisted from government to government. Surely, after 11 years, it's time we rectified this situation.

As a nation, we have a proud history of public school education, with two-thirds of all Australian students educated in our public school system. Yet 80 per cent of the children being educated in this way currently come from families with low socioeconomic advantage. At the same time, more than 80 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and more than two-thirds of children with a disability are educated in the public system. So, while public schools give our children the guarantee of an education regardless of their circumstances, any short-sheeting of this system ultimately is far more likely to impact people who are already vulnerable. Today, only 1.3 per cent of public schools in Australia are fully funded—1.3 per cent—and that should be intolerable to our wider community.

The government's Better and Fairer Schools Agreement then aims to close this funding gap by raising federal funding to 22.5 per cent of the schooling resource standard with states covering the remaining 77.5 per cent. To do this, the bill amends the Australian Education Act to allow for this increased funding share. Its central provision turns what is currently a 20 per cent Commonwealth funding ceiling into a floor, meaning the federal government would have to provide at least 20 per cent of the schooling resource standard going forward. There is a special agreement between the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory to ensure the Commonwealth can provide 40 per cent of funding in that region. On top of this, the bill introduces a ratchet mechanism which would ensure the Commonwealth funding share cannot be less than the year before. Finally, the bill removes the requirement for the Commonwealth funding share to be consistent across all jurisdictions, allowing funding percentages to differ depending on the needs of the states and territories.

But here's the rub. Digging further into the details of the bill, my community in North Sydney has strongly advocated for this funding increase to be supported, but many are also confused as to why the bill doesn't codify the full funding share committed to in the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement. While the government has outlined its intention to fund 22.5 per cent of the schooling resourcing standard, the bill sets the Commonwealth funding floor at 20 per cent. When explaining the apparent disconnect between the legislation and the intention, the Treasurer said the ratchet mechanism will ensure the 20 per cent floor is effectively increased over time. But, having survived in this environment for the past 2½ years, I can't help but ask the obvious question: why not simply raise the funding floor to align with the 22½ per cent agreement from the outset and avoid any risk of confusion? Or, better yet, lift it all the way to 25 per cent, and close the funding gap once and for all. After all, I've personally seen how quickly good policy can be neutered by different political ideology, and for this reason I would encourage this government to begin in a way which is consistent with how it would like to see the policy proceed.

This year alone, public schools across the country will be underfunded on average by $2,509 per student, and every year that funding gap goes unfilled is a year our public schools do not have the resources to fully meet the educational needs of the 2.6 million students in our public school system. We need to address this issue with the agency it requires.

At the same time, however, I've heard from teachers and experts in my electorate that the government's proposed 22½ per cent funding agreement doesn't account for the differing fiscal circumstances from state to state. We know different jurisdictions have different needs. In fact, the government has considered this by agreeing to move towards a 40 per cent funding share in the Northern Territory. But, in the case of my state of New South Wales, this consideration of fairness appears to have been lost. For example, compare New South Wales to WA. It's no secret WA has high revenue from its natural resources. On top of this, recent changes to the distribution of GST revenue have given WA a much greater share, estimated to be worth somewhere between $30 billion and $50 billion by 2030. These extra payments to WA are initially being funded through general Commonwealth tax revenue, yet New South Wales has received none of these 'magic new payments'. Indeed, our GST take has decreased, yet the Commonwealth government is arguing our state should expect to pay no more than what WA has already agreed to take in this circumstance. This just seems unfair and almost unnecessarily impunity to my home state of New South Wales. Our kids deserve the best education we can provide them, and this government should be more open to negotiating appropriate terms state by state.

More broadly, the key message I've heard over and over from my community is that the 22½ per cent Commonwealth resourcing share is just not enough. Public schools have now experienced more than a decade of federal promises to help meet the needs of schooling with no results. Under Julia Gillard, the Labor government promised to bring the school to 100 per cent of the funding standard over six years. However, the subsequent coalition government cancelled the final years of funding increases, and over the following 10 years the total funding gap between promised public school funding and reality ballooned out to $14 billion. To add insult to injury, in 2018, the federal funding ceiling of 20 per cent was implemented by the coalition government, locking in the funding gap that persists today.

For all of these reasons, the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement is an important step in addressing the current shortfall, but it leaves schools dealing with years of underfunding before reaching their goal. Ultimately, even with the 40 per cent provided to the Northern Territory, the community there will not reach 100 per cent of the schooling resource standard until 2029. Meanwhile, public schools continue to be forced to juggle staffing shortages as teachers try to manage large class sizes with limited support, while other schools are forced to limit subject choices, reduce library services or make cuts to essential literacy and numeracy intervention programs that help students in need. We can and must do better if we are to continue to stand as a nation that believes in public education.

As the largest recipient of tax revenue, the Commonwealth government has the capacity to close this gap much faster by ensuring future investment decisions prioritise education over things like, say, fossil fuel subsidies. Ultimately, the investment required by the federal government to immediately meet 100 per cent of the schooling resource standard in 2024-25 would be $2.8 billion, which either could be generated by increasing the petroleum rental resource tax to an appropriate level so that those extracting our non-renewable resources are compensating our nation appropriately, or, conversely, could be provided by redirecting the funding of diesel fuel subsidies for mining companies back to our schools.

Ultimately, it's important to remember that beyond the numbers this issue is about real people, real children and real futures. It's about schools, who must make hard decisions about which programs they can and can't afford offers students, it's about students in remote communities, who are already working to overcome the tyranny of distance and still don't have access to the additional teaching staff they need, and it's about an essential profession in the form of teachers, who can't access the materials and resources they need to provide our kids with the best possible learning experience.

Ultimately, both the ask of and the opportunity for this and all future governments is clear: commit to a minimum Commonwealth funding share of 25 per cent of the schooling resource standard. In advocating for this position, I am joining the calls of organisations like the Australian Council of Social Service, the Australian Education Union and Save Our Schools, and countless parents and educators who recognise the need for our federal government to provide greater support in this area.

At the same time, it's important that any investment in this area is not just seen as a pity move or as a sunk cost, as recent analysis from the Australia Institute found that funding public schools at a hundred per cent of the schooling resource standard would ultimately generate a fiscal gain of $3 billion to $7½ billion annually for the government over two decades. Education increases productivity and economic output, because it enables people to build their skills and live the lives they wish to create for themselves. All we need to do to realise this gain is to take a long-term view of the value of investment in education.

Ultimately, I urge this government, in the strongest possible terms, to listen to the experts, communities and educators on this issue and increase our federal funding commitment to at least 25 per cent of the funding for public schools in Australia so that we can meet the needs of every child, no matter where they live.

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