Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I'll focus my remarks this evening on education and the need to do more to support not only public education but also independent schools, as well as university students in my community of Wentworth. Wentworth is fortunate to have some wonderful schools, but options for public high school education are thin on the ground. Whilst half the kids in our area attend a public primary school, less than one in five continue into high schools in the state system. This isn't because there's a lack of demand. In 2023 a survey by parent group CLOSEast found that three-quarters of parents wanted to send their kids to a co-ed public high school. But the options just aren't there, and they've been getting reduced further by recent decisions by the New South Wales government. Just last week the state government revised the boundaries for Inner Sydney High School, meaning parents in Double Bay, Centennial Park and Woollahra will no longer be able to send their kids to that school. Inner Sydney High School was only opened in 2020, after years of campaigning by members of that community. Parents are rightly outraged. As one said, this is a decision that 'divides the community'. When many families are already struggling with the cost of school fees, this could drive even more to leave our area.

I'm proud of the advocacy by our community which secured over $40 million to upgrade Randwick High School and make it co-ed, but we still desperately need more options for public education in Sydney's east. That's why I've been working with a local architect and expert in urban school design to develop a vision for a new high school in the east. The options are incredibly exciting, but time is running out, with much of the land available in the east slated for development, and new opportunities are very hard to come by.

Parents in Wentworth are demanding action on public education. More than 3,000 local people have called for a new public high school in Sydney's east by signing my petition. They want the New South Wales government to listen to our community and to take action to plan for a new high school before it's too late. Their voices need to be heard by both the state and federal governments, and so I ask leave of the Federation Chamber to table a copy of this petition.

Leave granted.

As well as promoting public education, we also need to continue to support our terrific independent schools. First, that means maintaining funding for independent schools in line with their schooling resource standard entitlement. There are some in this place who seek to pit public education against independent schools, pushing a false narrative that they're competing for a fixed bucket of money and claiming that support of one comes at the expense of another. I don't accept this, and this is not how the system works. We are a country where every parent should have the right to choose the school they believe is best for their child, and, over many years, we have had a multipartisan consensus on funding schools in line with the Gonski review's SRS. We want all schools to get to that 100 per cent of their entitlement. It means properly funding public schools, and it means continuing to support independent schools.

In Wentworth, independent schools, including Catholic schools, receive on average around 5½ thousand dollars per student in state and federal funding. At a New South Wales level, this compares to about $22,000 per student, per public school. For most people I speak to, this seems like a reasonable balance, and so I urge all parliamentarians to commit to ensuring that all schools, including independent and Catholic schools, receive their full SRS funding.

The second way we can support independent schools is by providing greater certainty around when funding is provided. Currently, the Department of Education determines a capacity to contribute score for each school community every year, which, in turn, determines their level of funding. However, last year, CTC scores for the 2025 academic year were not released until 12 November 2024. This left independent schools in my electorate with just a couple of months before the new funding arrangements came into effect. That's not enough time to deal with significant changes in funding.

Data from Independent Schools Australia shows that around one-fifth of independent schools nationwide saw a funding decrease as a result of changes to the CTC score, with one school experiencing a funding cut of more than $1 million. For many schools, these funding changes can only be dealt with by cutting programs, changing staff levels or increasing fees. This means we need to have more than a couple of months to plan for this. The situation is also challenging for parents, who can face higher school fees with just a few weeks of notice before the school year ends and the new term begins. When many are already struggling with the cost of living and keeping their kids in school, it's an addition challenge they could do without.

It's right to have a fair funding model for independent schools which reflects the capacity of local communities to contribute to the cost of their kids' education. But we do need to provide certainty and stability around this funding and give schools and parents time to adjust if there are changes. Announcing CTC scores in mid-November when funding changes happen in January is not providing that certainty and stability. I, therefore, support calls from schools in my area and across the country for CTC scores to be calculated and released earlier in the year to give sufficient time for schools to adapt. At a minimum, I urge the government to provide schools with at least six months between the finalisation of CTC scores and the new school year. This would help provide much-needed funding stability for schools and parents and allow them to better plan for the year ahead.

I want to talk about keeping a lid on student debt. There are so many people young people in Wentworth who feel like they've done the right thing—worked hard at school, gone to uni and got a good job—but now feel weighed down by student debt and don't think they'll ever be able to buy a house or get ahead like their parents did. I'm proud that pressure from the crossbench led to changes in HECS debt indexation last year, which will wipe $3 billion of student debt off for three million Australians. That is good. That is what the crossbench has been standing up for. But we need to do more to support young Australians studying for their future, who cannot afford crippling US-style student debts. We need to do three things.

First, we need to create a smarter system of indexation. Right now, graduates are charged interest on debts they've already paid. That's because our current system doesn't account for repayments that people make to their student loans throughout the year. The Universities Accord recommended changing this. But so far we've seen no action. A simple fix would be to change the date of indexation from 1 June to after the deadline of individual tax returns. This would mean we stop charging interest on debts that the students have already paid.

Second, we need a fair treatment of student debt by financial institutions. Currently, APRA guidance for HECS debts is one sentence long and requires student debt to be treated the same as other types of loans, including buy now, pay later. This is despite the fact that student debt repayments are income dependent, unlike other forms of credit. The Australian Banking Association say they would be open to considering HECS debt differently, but, until guidance from the government says otherwise, their hands are tied. Government needs to step in.

Third, we need to get rid of the failed job-ready graduates program that has unfairly penalised arts students. Arts degrees bring essential skills to the workplace, to our society and to our humanity. Our young people are more productive, happier and more committed to members of society if they are allowed to follow their skills, their interests and their passions at university. Trying to shoehorn them into other paths with clumsy, expensive and inequitable fees is counterproductive, and it didn't even work. We need to get rid of the unfair and ineffective job-ready graduates scheme put in place by the last Liberal government and give students starting arts degrees a fair go.

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