Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

Schedule 1, after item 20, page 6, (after line 19), insert:

20A After subsection 120(6)

Add:

        (7)    The Minister may make a determination authorising payment for the purposes of this section to one of the following:

             (a)    an approved authority mentioned in section 9;

             (b)    a nominated authority mentioned in section 10;

             (c)    an approved government school community organisation mentioned in section 11; or

             (d)    any other person or body that has met national standards for educational quality and financial and management probity.

        (8)    The regulations will specify the content of the national standards described in subsection (7)(d) following consultation with state authorities for government and non-government schools, national and state professional teaching associations and accreditation authorities and national parents’ associations.

The amendment, if passed, would in part protect the quality and integrity of projects supported under section 120 of the principal act. I reiterate for the benefit of members that Labor is supporting the Investing in Our Schools program because we recognise the need for our schools to have increased capital investment. Of course, we also recognise the importance of the involvement of parents. The point that we are trying to get across in this debate is not that schools do not need the money or that parents should not be involved—they should—but that we want to make sure that schools get the money when it is promised. They have not been receiving it in a timely fashion. We also want to make sure it is delivered to those schools where it is most needed. Just in case anyone was under any misapprehension, I just wanted to reiterate that point.

This amendment is about the need to bolster the operation of one of the schemes being considered as part of this bill—the Tutorial Voucher Initiative. The advantage of the amendment I am moving tonight is that it would apply to all projects funded under what is called the grants for national projects element of the broader Commonwealth Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs Program. I outlined in my earlier remarks the need for reform in the way that this kind of program is administered. There has been far too much scope under the current legislation and administrative guidelines for funding to be wasted. We have seen that particularly with the appointment of the Progressive Learning Co., which was the broker delivering the tutorial voucher. This company has a very poor record of delivery, and the government should be trying to make sure that it does not continue. This amendment would help that. This broker, Progressive Learning, seems to have no understanding of the way that schools and school systems work. It has certainly failed to deliver because we have seen only 12 per cent of eligible students in Victoria, for example, getting the help they need to improve their reading literacy.

Unfortunately, in her summing up, the Minister for Education, Science and Training fell back on the tried and true method of this government, which is to blame the states. Unfortunately, in this case, the brokers responsible for this scheme in Victoria and Queensland have not been able to make sure that the children who needed this money actually got it in a way that meant they got extra tutorial assistance to help them to read after they had failed to meet the benchmark tests when they were at the grade 3 level. This amendment would give some protection to the future operation of the Tutorial Voucher Initiative and, as I said, other related programs funded under ‘Grants for national projects’ at column 6 of the table in part 1 of schedule 9 of the principal act. This element will more than double to over $19 million in 2006—so it is a very substantial amount of money—from moving unspent money from 2004 and 2005 as covered in this bill. This is a lot of money, so we do need to make sure the funding has protection and that it is spent wisely and strategically. We are certainly very concerned about whether that has been the case over the last couple of years.

Some of the unspent money should be given to schools and systems for them to spend directly on students. Especially the students who have missed out should be a priority in the use of these funds. We have children who are now sitting the grade 5 test who should have had the money two years ago. They certainly should be the priority. They cannot be asked to wait for another round of calling for applications, tendering for brokers, searching for tutors and checking their qualifications, their experience, their child protection records and so on. (Extension of time granted) We need to make sure that the professionals who deliver these tutorial schemes have adequate qualifications and appropriate skills. We also have to protect the integrity and probity of the individuals and agencies who have been funded with an allocation of public money to deliver this literacy support. The whole purpose of this amendment is to deliver this type of protection.

I acknowledge that existing authorities, whether they be schools or community bodies mentioned in sections 9, 10 and 11 of the principal act, already meet the conditions for the receipt and delivery of Commonwealth funds for schools; so we are not suggesting that schools would be affected by this amendment. But we also know that, unfortunately, there are instances where brokering agencies—in this case literacy tutors—need to meet the same standards of financial integrity as other recipients of Commonwealth grants. Most importantly, these brokers have to be responsible for the quality of the tutors they contract for this literacy support. The tutors must satisfy the professional teaching standards that are required of all teachers. The principles set out in the National Framework for Professional Standards for Teaching, endorsed by all ministers, including the Commonwealth minister, would be a useful starting point. The best way to develop such national standards is to ask those in the states and territories—in the schools, the classrooms and the accreditation authorities—to advise on what would work.

This amendment is being put forward in a spirit of goodwill. We do want to make sure that this money is well spent. We do want to make sure that the people who are going to be contracted to deliver the literacy programs have adequate qualifications. When the standards are ready, the parliament could have the opportunity to consider the issue through regulations. That would give the government the flexibility it needs to deliver the program in a timely way while at the same time protecting parliament’s right to approve or change it. I commend the amendment to the House and hope it will be received in the manner in which it is put forward.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Jagajaga has fallen into her own trap of identifying the two providers, Queensland and Victoria, as the states where the parents were not informed by the state governments in a timely manner. In trying to limit the Australian government’s capacity to make the most appropriate arrangements to deliver much needed assistance to students, it seems that the member for Jagajaga, as this amendment illustrates, does not understand the processes and structures of the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice And Opportunity) Act 2004. Labor’s proposed amendment either tries to deliver what is already possible under the act or is a nonsense.

The arrangements that are currently in the act outline the processes for entering into arrangements with non-government schools and non-school organisations to deliver much needed educational services and support to Australian schools and students. The arrangements are robust. They include the need for these organisations to enter into agreements with the Australian government that outline financial and educational accountability requirements. The amendment is fundamentally flawed as it refers to authorised payments to non-government bodies while the entire schools assistance act, including section 120, is structured around payments to the states for non-government bodies. Even so, the provision would not add anything to the current position under the schools assistance act because, as identified in sections 7(1)(a) and 7(1)(b) of the act, payments to relevant authorities are already possible.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We certainly are aware that the government can provide this literacy support directly to schools in either the government or non-government sector now—and I made that clear in my remarks. I certainly hope that is the intention of the Minister for Education, Science and Training so that those children who have been waiting years for this literacy support will get it and get it quickly. I think the quickest way of delivering it will be to deliver it through government schools, non-government schools or the big non-government schools system. If that is what the minister has in mind, that is good and I am very happy to hear it. What we are trying to do through this amendment is not get in the way of that. It will not get in the way of the minister doing that if that is what she thinks is the quickest way to deliver the support. What we are trying to do is make sure that any private organisations that are going to become brokers for this money actually meet the probity rules that apply to other organisations under the act. Plainly, the minister has not accepted the amendment in the way in which it has been proposed. That is very disappointing. All I can say is that I hope she is going to take the opportunity that the act does provide to deliver this money through schools. In that way the money will get to the students very quickly.

Question put:

That the amendment (Ms Macklin’s) be agreed to.