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

The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006 being considered by the House today proposes to amend the Schools Assistance (Learning Together–Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Act 2004, which provides the bulk of Commonwealth funding to schools. The Commonwealth currently provides funding, including capital funding, for government and non-government schools for the 2005-08 quadrennium through this act.

You would have to say that the glib and overtly political title of the principal act glosses over the extraordinary inequities that this act perpetuates and the policy failures that this amendment bill attempts to correct. There was no mention in the second reading speech by the Minister for Education, Science and Training of the unfairness of the funding increases that the act enshrines for at least another four years, from 2005. There was nothing about the unfair distribution of funding within the non-government school sector itself.

According to the explanatory memorandum, the specific provisions in this amendment bill have the following objectives: to move uncommitted capital infrastructure funding for government schools from 2005 to 2006 and to bring forward 2008 funding to 2006; to move unspent funding under the Tutorial Voucher Initiative from 2004 to 2006; to allow funding to be carried over or brought forward to another year for all ‘non per capita’ programs—that is, capital grants, targeted programs and national projects; to provide maximum general recurrent grants for a small number of non-government schools that cater for students with emotional, social or behavioural difficulties; and to make a minor technical correction to one of the defined terms in the act.

This is the bill that we had to have—a bill that tries to tidy up an extraordinary policy mess left behind by the now departed minister. The new minister’s second reading speech was her first major statement on schools, and it is telling that this statement is about the effects of political opportunism and administrative incompetence on the part of the previous minister. We are going to have to wait a little bit longer it seems before we hear about the current minister’s educational philosophy and her vision for Australia’s schools. Maybe that will come some day soon.

Labor will support this bill, only because the needs of students and schools cannot continue to be neglected. But we do have to put on record the consequences of this government’s incompetence, and particularly the incompetence of the previous minister. This incompetence is there for all to see, and the potential for bungling was very clear at the time of the announcement of the programs for capital funding and for literacy vouchers. I want to go through both of these programs in detail.

The government’s major 2004 election commitment for schools was its Investing in Our Schools program, where $1 billion over four years was provided for capital projects in schools, with $700 million of that to go to government schools and $300 million to go to non-government schools. This commitment was a very direct and very hurried response to Labor’s election policy for schools. There is no question that the panicked way in which this policy response was developed at the last minute has followed through into what can only be described as slapdash implementation and chronic delays in getting the money to the schools and the students who need it. For government schools, what we had from the previous minister was a decision to bypass state authorities by calling for applications directly from schools and local parents and citizens associations. The previous minister announced that Australia’s 6,900-plus public schools would be eligible for ‘up to’ $150,000 each under this process.

The government has been overwhelmed by its own decision to go down this path and has failed to deliver this money to schools. Most schools are still waiting for the money. I am sure many members in this House are getting representations from their schools, because they are sick and tired of seeing the funding dates for this money getting pushed back further and further. The previous minister for education first of all promised that the grants would be announced in May 2005. That is when the grants were supposed to be announced. It is now March 2006. The new school year started weeks ago. Many schools have promoted their facilities to parents on the basis of projects they expected to have completed in time for this school year. Now many parents are questioning schools about whatever happened to those promised shadecloths, computers or whatever other initiative it might be.

The government’s incompetence has caused all sorts of other collateral damage. I know of a contractor in Victoria who has almost $10 million out in quotes for school contracts. He provided those quotes more than a year ago, when schools were writing applications. Now he is in a financial dilemma because building costs have gone up in the past year—once again, due to this government’s skills crisis—and he does not know whether he is going to be able to honour the year-old quotes. He knows and the schools and parents know that all of this intolerable situation has been brought about by the bungling of this government. I do not even need to go into the larger round 2 grants process. Schools were first told that round 2 successful grants would be announced last October, then it was pushed to December, then we were told February and now it is supposed to be April. It is extraordinarily irresponsible of this government to be continuing to delay the funding of these important projects when we have schools who need the money desperately.

Although the program was clearly targeted in the election to all government schools and all parent associations, what we have had from the minister is the extraordinarily flimsy excuse that the department was surprised at the volume of applications. But it was targeted at all schools! The department, apparently, has been completely unable to administer the program in a timely way despite significant increases in staffing for the program. This bill is the direct and inevitable result of this government’s incompetence. All government schools were promised additional funding for capital projects in the election, so why on earth was it any surprise to the previous minister or the current minister that most schools and most parents and citizens organisations were keen to apply? Of course they were keen to apply. Of course they wanted some of the money for their students and their schools. There cannot be any excuse for not preparing to handle applications from so many of the nation’s schools.

As Minister Nelson sowed, now Minister Bishop reaps. Today she is saddled with the task of trying to clean up the mess left behind by Dr Nelson. The incompetence of the Investing in Our Schools program implementation, unfortunately for the new minister, is only the first example of the landmines that Dr Nelson has left behind for his successor. Someone somewhere has to be responsible for this mess. What is clear is that the Howard government have bungled their management of this program by trying to set themselves up as a small-scale capital developer for Australia’s government schools. They knew how many government schools there were before they made this announcement. They paint themselves as trying to rescue school communities, but what they have had to do is create their own administrative monster and, as a result, even with 50 extra staff, they have been completely incapable of getting this money into schools in a timely fashion. They have set up a complete duplicate administration for getting capital funding for schools, and it has become very clear in the last few days that this has been done for blatantly political reasons.

We now see the inevitable result of this ad hoc administration. It is a salutary lesson for this new minister. If she is to learn anything from the schoolboy mistakes of her predecessor, it is that it is much better to work in cooperation with the states than to try to set up a whole duplicate administration and then bungle it and be incapable of delivering to our schools and to our students. Of course we want to see the involvement of parent organisations in the decisions about the allocation of capital funds. Parents have a very important role to play. But their involvement needs to be done in a strategic way and it certainly should be done in cooperation with the states, not with the Commonwealth setting up its own administration and then being totally incapable of delivering the money.

We have been concerned about this incompetence. We continue to be concerned about it, but we also know that the approvals so far show that political pork-barrelling continues to be the primary motivation in the decisions behind the Investing in Our Schools program. Once again the minister says, ‘Of course coalition seats got more money—we have more seats.’ Minister, let me take you through a few figures that demonstrate that this initiative is all about pork-barrelling. The average funding per Labor electorate is $547,877. The average funding per Liberal electorate is $703,262.

I will go through all the rough numbers to give you an idea. The Liberal electorates get 128 per cent of the funding going to Labor electorates. The Nationals are certainly right in there. The average funding per The Nationals electorate is 246 per cent of the funding going to Labor electorates. This shows that it is all about pork-barrelling. It has certainly nothing to do with need. In terms of total funding to an electorate, 19 of the top 20 electorates are coalition held. The first Labor held electorate appears at No. 20 and that is Bendigo. In terms of the average grant given to a school, nine of the top 10 electorates are coalition held. Reid is the only Labor-held top 10 seat. How on earth can the Howard government justify such huge discrepancies? How could a credible, accountable and transparent assessment process possibly arrive at such a flawed distribution of funding? How could it be arrived at? How could it be fair?

Let me particularly highlight the funding that has gone to the seat of Dr Nelson, the former Minister for Education, Science and Training. Does the former minister, Dr Nelson, really expect parents to believe that each school, in suburbs like St Ives and Wahroonga, in his North Shore Sydney seat of Bradfield deserve an average 38 per cent more funding than schools in the seat of Fowler, in battling suburbs such as Bonnyrigg and Cabramatta? Who would think that Dr Nelson’s electorate is more needy than the electorate of Fowler? Nobody would believe that. It is all about pork-barrelling and the Liberals and The Nationals looking after their own electorates. The combined effects of incompetence and political pork-barrelling have completely discredited this program. This should have been about targeting the needs of schools and students, with the involvement of parents, not about political pork-barrelling.

In the light of this demonstrated incompetence by the Howard government, and particularly the previous minister, and the pork-barrelling of this program, Labor supports only the increased flexibility in the bill for the minister to move funds around within the funding quadrennium so that schools eventually get the money. It is complete administrative incompetence by the previous minister. Of course, this program should not be used for political purposes. We can see the stage-managed activities that the coalition politicians will use in media releases in the lead-up to the next election, but of course we will continue to point out the political misuse of the program.

The next part of this bill is about the tutorial vouchers program—another extraordinary demonstration of this government’s incompetence. We have unspent money now having to be moved from both 2004 and 2005 to the current year because in this program, once again, we had from the previous minister another example of ideology over good sense. The government insisted on tendering for brokers to provide tutors for children who needed literacy support, including some brokers with doubtful qualifications and operations. In 2004 the government introduced the payment of tutorial vouchers of up to $700 to parents of children who had failed to meet national benchmarks of reading literacy in national testing of year 3 standards in 2003. These are children who did not meet the literacy standard in 2003. Of course, there is no dispute between Labor and the government about whether young children who, by year 3, have not reached minimum standards of reading literacy need support. Of course they need timely and intensive support. We know that, if these children do not receive that support and receive it quickly, they will most likely continue to struggle with their learning over all the years of schooling. Of course, literacy deferred is literacy denied.

But if the government were serious about its concerns for improving literacy standards, it would have directed its increased funding to the source—students and schools, where the children are every day. But, once again, we have had ideology, particularly on the part of the former minister, overcome good sense. Once again, the Commonwealth has tried to implement this scheme without any prior discussion with the states. So, instead of working with schools and the systems, the Howard government took over the idea of giving this money to private brokers who had no real experience in this kind of work.

Now that the program has failed to deliver for most eligible students, the government is trying to blame the states. We know how good this government is at trying to find someone else to blame. It blames the states, even though it refuses to work with them in the first place. Some of the brokers are, very sensibly, school authorities, but others are private providers and enterprises. I want to take the parliament through the results of this program. Answers to Senate estimates questions revealed a nationwide take-up of only 36 per cent by mid-November last year. That is what I would call a flop of a program.

Let us have a look at a state by state analysis of the figures for this program, which shows a much poorer performance on the part of commercial brokers, particularly when compared to the performance of school authorities. For example, in those states where we had the state education departments—that is, New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania—doing this program, we had significantly improved take-up rates of eligible students, going up to 69 per cent. But the notable failure of this program is the performance of a private company, Progressive Learning, which has failed spectacularly to deliver tutorial programs to eligible students in Queensland and Victoria.

These figures from the Department of Education, Science and Training show that just 656 of the 5,717 eligible Victorian students got this voucher. What a failure! Only 12 per cent of eligible students received the voucher. The vast majority of students assessed at their year 3 benchmark testing as requiring extra literacy assistance have now already sat the year 5 literacy benchmark without receiving any tutoring at all. Progressive Learning also charged a $250 administration fee, so the few students in Victoria who actually received any tutoring got only $450 of the value of their $700 voucher.

The government also issued contracts to companies to deliver the tutorial voucher program in the full knowledge that the companies could not talk to the parents because they were not legally able to obtain their contact details. Of course, I am sure we will hear the minister say that in her view it is the states’ fault. The previous minister knew that this was the legal situation and decided to go down his ideological track rather than doing it sensibly in cooperation with the states. The program has been an administrative disaster—more about this government’s ideological obsession with bypassing state school authorities than what it really should be about, which is helping students who desperately need support. We know the government like to use the term ‘voucher’. No doubt it made them feel good using that sort of term. It is a bit like hitting student unions—they are more concerned with how it sounds and how it looks than what it actually does.

If turning a blind eye to the practical effects of populist initiatives is a key competency for a minister for education and training in the Howard government, then the former minister is right up there. He certainly gets top marks for populism and a very big F for delivery because he has been incapable of ensuring that children who need help with their reading have the assistance this government said it would deliver.

Labor will support the carrying over of unspent moneys, not because we think anything about the extraordinary incompetence of this government but because there are children in need of literacy assistance and support. But we also need to protect the integrity and value of this funding, so I foreshadow that during the consideration in detail stage of the bill I will move a substantive amendment to strengthen the conditions of funding to make sure that only qualified and accredited educators deliver this money. With this amendment we want to ensure that persons and organisations who deliver these programs other than already approved school authorities, because obviously they are registered to deliver these programs, meet national standards of quality—that is, professional teaching standards of tutors—and probity, such as financial and administrative records of whatever private companies might be involved.

Labor supports the flexibility in the management of program funds between years. The current act does provide for some funding changes by regulation—for example, in cost supplementation for general recurrent and capital grants. The extension of regulation-making powers will introduce greater flexibility, allowing the government to expedite the reallocation of funds between program years because of changing or unexpected circumstances in the delivery of school programs. Regulations are, of course, subject to the standard disallowance procedures by either house. Nonetheless it is arguable that removing the requirement for legislative amendment may result in a lesser degree of parliamentary scrutiny for any changes to school programs funding covered by item 21.

We have raised similar concerns about provisions in the Student Assistance Legislation Amendment Bill 2005 and the Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Welfare to Work and Other Measures) Act 2005. Both contain provisions that replace requirements for legislative amendment with the power to amend by regulations and guidelines. That said, we do not want schools and students to suffer from administrative incompetence, and there are good reasons for carrying over funds in some circumstances. We understand there can be delays in capital projects, for example. But none of that gives a blank cheque for this flexibility to be abused by any minister for political purposes. We have seen already in the allocation of this schools capital funding that the previous minister has handed out huge grants to himself and his mates in the Liberal and National parties. I hope that the new minister does not continue down that path.

I want to speak briefly about the provisions in this bill aimed at providing maximum general recurrent grants for a small number of non-government schools that cater for students with emotional, social or behavioural difficulties. We certainly support access by these schools to maximum general recurrent grants, as is already the case for special schools. These are high-needs schools dealing with high-needs students and they fully deserve increased support. We are only talking here about a small number of non-government community and church based schools that cater for students who have left mainstream schools because of their difficulties. The schools provide intensive support for these young people, some of whom are homeless and all of whom are in substantial need. These schools attract general recurrent grants under the government’s policy of funding schools according to their socioeconomic status characteristics. A strict application of the SES criteria, however, would deny these schools the maximum grants they need for the highly intensive support they provide to their students.

The bill before the House provides for a separate classification of ‘special assistance schools’ to enable the schools to receive the maximum level of general recurrent grant as received by non-government special schools for students with various disabilities. Labor supports this amendment, although I would point out to the minister that there are a number of schools in the government sector that need similar special consideration.

These amendments are sensible. Once again, they will depend on cooperation with state authorities that recognise or register non-government schools for federal and state funding. Interestingly the amendment bill points out that the blanket approach of the government’s funding scheme, based on the socioeconomic status of school communities, is flawed. Such a crude and simplistic approach does not take into account the specific needs of students or the resources actually available to them; it simply applies the SES of the parents’ locations without considering the particularly intensive education and support the schools provide. This principle of funding being based on an assessment of actual need and actual resources available is one that should apply to all schools.

There is another part to this bill that corrects a technical flaw, where references in the act about accountability refer to section 20 rather than section 30 agreements. Labor agrees that the change to subsection 36(4) in the act has to be made. We note the assurances in the explanatory memorandum that this technical change will not affect the rights of or obligations on any person.

I have set out in detail our concerns regarding the administrative incompetence and political misuse of the two significant funding programs dealt with in this bill. Both Investing in Our Schools and the tutorial vouchers initiative highlight the mess that has been left to the new minister by her predecessor, a mess this bill only begins to deal with. For these reasons, I will move the second reading amendment circulated in my name, and I urge the House to support this amendment. In doing so, I note that it should not be necessary to have to move such a second reading amendment to call on the government to make sure all programs are administered in ways that deliver maximum educational benefits for students. As my remarks indicate, that is not how this government has allocated this money. This money is going to those electorates that have Liberal and National Party members. It is not being distributed to the students or schools that need it most. It should not be necessary to move this amendment; unfortunately it is. On this occasion we need to explicitly highlight the administrative incompetence and the political pork-barrelling that has gone on with these programs. Therefore I move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1)     condemns the Government for:

             (a)    failing to deliver urgently-needed capital funds and literacy support in time for schools and students to achieve the benefits of those funds;

             (b)    failing to protect the integrity and probity of its program for tutorial literacy vouchers, especially in the appointment of brokers for the delivery of tutorial assistance in some states;

             (c)    approving capital funding under its ‘Investing in our schools’ program in an unfair and unequal way between schools and regions, and

             (d)    failing adequately to take into account the relative educational and financial needs of schools in the allocation of capital funding under the ‘Investing in our schools’ program; and

(2)     calls on the Government to:

             (a)    ensure that all programs are administered in ways that deliver maximum educational benefits for students;

             (b)    take steps to assure the educational integrity and probity of its tutorial assistance for students with literacy needs;

             (c)    direct some of the unspent funds for tutorial assistance for students with literacy needs for use by schools to develop appropriate programs for their students, in consultation with parents; and for the professional development of teachers to improve their literacy teaching skills; and

             (d)    support improved accountability provisions for funding under the capital grants and tutorial assistance programs”.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand today as a proud member on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the Howard government in the House of Representatives pleased that I have the opportunity to speak on the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006. I have not been here for the 10 years of the Howard government; I had a rest for three years. As a consequence, I cherish even more the opportunity to be here today representing the Howard government and my electorate of Canning in this place so that we can bring better government to this country, which we have done over the last 10 years.

As I said, I am very pleased to speak on the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006. It is a pity the member for Jagajaga has left because I wanted to address a few remarks to her. Her ideologically driven diatribe is just an indication of why we are on this side of the House and they are on that side. We have had only today Martin Ferguson, the member for Batman, pointing out that the policy views of the Labor Party and the politics of envy placed on school policy before the last federal election is one of the things that they must move on from. We have a division in the Labor Party about the policy initiatives, particularly the educational policy initiatives, which were also highlighted in The Latham Diaries, which I read over the Christmas break. The diaries allowed me to peer into the dark heart of the Labor Party and to see some of the home truths that came out. Mark Latham pointed out the flawed policy of the politics of envy, which the Labor Party took to the last federal election. I am sure it cost them dearly because they were in the business of dividing the Australian community on the basis of class and envy and the Australian people saw through it. I am pleased to say that the Australian electorate is obviously a very sensible group of people, which makes very good judgments.

I want to deal with a couple of the elements of the bill before I go to the Investing in Our Schools program. As it relates to the special non-government schools that do not qualify under the SES program, there needs to be special consideration that they receive the maximum. I am pleased to see the opposition agrees with that. The tutorial voucher initiative is a good policy. The funds that have not been used in 2005 will be transferred to 2006. This is for the children who did not achieve the year 3 minimum national reading benchmark in 2003. They are able to access $700 in the form of a voucher to achieve remedial help through approved brokers. Interestingly, the member for Jagajaga slams this again. I do not know whether the member for Jagajaga thinks we ever did anything good, but she slams this again as being wrong, out of kilter and not representative. The member for Jagajaga said this money should be sent back to the schools, yet when we send Investing in Our Schools money to the schools she says that is wrong and we should be dealing through the state bureaucracies. On the one hand, she says we should be sending money back to schools for literacy initiatives and, on the other hand, she says we should not be doing it in the Investing in Our Schools program. There is a good deal of hypocrisy there.

Interestingly, New South Wales and Tasmania have had a big take-up—69 per cent for New South Wales and 61 per cent for Tasmania—but my home state of Western Australia had only a 30 per cent take-up. The crying shame of it all is that the member for Jagajaga’s state had only a 12 per cent take-up of this initiative. You have to ask the question: why? It has nothing to do with implication; it has to do with the fact that in many cases the voucher initiative could not be delivered to some of the states because not all states were reporting children’s performances against the national literacy benchmark to parents. So how could it be delivered if they did not have the information?

These states deliberately tried to subvert and sink this initiative because they are ideologically opposed to it. In Western Australia, for example, the previous minister, Alan Carpenter, who is now the Premier, railed against this initiative. That is why there is a low take-up rate. We know that in Victoria—the member for Jagajaga’s state—the bureaucratic bungling by that state and the obfuscation by the education bureaucracy was largely the reason why Victoria did not take up this initiative and give it to the young children who quite rightly deserve remedial treatment and remedial action.

In terms of the amendments by regulation, the extension of regulation-making powers will introduce greater flexibility, allowing the government to expedite the reallocation of funds between programs because of unexpected changes in circumstances in the delivery of school programs. We have already seen this occurring in the voucher program and the Investing in Our Schools program. They are very good initiatives which I am pleased to see the Labor Party supporting, albeit reluctantly, if you listen to the member for Jagajaga.

The Investing in Our Schools program is the main reason why I am very pleased to speak on this bill today. It is a sensational program for schools throughout Australia. It is a $1 billion program, with about $700 million going to the government school sector and $300 million going to the non-government school sector. That is over the period 2005 to 2008. Schools in this program can apply for up to $150,000. If they do not successfully take the whole lot in the first year—say, they take $10,000 to start with—they can continue to apply for funds from this program over this period. They are doing that and, as we have heard, they are doing it in a rush. In my electorate, for example, it is a highly popular initiative. It is really pleasing to see that the take-up has been so high and so welcomed.

I am going to outline to the House a number of the projects that have been funded in my electorate and some of the responses I have had from schools. If you listen to the Labor Party, you would think this is a rort and is wrong in its delivery. The member for Jagajaga called it a mess. All I can say is that it is a happy mess because I have not met one school principal or school body yet that wants to give the money back. In fact, they are really happy to be involved in this program and they have contacted me in droves because suddenly it is seeping through. Not all of them quite understood what was going on. Initially there was a slow take-up, but then it turned into a rush once they all started talking to each other. The good, hardworking P&Cs, parent bodies and school principals are out there with projects that they have wanted to deliver to their schools for years and have not had the funds to do so.

One of the interesting things that the member opposite stated was that this was a pork-barrelling initiative. She talked about there being only $500,000 on average going to Labor Party electorates and $700,000 going to Liberal electorates. The fact is that, if you apply for these funds, there is a good chance you will get them. If you do not apply for these funds—this is the crux of the matter—you have no chance of getting them. Why are schools more likely to be applying—if you listen to the member for Jagajaga—from coalition seats than from Labor seats? It is because we are promoting the initiative. I have written to all of the schools in my electorate—the government schools and non-government schools—and told them about this marvellous initiative. I have told them that I will endeavour to put in a support letter for the worthy projects for their schools.

Just to demonstrate, even before this project got up and running, I happened to go to the Jarrahdale Primary School in my electorate, which is only a small school. The teacher there, Mr Ross Murray, happened to say to me last Anzac Day that they were really keen to get some money because, with fewer than 100 kids in a small town, they were struggling to raise the money to build a shade over their playing area. You have heard the story about the kids that cannot go out during the summer in Western Australia because the monkey bars are too hot and the play equipment is too hot to sit on. Mr Murray wanted to put a shade over the play equipment at his school so that the kids could use it, but he could not raise the $12,000-odd to do it. Mr Murray is very happy now because not only did they get the money but also they have a shade structure over their playground equipment. This is something real and tangible for their school and they are very happy to have had it delivered. I can tell you that I am very welcome at Jarrahdale Primary School and many of the other schools in my electorate because they know that we are delivering the programs that the Labor Party dropped the ball on.

Why are schools so bereft of funds for these programs? During my career as a schoolteacher—and I was a teacher off and on for 18 years; I was not very politically active in those days so it was not very obvious to me—I could always tell when the Labor Party was in government because they were big spenders on the wrong sorts of programs. They would pull the money out of state schools, because they are their schools, as an area of savings. As a result, maintenance of the schools and the projects that were implemented in the schools during the administration of a Labor government at a state level fell by the wayside. It was not until a coalition government got back in again with decent receipts and budget surpluses that money could be put back into school infrastructure. During Labor’s reign, paint comes off the railings and gutters fall off roofs, but when there is a change of government they start fixing these things up. Currently, there are Labor governments in every state in Australia. Why are schools so bereft of infrastructure? Because the state Labor governments have stopped investing in their own schools and they are begging somebody else to go in and help them with these necessary items.

The member for Jagajaga described this initiative as pork-barrelling. She was quoted in an article entitled ‘School aid rorted: Labor MP’ in the West Australian newspaper as saying:

The Federal Government is rorting its Investing in Our Schools program by channelling more money into Liberal-held seats at the expense of Labor seats, according to ... Jenny Macklin.

Five WA electorates getting the most money under the scheme, Kalgoorlie, O’Connor, Pearce, Forrest and Canning, were all held by Liberal MPs.

Let me go through these seats. Kalgoorlie is at about six per cent, O’Connor is at about 25 per cent or some such figure, Forrest is in double figures at over 10 per cent and, surprise surprise, I am at 9.6 per cent. I cannot see any pork-barrelling in marginal seats there. The reason more money is not put into schools in Labor held seats is that Labor members do not promote them. As I said, I write to the schools and I promote them. My wife teaches at a school in the electorate of Swan—I was hoping the member would still be in the chamber so that I could explain this to him. Her school, South Perth Primary School, is unaware of the availability of this money. I wonder why! The Labor Party do not want to tell the schools of this good federal government initiative, so they are not promoting it. If they do not promote it, the uptake is obviously going to be much less.

If the member for Swan will not write to his schools and tell them the money is available—I probably cannot write to the schools—I will encourage one of my Senate colleagues to write to all the schools in the electorate of Swan and tell them this money from the Investing in Our Schools program is available for infrastructure and maintenance programs in their schools. Then we will see the uptake in marginal electorates such as Swan and Cowan in Western Australia. I suspect that this is occurring right across Australia. The Labor members are trying to dumb down this initiative because it is not theirs and they do not support it. Mind you, I bet that when the schools take it up the members do not go out to the schools and say, ‘You really should give that money back.’ You will not see that at all. The Labor members know it is a highly popular program, but they are not trying to get it up above the radar because it is not their initiative and they do not have any interest in promoting good government policy.

Interestingly, the member for Jagajaga, who slams this and says it is all a rort, is on a margin of 4.5 per cent in her seat in the state of Victoria. I would have thought that if the member for Jagajaga wanted to be re-elected, particularly with the Labor Party’s woes in Victoria at the moment, she might actually want to promote some good programs in her schools rather than talk them down. I am sure that the parent bodies there would be very happy to have these sorts of infrastructure agreements.

Let me turn to the ridiculous behaviour over pork-barrelling. The state government assessment panels, loosely known as SATs, are state government advisory bodies. So state Labor government advisory bodies go out and assess these programs and make recommendations to us, and we take their recommendations. I will tell you how strong the recommendations are. Falcon Primary School in my electorate received over $100,000 for landscaping its grounds, airconditioning of special services, block floor coverings, school interior painting, library computer benchtops, data cabling and play equipment upgrades. These were all things the school wanted and they got over $117,000. But the thing they really wanted was a freezer room, costing $16,000, which the state assessment panel did not think was a worthy item. I am very disappointed by that because, when I first went to this school about this program, that was the main item they said they wanted. So they got what they did not want and did not get what they did want. This is how much integrity this program has: the assessment panel’s recommendation to us was against the wishes of the local member and, as a result, the school was well funded but not for the things they wanted. Mind you, I am still going to try hard for the freezer room because they still want it. They still have not got up to $150,000, so we hope that in another round of funding we can convince the assessment panel that the freezer room is needed for the school canteen.

One of the other reasons we are having problems with this item in Western Australia—and I will certainly be putting out a press release about this—is that people were not exactly sure of how they should apply. They had the option of having the program funds delivered directly to the school or through the state education department. And guess what the state education department has done? It has taken a fee of 11 per cent to handle each one of these programs. It is skimming off 11 per cent as a handling fee. If you take 11 per cent off the Falcon Primary School’s $117,000, the department is getting about $12,000 or $13,000 and the school then has to find that money to do this program.

I am sure that the Western Australian Minister for Education and Training, Ljiljanna Ravlich, whom I know and have a lot of respect for, would not really be happy with this because she knows how important this money is to the schools. I know that the previous minister wrote to her, but obviously the departmental officials wrote back and talked about handling fees, compliance and all that sort of stuff. I am going to be ensuring that my schools do not go through the state education department, because this is how they are being treated.

The other thing the state education department has imposed on these bodies is a requirement to use approved government contractors to do the work. So the state government gives Falcon Primary School a list of approved contractors—businessmen—from Perth who have to travel for over an hour down to Falcon Primary School to do the work. In an area where we have a shortage of people working on these sorts of projects, why can’t the local small businessmen apply to build these structures and do this work? Because the state education department has imposed this condition on the schools.

I could go through many of these programs, but I just want to outline one of them. Pinjarra Senior High School has been in dire need of funding for some time and, as a result, was very happy when it received $58,000. Most principals, particularly in government schools, do not like to say too much because they know they will be targeted by state Labor governments and authorities if they speak out, but Pinjarra principal Beth Aitken was quite happy to say on the record yesterday:

I was absolutely delighted that Pinjarra high school received funding under the Investing in Our Schools program. We planned months ago to apply for round 2 funding. After the extensive exercise, our hard work paid off. During the approval process, which was very thorough, we were continually asked how we intended to use these funds in accordance with the guidelines. As schools may apply for up to $150,000, we have every intention of applying for further funding.

This is a school principal who is very happy with the program. So the Socialist Left of the Labor Party and the member for Jagajaga, who are trying to dumb down this program by saying it is uneven, inequitable et cetera, are totally wrong. The government is doing this program in cooperation with the schools because they are happy with it. The member for Jagajaga talks about doing it in cooperation with the states, but why would you when you see the conditions imposed by the Western Australian Department of Education and Training? It is obvious that we have to go directly to the schools. As a result, the politics of envy is raising its head.

Many other schools in my electorate have been beneficiaries of this program. Just to outline how widespread across the electorate they are, Cecil Andrews Senior High School at Armadale received $87,000 for an ICT upgrade and Excelsior Primary School at Canning Vale, a brand new primary school which thought that, because it opened only last year, it would not be eligible for any of this, received $150,000 for ICT, library, music resources and sporting infrastructure. So it is a great program and it is well supported. I support this bill. (Time expired)

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The needs of the student must come first. The needs of the student must prevail over dogma on either side of politics when it comes to education policy. In the 21st century it has already been established that education is the paramount source of a nation’s prosperity. Education, indeed, is the key that unlocks two doors. It unlocks a door to a prosperous nation. It unlocks a door to a fair nation. A government can provide no greater gift to young people in this country than a good education that is not compromised by the dogma of any politician in federal or state parliaments.

However, the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006 perpetuates the flawed SES funding model, flawed because that funding model, although ostensibly based on the socioeconomic status of the parents whose children go to school, does not give an outcome based on need. We have seen in this parliament long and very acrimonious debates about funding going to the wealthiest non-government schools in this country. The fact of the matter is that by the year 2008 the wealthiest 64 non-government schools in the country will be receiving under the SES funding model an extra $100 million—indeed it could be much more than that—than they would have received under the previous funding model. I will not engage in the politics of envy. I am simply pointing out that the needs based funding model that the government has developed is so fundamentally flawed that the wealthiest non-government schools are getting some of the biggest benefits. That is either by accident or by design, and I do not want to spend too much time in parliament making accusations as to whether it is deliberate or it is unintentional but incompetent. Either way it leads to a very unfair distribution of funding and violates the principle of the needs of the child being paramount in determining funding allocations.

This legislation seeks to accommodate delays that have occurred in capital works spending and literacy support. There have been very substantial delays. It is true, as the member for Jagajaga has pointed out, that that can be put down to incompetence on the part of this government. Any time that there are major new programs there is always a period of trying to get those programs up and running and getting staff on board within Commonwealth departments and governments systematically underestimate the challenges associated with doing that. As a consequence, very often new programs do produce delays that could and should have been anticipated at the time. So there is a problem of government incompetence. Nevertheless, this legislation accommodates those delays and makes sure that the funding is preserved and does go to Australian schools.

Similarly, there have been real problems with the implementation of the program for the tutorial literacy vouchers to be provided by this government. This program is meant to be for students who do not meet literacy standards but, as we have heard from previous speakers, some students who have not met literacy standards in year 3 are now sitting year 5 literacy tests without having had the benefit of this program. The take-up rate has been disappointingly low, particularly in Victoria and in my home state of Queensland. One of the fundamental reasons for that is the Howard government has refused to work with the states on the implementation of these tutorial literacy vouchers. And that is what I mean about dogma prevailing over the needs of the child. During the election campaign, the government effectively indicated that it was unwilling to work with the state governments on matters such as these. That was an expression of its dogma. It was an expression of the federal government’s centralisation of government activity that has been displayed in so many areas of government policy. If the Council of Australian Governments and the ministerial councils had been properly used, we would have had a better result in relation to these vouchers. Since Labor is so concerned that the needs of the child be met in education, we are supporting this legislation but with a substantive amendment that the member for Jagajaga will be moving during the consideration in detail stage and also with a second reading amendment that has already been moved, which I had the pleasure of seconding.

Moving more broadly to the state of the education system in Australia, international tests demonstrate that on average Australians do very well compared with those in other developed countries. That is heartening. Overall our education system measures up quite well against other OECD countries. But, very disturbingly, a disproportionately large number of Australian students do badly—there is a long tail of them—and these are the disadvantaged students, the disadvantaged children, in our society. Some of these measures, particularly the tutorial literacy vouchers, are conceptually designed to help ameliorate those problems of disadvantage, but dogma has gotten in the way and they are not working very well.

The lack of attention being paid to Australia’s disadvantaged students is a national disgrace. The costs of it are huge not only to the children but also to the wider community and to society as a whole. The truth of the matter is that today’s disadvantaged students and neglected students are very big contributors to tomorrow’s prison population. If you look at the history of prisoners in our jails, you will find very high levels of functional illiteracy. Very commonly, a large proportion of the prisoners have been expelled from school or excluded from school on a number of occasions. A very large proportion of them left school before completing year 10—not year 12, but year 10. So the costs to the community of neglected and disadvantaged children in our country are being felt every day.

The cost of accommodating our prison population, to put it in dollars and cents, runs to more than $2 billion a year, but that cost is insignificant compared with the trauma of broken homes, domestic violence, criminal behaviour such as breaking and entering, and substance abuse—addiction to very bad and damaging dugs. All of these costs are felt by the wider community.

My electorate substantially covers Logan City, and it is clear that some very good work is being done there, but the problem of chronic school absences in Logan City is acute. It is clear that several hundred year 7 students in the Logan-Beaudesert area miss school for more than 20 per cent of the year. If they miss school for more than 20 per cent of the year, they cannot participate effectively in school and they cannot get a good education. A staggering 65 per cent of those chronic school absences are parent condoned—that is, it is not a naughty little kid wagging school without the parent’s knowledge; the parent knows it and condones it. I hear statements such as, ‘If it was good enough for me not to attend school, it is good enough for my kids not to attend school.’ I hear evidence of caseworkers saying that on occasions a mother who is just so depressed—often it is a single mother who is just unable to cope—keeps the kids home, perhaps to help her out. These are great social tragedies, yet they are being kept out of the public gaze because the problem is so large. The measurement of the number of kids who were missing for more than 20 per cent of the year led to a caseload so great that there was no prospect of the authorities being able to deal with it, so they lifted the bar to those missing for more than one-third of the year. These children are neglected and they are being condemned to a very tough life.

It would be easy to conclude, as so many people do, that this is a problem unique to Logan City or to a few places around Australia—that it does not really happen in middle Australia and it does not happen in affluent Australia—but the truth is that it does happen in middle Australia. However, there are no coordinated or nationally collected statistics on chronic school absences. I say here today that I will be shining a light on the problem of chronic school absences in this country, because I believe it is the single most pressing issue facing Australia today.

We should be embracing an agenda where economy meets society. The Council of Australian Governments has an opportunity to embrace such an agenda. Let me explain. Premier Steve Bracks, Premier Peter Beattie and the other premiers have been doing a large amount of work on a social agenda: investing in the education of young people, remedying social exclusion and social disadvantage of school students and investing in preventative health. It is a very wise and modern agenda that merges economy and society, because those are good investments for the economy as well as for society.

There was an opportunity at the Council of Australian Governments meeting a couple of weeks ago for the Howard government to replicate the national competition policy principles by agreeing to ‘competition payments’—in this case reform payments—to the states, which have to bear a very substantial amount of these costs, and to consider them not just as a cost but as an investment in the future and, as the states achieved particularly good outcomes, those payments would flow. The Commonwealth did not rule that out, but it did not formally embrace it. I, for one, would like to see that happen. I would rather the Commonwealth and the states work together through the Council of Australian Governments and the ministerial councils than see the dogma that is driving this government with a number of these programs to bypass the states. Students only lose as a result. Perhaps it makes Howard government ministers and backbenchers feel good to bypass the states, but the needs of the child must prevail over dogma on both sides of politics.

Another area of neglect that feeds into the problem of chronic school absences is in preschool education. In Australia today around 60,000 young kids are missing out on a preschool education, and most of them are disadvantaged. When I talk to primary school principals, they tell me that it is very easy to identify which children arriving at school have had the benefit of a preschool education and which have not. A preschool education assists with the socialising of children so that they get used to being with other children. It gives them very basic learning skills, the purpose of which is that, when those children arrive at school, from day one they are ready to learn.

Children who go through a proper preschool education arrive at primary school ready to learn. The children who do not, very commonly, are not ready to learn because they are trying to get used to being with so many other kids and they do not necessarily have those basic learning skills, particularly if they come from households where the parents themselves did not have a good education and cannot do basic reading at home. In many of those disadvantaged households the only book is a telephone book. I know that in situations such as this in my area of Logan City teachers are trying to get kids to read the junk mail—at least it is some written material that is sitting in their homes. It is better than nothing. So that is the low base from which we start in many of these instances.

I have to say that it was a previous Labor government, in 1984, that abandoned Commonwealth responsibility and involvement in preschool education, other than for Indigenous students. This government has carried that on. This government has done some pretty good work in relation to Indigenous students, in making sure that they have some sort of opportunity to have a preschool education, but so many non-Indigenous and Indigenous children are missing out on a preschool education.

The government did embrace an early childhood development program a  few years ago, but there has been no mention of the idea of a nationally coordinated, nationally consistent preschool education program. One consequence of that is that we do not know in fact how many kids are missing out on a preschool education. If you look at state statistics that are compiled, some states are reporting that 101 per cent of four-year-olds are attending a preschool. It is bewildering that 101 per cent could be attending, but they are the official figures coming out of some of the states. The truth is that a lot of kids are missing out on a preschool education. We should be embracing a nationally consistent approach to quality preschool education and making sure that every four-year-old gets at least 15 hours of preschool a week, either at a preschool or, while it is being ramped up, at least at an accredited child-care centre, so that it is not just childminding but a genuine preschool education.

Since 1984 virtually all the enrolment growth in schools in Australia has been in non-government schools. I think there has been about a one per cent increase in enrolments in government schools. One consequence of this is that, as parents who can get together enough money are taking their kids out of government schools and putting them into non-government schools, in poorer areas those classes are being residualised. What I mean by that is that a very large proportion of those kids are very needy. They have disadvantages, and those disadvantages should be remedied in any decent society but the funding is just not there.

That is why I say we should base our funding on the needs of the child, focusing on the needs of the child, not on whether the school is a non-government or a government school. I point out that distinctions between government and non-government schools in Australia are blurring now as non-government schools get more funding out of the SES funding model and as government schools rely more and more on the contributions from parents—effectively de facto fees and other so-called voluntary contributions which if not made would mean that the schools in some cases would be unable to pay the teachers, and they certainly would not be able to get some of the most basic facilities.

So those distinctions are already blurring. Let us concentrate on the needs of the child and let us not get hung up on the dogma of whether kids are going to a government or a non-government school. Under a needs based funding formula, extra funding would go to those schools for remedial literacy and numeracy programs and to full-service schools—that is, counselling, anger management, school nurses, a visiting GP. Marsden State High School in my electorate is a magnificent example of the full-service school approach. There are huge opportunities. Let us get some common ground across the political divide, concentrate on the needs of the child and abandon the dogma that has for so long marred this debate.

Michael Ferguson (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006, and in so doing allow school communities around Australia, particularly those in my home state of Tasmania, to no longer go unheard. Today they will be given a voice and an opportunity to be heard. Before dwelling on the bill I would like to congratulate the member for Rankin, as he departs the chamber, on much of his contribution today. I would have to say in a spirit of bipartisanship that it is really quite helpful for us to have these kinds of discussions and to be able to look at the pitfalls of education in Australia in a rational, sensible and calm way.

The member for Rankin’s contribution today stands once more in stark contrast to the member for Jagajaga’s contribution. I regret to inform the House that the member for Jagajaga is no longer in the chamber to listen to the debate in which she has been so antagonistic. The contributions of the shadow spokesman for education are always so angry, in stark contrast to those of the member for Rankin. They are always embedded with dogma and even, at times, hatred towards the government of the day—in this case the Liberal government—simply because of its colour. It is the same dogma which she uses to attack the Howard government; the previous excellent minister for education, Dr Nelson; and the current excellent education minister, Mrs Bishop. But that same dogma prevents her from ever challenging her state Labor colleagues. I am filled with regret at this fact.

I do not think anybody in this chamber today, or anybody listening to this broadcast or reading the Hansard, is confused any more about who is responsible for state education in this country. The Australian Education Union and the Australian Labor Party in the past have tried to provoke some sort of twisted rewriting of history as to who is responsible. The reality is that state schools in Australia are the responsibility, principally, of the states.

I tend to have a slightly different view to a black and white one, though. Really, they are the responsibility of all of us—all levels of government. I have seen in Tasmania how even local government is beginning to have a major role in the long-term success of schools in its municipality. I cannot think of a better example than Scottsdale High School, which is in my electorate of Bass and in probably one of the most beautiful corners of Australia in the north-east—Dr Nelson has visited there. The local Dorset council was one of the greatest supporters and promoters of a major upgrade that occurred there in recent times. All levels of government share a responsibility for education in this country. That goes not just for state schools but also for non-government schools. We have a shared responsibility, because we ought to have a shared commitment to the future of this country.

In closing, I will not throw too many more bouquets to the member for Rankin, but I will say that I really appreciated his remarks, which were directed at children who in some cases are being neglected. This is a most regrettable thing that is happening in Australia in certain situations. I would like to join with him today in saying that I too would like to commit to seeing a redress and an improvement in the future prospects for children who just do not get the same start in life that so many others do.

Apart from a minor drafting area, there are five main features of the bill that we are debating today. The first is to create capacity within the legislation for the government to be able to give more support to certain types of so-called special schools that cater for students who are at risk of leaving school for, if you like, non-academic reasons, such as social, emotional or behavioural problems.

The bill will also allow the government to reallocate unspent funding from the 2005 program to the 2006 program for government schools under the Investing in Our Schools program. It will also allow the government to bring forward funding from the 2008 program into 2006. The bill will also allow unspent funding from the generally very successful pilot known as the Tutorial Voucher Initiative, which was conducted in 2005, to be used in the 2006 program year. I welcome that. The bill also allows greater flexibility for the use of funding under the act to allow funding for a program year to be carried over or brought forward as necessary to another program year. I am greatly supportive of this.

It is time that schools in Australia and students in particular are heard again. I appreciate that health has been a major facet of political debate in recent years, and I hope that it continues to be an important issue that is discussed and debated. I still believe that education is one of the great frontiers where we need to make more progress in this country. That is why I am proud to be a part of the Howard government. It is not about dogma; it is about our commitment to students and the future of our great country. This government, in word and deed, is about building better communities, and one way we can do that is by giving more and better support—and strategic support—to schools all around Australia, and in particular to students, from whatever school they may come. Through this bill we will be able to provide more opportunities for the boys and girls who, in some cases, attend schools which have been neglected by their owners or custodians, the state governments.

In my home state of Tasmania, the Australian government is spending millions of dollars every year to fund infrastructure projects in schools that the state government has left behind. I am not even of a mind to congratulate the Australian government too much on doing that. I believe that the Australian government is doing what it ought to be doing—investing in our schools. We do not need a gold medal or a blue ribbon from our peers or from voters to tell us what a great job we are doing. I feel that it is our responsibility, and I feel that we are doing a job and that we should get on and continue to do that job.

However, having said all of that, the Investing in Our Schools program was a commitment made by the coalition prior to the 2004 federal election—an election which saw me and a number of my colleagues on this side of the House elected for the first time. I believe that the Investing in Our Schools commitment was one of the policy successes and major reasons for the historic return of the Howard government, which is now just one day away from achieving its 10th anniversary.

I am so proud of this program, because I have seen the way it has been appreciated and taken up by school principals, school teachers and by school parent and friend bodies. They have seen an opportunity to have an input into the future improvement of their schools. We have witnessed schools which have suffered similar neglect to the neglect suffered by some of the children that the member for Rankin described. I was one of the teachers who worked in those schools. As a member of federal parliament, I am very proud to be able to have as part of my canvas the fact that I worked as a public teacher in secondary state schools in Northern Tasmania. Those years were some of the best years of my life.

I digress for a moment to say that the last year of teaching I did is the one that I remember most fondly. After a number of years of being inexperienced, I think I got a little better. I enjoyed it so much—it was the best year of teaching I ever did. But it was the coldest year I ever taught. Can you believe, ladies and gentlemen, that in the state of Tasmania there are classrooms that do not have heaters? People might not believe this, but it is true. I worked in a school where the classrooms in the middle of winter were unheated. We could survive the summer months because they were brief and not that hot, but for some period of time the classrooms were so hot they were unbearable. But, being Tasmanian, we could live with that because we knew that the season would come and go and that for much of it we were on recreation leave. I suppose that is part of being a Tasmanian. It can get very hot, but when it does you know the end is not far away.

I taught in classrooms with no heaters—to correct myself, they did have heaters but they were not working. This was at a time when Tasmania, like it is today, was enjoying record receipts of federal funding—not just through the federal schools funding program but through its recurrent revenue, which was achieved by the great success of the GST and a growing economy. So what did I do? I would carry, along with my little tote tray of whiteboard markers and chalk, a two-kilowatt heater from classroom to classroom. For anybody who saw me, it would have looked pretty funny to see a schoolteacher wandering from class to class with a little fan heater. I have to say that a two-kilowatt heater plugged in for 40 minutes in a stone-cold classroom did not really warm it up very much either.

I will never allow those experiences to depart from my memory because I will never forget the way those kids felt and the lack of learning that occurred because they were uncomfortable. It was a work site and a workplace. It was where I worked but, equally, it was where those 25 to 43 students worked—it was their workplace. No adult would tolerate working in an eight- or nine-degree classroom; they would not do it. But because they were children, I think there was a view that it could be allowed to continue without being challenged. I think that is disgraceful. We are taking away not just the comfort of life but an opportunity to do well and to learn such that, just as the member for Rankin explained, children with a good start in life can enjoy a prosperous and happy future. I will never forget that, and I never want to be accused of being in part to blame for providing conditions to children in classrooms such as I have described.

The Investing in Our Schools program has already invested $650,000 in schools in my electorate alone. I am very proud of this. These are not initiatives where the Australian government has walked in and said, ‘Hey, we think you should do this or that,’ or even where the state government has walked in and said, ‘We think you should apply for the funding to achieve this or that.’ They are initiatives which have come from the school community. Who else is better placed to identify the needs of the school community? Branxholm Primary School, a very small school in my community, has already received a $50,000 grant to redevelop the playground. Brooks High School will be investing $12,000 in an IT upgrade. Launceston College, my old college, has received a $48,000 grant to redevelop the old theatrette. Fantastic: at last Lilydale District High School will be able to provide some shaded areas to students with their grant. Mowbray Heights Primary School, one of the little gold nuggets in Bass—a wonderful school with wonderful leadership—will be making improvements to their outside shade structures as well. The list goes on.

Without naming the schools, I wish to read some examples that have been provided to me of comments which have been made in the application process. This school asked for a carpet to be replaced using the federal Investing in Our Schools program funding. In their application they said:

The age of the section of carpet relating to the project is over 30 years old. The condition of the carpet throughout this area is poor. In classrooms and office areas carpet is threadbare in high use areas and joins are coming apart. Badly worn carpet is difficult to clean, unwelcoming for students to sit on and at times can cause accidental falls.

Another school which has successfully received a grant said in its application form:

The classroom was built in 1965. The classroom is an outdated space which limits flexibility to deliver curriculum. Teachers work tirelessly to create a stimulating learning environment; however, the overcrowded nature of this classroom provides many challenges which simply cannot be overcome by outstanding teacher planning and creativity.

The third one I would like to read is, again, for carpet. Can you believe that we have schools crying out for funding for carpet? This school says:

The current carpet is hard and worn. It does not match the remaining carpet. As this is our infant block, the students are sitting on the floor a lot or are working in groups on the floor area. After lunch, the students have a rest time. They lay on the floor for this and again the current carpet is hard and uncomfortable. The existing carpet is old. New carpet will be healthier for our students, for example, dirt, dust mites et cetera. Safety—a new carpet will be less slippery because it will not be smooth because of wear.

This is a government school in northern Tasmania after nearly eight years of a Labor government which has constantly attempted to hammer the Howard government. It is one of the state government’s own schools, at a time of record state government income, largely due to the GST. The state government has allowed a school in 2005 to be confronted with an application form in which it can write words such as I have just described.

This greatly upsets me and I do not want to allow the state government to get away with it any longer. We have an opportunity in Tasmania, there being a state election very soon. I am very pleased with the shadow education spokesman, Mr Gutwein, who has constantly put the government on notice in regard to its lack of investment in its own schools. Indeed I am very hopeful that the people of Tasmania will take the opportunity on 18 March to send a message to the Lennon government with its warped priorities, which would rather spend $650,000 on a dud governor than to employ another 10 teachers, which it could have done for the same amount.

A key element of the Investing in Our Schools program is that the school community itself decides on what infrastructure projects should be a priority. The parents, the teachers and, most importantly, the students have an opportunity—which I think is a first—to be involved in deciding what initiatives will make their school better. I have already given some examples of that. I would like to think that the Tasmanian state government could not walk away from its past efforts of treating schools and students with contempt.

The Australian government is committed to education in ways that we have never seen before. I am proud to be a part of this devotion to school upgrading, but I am continually angry and frustrated at state governments who continue to overlook the needs of their schools. In Tasmania right now, at the beginning of a school year and a school term, the state government’s attitude even to special needs students is one of the clearest examples of how Labor has got its priorities utterly wrong.

Recently I attended a meeting of parents and friends who are quite concerned and, in many cases, angry about both the closure of special needs schools and the recent cutback in teacher aide time for students who have been involved in mainstream schools due to the inclusion policy. Instead of Minister Paula Wriedt addressing the meeting, she sent representatives from her department. They heard a long list of concerns, which included: the lack of ability of mainstream schools to provide support to children who have disabilities; poor application of processes for children who have special needs; and that parents feel as though they are at the end of the food chain and are simply subject to the decisions which are being made about their children. We have even heard an example of a quadriplegic child—a beautiful little girl whom I have met—who, at last report, will be left unattended for one hour per day. She is five years old. How can this be?

In the past we have had trendy decision making to move away from special needs schools. I have a personal view on this: it was a bad decision to move away from special needs schools. However, I do not want to say that all children with disabilities ought to be placed in special schools. But I do believe that, in the best interests of the child, the people who love that child the most—not the principals, the teachers or the government but the parents—ought to have a choice. I firmly believe that a key part of an inclusion policy should be a strong element of choice—they at least should have the opportunity to utilise a special school if they think it is in the child’s best interests.

I want to take the opportunity in the last moments of my contribution to call on the state government to give these students the support which they deserve and need so that they, too, like other mainstream students, can live their lives to their full potential. I commend the bill to the House.

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the most significant institutions in our local communities is our schools. Let me make it clear from the outset of my contribution on the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006 that I am—and, I would imagine, every other member in this place would be—a supporter of our education system. I genuinely believe that my electorate has some of the best schools and certainly the best school administrators and educators in the country.

In making these comments about local schools, I would like to take the opportunity to welcome the new Campbelltown School Education Director, Mr Hedley Mooney, to our region. Prior to taking up this appointment, Mr Mooney was a teacher at Miller High School. He will now have the opportunity to work at both ends of my electorate. I would also like to take this opportunity early in my contribution on the bill to record my thanks for the exceptional work done over many years by Mr Greg Whitby, the former Chief Executive Officer of the Catholic Education Office, Diocese of Wollongong. Mr Whitby’s area of responsibility, apart from the South Coast, covered Macarthur—a large slab of my electorate. I know that he is a very well respected and well regarded educator and education administrator. I was very disappointed to hear that Greg had decided to move on to the Diocese of Parramatta later this year. I am sure that he will continue his excellent work there for the benefit of the local schools and the students now under his charge.

I will not be opposing this bill, but I will be strongly supporting Labor’s second reading amendment, which points to some serious maladministration in the Investing in Our Schools program. The Investing in Our Schools program has become the smaller, school based version of the regional rorts scheme. It has become yet another manifestation of the government’s decade-long addiction to heaping largesse on places where they believe it is needed as opposed to assisting those who need it most.

When the minister says how important this program is to the government, there is no doubt in my mind that she is referring not to an overwhelming desire to improve schools as a matter of good public policy but rather to the government’s desire to use schools funding to pick up where other pork-barrelling efforts have left off. I can only presume that, when the government came up with the program, they thought that the members of the opposition would be a little too scared to criticise it, because it is dealing with federal grants to schools. When it comes to schools funding, I am not going to be slow in getting off the mark to make a criticism, particularly when I see so many schools in my electorate where this criticism is well deserved.

I refer to the funding information that has recently come to light following answers to questions on notice received by the member for Gorton. The extent to which this government is willing to go when it comes to pork-barrelling quite frankly knows no bounds. A decade of this addiction to garnering support through pork-barrelling has now extended, as I said earlier, to our local schools. This is the same government whose Prime Minister warned in the party room on Tuesday to avoid giving a sense of arrogance or hubris. You could just see the Prime Minister saying, ‘If the Australian people get a whiff of the fact that we have tickets on ourselves, we’re dead.’ With respect, a whiff of tickets is going to be a little hard to smell under the wads of cash that this government has been splashing around the place.

I return to the detail of the answers that were given to the member for Gorton. I would like to go through some details of their key elements. In round 1 of the Investing in Our Schools program some $69 million of the total $105 million was spent in coalition seats. Despite having less than 60 per cent of seats in this chamber, the electorates of government members received 66 per cent of the funding under round 1. Of itself, this is not a particularly damning statistic, but there is more. As always, you tend to find when dealing with this government that the devil is in the detail. There are a few more facts about the round 1 grants that are worthy of noting in this debate: 19 of the 20 electorates receiving the highest funding were coalition seats. The average fund per Nationals electorate was more than $1.3 million, the average fund per Liberal electorate was more than $700,000, the average fund per coalition electorate was more than $790,000 and the average grant per coalition marginal seat was more than $830,000. There was only one Labor held electorate in the list of the top 10 electorates when ranked by the average grant per school. But the most interesting thing is that the average Labor electorate received a mere $549,303.

When it comes to the same statistics in New South Wales, which is probably a little closer to my focal point in this debate, the story does not change all that much. On average, Nationals electorates received more than $1.2 million each, Liberal electorates received more than $661,000 each and coalition electorates received more than $780,000 each, while the average Labor held electorate received a little over $489,000. Quite frankly, the statistics are at least revealing.

In addition to the financial rorting of the program, it is interesting that in the lead-up to the announcement of the successful applications, successful schools were in some instances informed prior to any official announcement. Naturally, that sort of stuff occurring in electorates is of concern and, as a consequence, I had cause to investigate what was going on and why I was hearing that some schools had been receiving calls saying that their applications were going to be successful while others were not hearing anything. I found out that, in the true fashion of this government, the reason why some government members were able to inform the schools in their electorates earlier than anyone else was that some of them were going away at the time that the official announcement would be made. I cannot help but think that this approach was designed by the same people who came up with the idea that schools who were receiving money for flagpoles had to invite members of the government to be at the official raising of the flag.

I am not going to deny that my electorate benefited from the scheme—obviously not to the same extent as coalition electorates, but it did receive $624,522 in funding grants. Some 22 schools in the electorate submitted applications for 17 projects, and the applications of 14 schools were approved. It was not the 100 per cent success rate that some other electorates experienced, but the average amount granted in my electorate was $44,000. Local schools in the electorate were awarded funds for a range of projects including airconditioning of classrooms, computer upgrades, shade structures and sporting and fitness equipment upgrades. These will be welcome additions to local schools when the government finally gets around to handing over the cheque.

The problem and the most disappointing thing about this program is that, despite the obvious bias in the awarding of funds to particular electorates, the government does not yet have its house in order when it comes to actually handing over the cash. The government knew all this was coming. The government promised all these schools would receive additional funding for capital works during the last election campaign. Yet schools in my electorate are still waiting for their cheques, and they are schools which have already been told that they are successful. They have applied and been informed, but they are going to be sitting by the mailbox waiting to see when the money comes through so they can plan the commencement of this new work.

There is no reasonable excuse that the government can come up with for not being prepared to handle the number of applications they received. It is simply not good enough to use the excuse that they were overwhelmed. It comes as no surprise that there was always going to be a rush of applications. All schools were promised the money during the last election campaign. Everybody knows that every school has a list of work that is waiting to be commenced should money become available. So why would it come as any surprise that the schools which were asking for funds, quite frankly, were not in need of those things and were not in need of having this work commenced as quickly as possible?

Unlike other programs that hand out grants, schools need a lead time to manage any capital works project. Not only is there a need to consider the time needed to complete the work but also any disruption that such work might cause to the day-to-day management of a school also has to be taken into account. I know that when some schools have experienced delays in the past, they have had to delay the commencement of projects for up to a year, as the works to be undertaken may have been considered to be unsafe while the school was still in session. As everyone knows, the longest period that schools have available to them to complete projects, particularly physical projects, is in the Christmas break. These schools need their money and they need it now.

The bill before us today will grant the minister the ability to move funds around within a funding quadrennium. I have to say that, on the face of it, this is seen as a reasonable measure that will, hopefully, allow for better management of the administration of the program in the future. Hopefully, granting the minister greater flexibility will not result in a repeat of schools waiting for their money. Hopefully, it will result on this occasion in the Department of Education, Science and Training being more adept at processing applications in a more timely fashion and also assisting schools in their endeavour to complete the tasks which are subject to the grant.

As I said, I broadly support these measures, but I must express a certain reservation. I do not know whether it is just me—sadly, it probably is not—but it is a bit rough to simply say, ‘You can trust this government when it comes to handing out money.’ It is for this reason I am somewhat reservedly supporting the granting of increased flexibility to the minister, as I am fearful that the flexibility will simply be used as a means by which the minister can manipulate this program for purely political purposes. I hope I am shown to be wrong on that. If I am not shown to be incorrect and the minister manipulates the program for political purposes, the program will be further discredited—and the statistics for round 1 of the grants have proved this to be the case.

The government has set about casting itself as the saviour of schools by splashing out $1 billion on capital works. It hopes to make itself look better than its state counterparts by contrasting their willingness to spend on school infrastructure. With the difficulty that state governments sometimes encounter, they certainly do have to manage within their budgets, particularly when they seem to be starved continually of federal government funds. No doubt if the New South Wales government received all of its GST collected in New South Wales, it would be spending more money on schools. Sadly, under the twisted arrangements—which this place has been steeped in for a little time—the New South Wales government receives only $10 billion in GST revenue, whilst at the same time it collects, on behalf of the Commonwealth, $13 billion from its residents in New South Wales.

However, instead of becoming the great saviour of school communities, the government has created an administrative nightmare for itself and one, it has been shown, it is now struggling to control. School communities, parents, teachers and, in many instances, students have come together in good faith to apply for grants under the Investing in Our Schools program. They have all worked together for the benefit of their local schools to determine priorities for work and to complete their respective applications. It is about time this government stopped dithering and completed round 1 of this program in New South Wales, while ensuring that the cheques are in the hands of the schools and not sitting on someone’s desk waiting to be put under the minister’s nose for signature.

Hot on the heels of that, I would like to see the announcement of a round 2 grant for New South Wales that many schools, particularly in my area, are currently waiting on. I can only think that the delay in announcing these grants, despite the public spin, is because the government has been caught out pork-barrelling again and it wants to—at least this time—make sure that it has the balance right. I will continue to encourage schools in my area to apply for grants under the next round of Investing in Our Schools program, which I expect will be open in New South Wales in a matter of days. I will continue to tell local principals, parents and citizens organisations and anyone who has a direct interest in the wellbeing of schools in my area that, quite frankly, they should get an application in so that the schools can actually benefit from this program.

Given the increased flexibility afforded by this bill, I hope the government will improve the administration of the program. I hope that the increased flexibility will not be used to further manipulate or exacerbate the maladministration that has come to characterise this program. I hope it does not result in an absolute politicisation of an already highly politically motivated program. We have a new minister overseeing the program now, and I can only hope that she brings with her a new approach to the management of this important program.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to speak on this important bill, the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006, as the federal member for Ryan. I am delighted that the former Minister for Education, Science and Training is in the chamber, because his carriage of the portfolio was an inspiration to all of us. He ought to be commended and he certainly deserves the warm applause of this side of the parliament. Indeed, I know I speak for all my constituents in the electorate of Ryan. However, on such an important piece of legislation I have never heard such a low-key, downbeat contribution as that made by the new member for Werriwa, who preceded me. I again welcome him to the parliament. I certainly think he will do a better job than his predecessor.

This bill is very important because it is all about our children. Education is an absolute top priority and top-drawer issue for the Howard government. It is certainly a priority for me in Ryan. We all know that having a vital, first-class education system is very important to the individual and to our society collectively. It is very important to the national interest, our future prosperity and the social and economic security of our people.

As the late Big Kev would have said, ‘I’m excited.’ I am excited because this bill does great things for our young people. The bill reflects the very high emphasis the Howard government places on education. I am surprised and perplexed that all the speakers from the federal Labor opposition say they are going to support this bill but they have criticised it. You are walking both sides of the street here. How can you say that you support the bill but then come into parliament and criticise it? You should support it, speak warmly of it and vote for it or you should reject it, criticise it and attack it. You come in here and say, ‘This is a terrible bill; it does great damage to our young people and our education sector,’ but you are going to vote for it. Where are the principles of the federal Labor Party? It is a quite remarkable attitude, I would suggest.

Earlier we heard the Deputy Leader of the Opposition continue this envy based politics that the Australian people have comprehensively rejected and repudiated. The 2004 federal election was another glowing endorsement of the Howard government. The people have said they do not want any of this cleavage between the private and public sectors. They want to get on with promoting the interests of our children and the broad education sector. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition—the alternative Deputy Prime Minister of this country—comes in here whingeing, whining and carping, as she is want to do. It is just remarkable. Someone who would be the Deputy Prime Minister of this country speaks with little eloquence, full of envy based words and criticisms. How utterly embarrassing it would be for this country if the deputy federal Labor leader were one day to become the Deputy Prime Minister of this country. I know that the people of my electorate of Ryan will be doing everything in their power to prevent the Labor Party ever coming to this side of the parliament.

Dinosaur thinking still clearly permeates the upper echelons of the federal Labor Party and its brains trust. It is no wonder that in today’s Australian the shadow minister for primary industries, resources, forestry and tourism, the member for Batman, wrote very eloquently about all the flaws of the federal Labor Party. They are bereft of ideas and any innovative policy.

Conversely, this bill reflects the very strong, innovative ideas of this side of the parliament, which is why the people of Australia voted for the Howard government in October 2004 for the fourth consecutive time. This is a great bill. As I say, I am excited to speak about it and I am sure that the students, the education practitioners and the mums and dads of Ryan will be very pleased that we are putting this bill forward for endorsement.

This amendment to the Schools Assistance Act 2004 will allow for the provision of a record $33 billion in funding to Australian schools over the four years from 2005 to 2008. This funding is for both government and non-government schools, showing that we are not interested in cleavages or division; we are interested in outcomes. I encourage the Labor Party in their misery in opposition to take their eyes off the ball of division and put their energy into outcomes—they might get a bit of respect from the Australian community. Clearly, the deputy Labor leader cannot come to terms with this notion.

While the majority of funding will be allocated to government schools, we will not, unlike our state counterparts, neglect the enormous number of children in non-government schools. This bill provides for three major initiatives to capitalise on the success of the government’s Investing in Our Schools program, which has injected much needed funding into our schools. Firstly, the bill will bring forward extra funding into the Investing in Our Schools program for government schools. Secondly, it will provide extra funding for non-government schools supporting children at risk. Thirdly, it will allow for the re-allocation of funding from the 2005 reading voucher program to this year’s program. The response of schools, both government and non-government, to the Investing in Our Schools program has been truly overwhelmingly and positive.

More than 8,000 funding requests have come through from state government schools and already more than 2,600 schools have received funds from the Howard government. In responding to this success, this bill will bring forward from 2008 to 2006 over $186 million for small-scale infrastructure projects in state government schools. This is a very important initiative and I commend it very strongly. Often the importance of infrastructure is forgotten in our schools, but it can have a fundamental influence on outcomes for teachers and students alike. Students and teachers need to have areas for learning and socialising that are safe, comfortable and supportive. The Investing in Our Schools program and capital grants funding have already distributed much needed funding to many Australian schools for essential infrastructure work.

The Howard government has committed some $1 billion to this superb and innovative policy program. It builds on the $1.7 billion that the government allocated for school capital works over the next quadrennium. Local school communities, as we all know, are forever fundraising trying to plug the gaps that funding from the state government should have filled but of course has not done so.

I want to refer to some schools in my electorate that have been funding beneficiaries. They are schools with which I have a warm relationship. I attend them on a regular basis and have got to know their principals and the teachers. The Hilder Road State School at The Gap has been a recipient of an Investing in Our Schools grant to the tune of $55,000. I had the opportunity of meeting with the principal, Jo Bottrell and the P&C president, Dr James St John, shortly before these funds were allocated. They were absolutely thrilled. They acknowledged the Howard government for its role in the education sector and the boost to the school that this funding provided was something tremendous. It improved facilities for the kids. It is another occasion where the local community and the parents are not again asked to put their hands in their pockets.

The other school in my electorate that has been the beneficiary of the Investing in Our Schools program is the Ironside State School at Saint Lucia, where the funding of $44,551 was spent on refurbishment of school pool change rooms. These change rooms were 45 years old. Important fixtures and fittings were either non-existent, broken or missing. This is absolutely remarkable. I strongly sanction here in the parliament Queensland state governments of both colours—coalition and Labor—for the neglect of the Ironside school over the last 45 years. How can it be that, in 45 years, a school has not had any funding from the state government, particularly since the Goss and Beattie Labor governments have been in office since 1989, bar two years? They have failed in those many years to spend any dollars at all on pools.

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me think who the minister was 20 years ago.

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear an interjection from the member for Brisbane. If he had been paying careful attention to what I said he would have heard very clearly that, as a Liberal member of this government, I strongly condemned both sides of politics in the state arena—both coalition and Labor. Of course, we know that since 1989, the Queensland government has been of the same political flavour as the opposition, and the Labor Party claims the Queensland government is doing great things for Queensland. Of course, Queenslanders, I am sure, will put that one to rest at the next election. If the member for Brisbane would just focus on some ideas and some innovative policies, he might not be sitting in misery in the opposition after the next election. I strongly suggest that he mind his own business and focus on his electorate. He only just got over the line at the last election. If he actually invested some of his time in the local community, he might not be sitting on just a two per cent margin. He might focus on his constituency in his own electorate. He might worry about his own policies and have some respect. As a nearly 25-year resident of my electorate, I am not in the business of swapping and changing positions like the members of the other side. I would rather have a 12 to 13 per cent margin any day than the two per cent margin that the member for Brisbane has, which is a very poor reflection on his local representation.

This bill is about education, our young people and investing in our schools. That is what this government, led by the Prime Minister, has done in the last decade, which is why, I hasten to remind the Labor member for Brisbane, we will be celebrating a decade in office tomorrow. I know that you remain in misery over there. No doubt at some point you will follow your colleague the member for Maribyrnong and retire gracefully, one hopes.

In the electorate of Ryan, a number of very worthy schools have also been recipients of capital grants funding. The Brookfield State School has been a tremendous recipient of this important funding. There are also two schools at The Gap that have qualified. Hilder Road State School, as I mentioned earlier, and St Peter Chanel Catholic School at The Gap have done very well from strong local representation and the funding that the Howard government has been able to provide for them.

In the centenary suburbs, the Good News Lutheran Primary School was also a beneficiary of this program. I have had the great pleasure of visiting that school frequently. It is a wonderful school. I have been very happy to support applications by schools in the Ryan electorate for funding. I know how important it is. I know how the P&Cs value these funding initiatives and how much hard work they put into the schools and the education environment that their children are part of. They certainly know the value of this funding and the enormous potential it represents for their children.

The Good News Lutheran Primary School, a non-government school, received $120,000 of capital works funding, which is a tremendous acknowledgment of what they are all about. This funding will pay for much needed facilities at the school. It will provide for a covered lunch area, walkways and, importantly, disabled access ramps. These are basic needs, but they are very important to the functioning of the school. Our children deserve all the support and safety that these investments can bring about. I pay tribute to the principal of the Good News Lutheran Primary School, Mr Loyd Fyffe. I am sure he is very pleased with the government’s support for his school and I congratulate him for his stewardship and leadership of that school.

This bill also ensures that all non-government schools catering primarily for students with social, emotional or behavioural difficulties who are at risk of leaving mainstream schooling will receive maximum general recurrent grant funding from the government. This is an important initiative. Children do not have a choice about the environment they are brought up in, which can often lead to problems. These children are vulnerable and we need to support them as much as we can. It is the children who are experiencing social, emotional and behavioural difficulties who probably are most at risk of falling through the cracks and we need to fill those cracks as quickly as possible. This bill does that very effectively.

I want to talk about tutorial vouchers as well because they are an important aspect of this bill. The innovative pilot program, the Tutorial Voucher Initiative, which was undertaken in 2005 has been a great success. Children falling below the year 3 national reading benchmark in 2003 were able to access this voucher for tutorial support worth up to $700. During the pilot, the state government of Queensland did not contact eligible parents to make them aware of the availability of this program. I think that is an absolutely appalling dereliction of its duty and responsibility. How can a state government and a state education minister fail to contact eligible parents to make them aware of the availability of this voucher? The Beattie government should hang its head in shame not only over its current inept management of the health system in Queensland but also over another reflection of its incompetence and maladministration. It has let down vulnerable children and their parents, allowing them to miss out on this invaluable reading assistance, which we all know could really have made a difference in the lives of young kids. Unspent funding from the pilot program will now be made available in 2006 to provide literacy assistance for students who most need extra support. Children from Queensland who were unable to participate in this pilot program will now be able to benefit from its success.

We all know that schools fall within the ambit of state governments in our constitutional structure. The states in this country are rolling in the GST. Queensland, my home state, is awash in GST revenue. I keep saying this in the parliament and I will say it again, if there are any Queenslanders listening and certainly if there are any residents of Ryan listening. Queensland is the recipient of some $7.7 billion in GST revenue. This is a source of growth funding; it is rivers of gold for the states. In question time a couple of weeks ago, the Treasurer echoed the words of the new Western Australian Premier that when the GST was brought in it was in the national interest. We know that the Queensland Premier was the first to sign on the dotted line, despite all the rhetoric and hypocrisy in condemning the GST and national taxation reform. Queensland is receiving enormous benefits from the GST, yet it does not spend it on hospitals, schools and roads. Why is the state not spending it on Moggill Road? This is a state road. Why is it not spending it on the Ironside State School? Why is this GST revenue not being allocated for the pool change rooms in Ironside State School? It is absolutely incredible.

I draw to the attention of the residents of St Lucia, Taringa and Toowong—those of you who have kids at Ironside State School—that the GST brings in revenue for the state government and it has every single dollar. Not a dollar comes to the Commonwealth. It is the responsibility of the state governments to invest that money in vital services such as health, roads and schools. I call upon the Queensland state Labor government and the Premier of Queensland to refocus. If he does, he just might get a bit of respect once again from the community which placed their faith in him. I am sure that would be something that would be very difficult for him to turn around.

During the last federal election the state governments were happy to pretend that education was not their issue, that it was a federal issue, and that it was not their responsibility. I can remember going to schools such as Toowong State School and seeing Education Union signs and placards all over the place. The reality is that we know that investment in schools is the responsibility of the state governments. Unfortunately, because they have abdicated that responsibility, we have been forced to come to their aid as much as we can. That is why the Howard Commonwealth government will not be shirking our responsibility. We will not be abdicating our commitment and responsibility to our young people. We are going to invest in education and the young people of Australia. We want to give them a very strong and secure future to give them all the opportunities of an education of high quality and excellence that we will deliver to them in the future.

All this talk about inequitable redistribution of funds that the Deputy Leader of the Labor Party referred to, the idea of coalition electorates benefiting more, is absolute nonsense. We have more members, we have more seats, on this side of the chamber, so we will be getting more of an allocation where it is needed. It is simple mathematics that we will be the beneficiaries of more funding. I encourage the federal Labor opposition to try to refocus and to take heed of the words in the great article in the Australian newspaper today by one of their frontbenchers that if they redirect their energies and focus on the Australian people they might receive some accolades for telling the story that the people of Australia want to hear. That story is about them. It is about their children’s future, their hospitals, their roads and their schools. Get away from the idea that being in this parliament is all about yourselves. I strongly commend the bill to the House. (Time expired)

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think that all of us here in the House today could be forgiven for believing that this was a debate about the state government in Queensland. Members of this government constantly come into this House and criticise whichever state government represents the state that they come from. They say that education is the problem of the states, the roads are the problem of the states, health is the problem of the states—

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are. Read the Constitution.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have news for the member for Ryan. He was elected to this place as a federal member of parliament, and I believe that he needs to justify the actions of his government—a federal government that does have responsibility for education and for the way the funds are allocated. We could also be forgiven for thinking that this debate was about the federal Labor Party, the opposition, and the member for Brisbane. Once again, this debate is on an education bill, which brings out some of the failings of this government, as will my contribution to this debate.

This government has constantly let down the people of Australia when it comes to education, particularly the people I represent in this parliament. The government has an appalling record on education. The actions of the previous Minister for Education, Science and Training, who constantly politicised education and used it as a tool to buy votes, are on the record for all the voters of Australia to see at the next election. It is interesting to note that many of the grants have gone to Liberal held marginal seats. It is an absolute disgrace.

I would like to congratulate all the schools in the Shortland electorate which have been successful in securing funds through the government’s Investing in Our Schools program. There were 36 successful schools in the Shortland electorate. They put a lot of work into their grant applications and I was very happy to support them.

Under this government, a number of inequities have developed not only in education but in all areas. The government’s unfair distribution of funds to schools has benefited rich private schools at the expense of public schools. In the Shortland electorate, close to 80 per cent of all school students attend public schools. I find it very disturbing that these 80 per cent of school students in the Shortland electorate are disadvantaged by the funding model that is used by this government. It is all very well to look after your mates, it is all very well to cater to your constituency, but as a government you have a responsibility to ensure that all students—children and young adults—have equal access to education and equal opportunities for the future. Education is about creating opportunities. Education is about the future of Australia. If this government wants to continue down the track of looking after or advantaging one section of the community, we as a nation will lose.

The government has chosen a catchy subtitle for this legislation—as it always does—and it gives a very false impression of what the legislation is about. The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006 will move uncommitted capital infrastructure funds from government schools from 2005 to 2006 and bring forward 2008 funding to 2006. It will move unspent funding under the Tutorial Voucher Initiative scheme from 2004 to 2006 and allow for funding to be carried over or brought forward to another year for all non per capita programs. It will also provide maximum general recurrent grants for a small number of non-government schools that cater for students with emotional, social or behavioural difficulties. A number of issues in this bill impact on the quality of the education available to young people. As I said a moment ago, we are responsible for ensuring they have access to a quality education.

Applications for the government’s Investing in Our Schools program were called for at the beginning of last year. The announcement of successful applicants was finally made towards the end of last year. In true Howard government fashion, the successful schools in government held seats were announced by the sitting coalition members between three and seven days earlier than in Labor and Independent held electorates. Details of the successful applicants in Labor held seats were given to and announced by senators prior to being given to the members on this side of the House who represent those electorates.

I managed to get the details of the successful applicants in the Shortland electorate not from the government but from the website. I contacted the schools and let them know they had been successful, because the government had not even done that. It was preoccupied with pork-barrelling and getting the most benefit it could from the release of this information. The successful schools, which had put all that effort into preparing their applications—schools which suffer from the funding formula because of the way this government advantages private schools—had to wait until after the government had gone through the exercise of promoting its members before it decided they were worthy of being notified. That is not good enough and I do not think it is the way education should be.

Another example of the way the government has exploited programs for its own advantage was the school flagpoles program that was brought out by the previous minister. First of all, it was hide and seek to see if you could actually find details of the program. We spent many hours in my office trying to locate details of the program and, when we finally did, we were advised that there was a strict protocol for getting funding. Part of this strict protocol was having highlighted on the flagpole, ‘This flagpole was erected with funds received from the Howard government.’ That sign had to be on the flagpole. The other thing that was very important was the flagpole had to be commissioned or dedicated before it could come into use and a coalition member had to go to the school to ensure that happened. Senators were being pulled in from all around the state to visit schools within electorates such as Shortland and the electorate of the member for Brisbane to officiate at flagpole ceremonies. The reason I have brought this into the debate is that it really highlights how this government is not about education but about promoting itself.

Returning to the Investing in Our Schools program, it is important to note that only one ALP electorate actually figured in the top 20 electorates by amount. It is important to note that marginal government electorates figured very highly in the top 20 electorates. It is also very important to note that this program has been racked by problems. It has had one problem after another. In recent times numerous schools—and I will not name the schools because I know the way this government works—have been contacting my office saying: ‘Where’s the money? Why haven’t we received the funding that we finally found out about from you, because the government had been very reticent in advising us that we had been successful? We’ve been contacted by those people who have quoted to do this work saying that the price has gone up because it’s been over 12 months since we submitted our application. Now the price to have this work done has increased.’ A number of schools within my electorate have a very good relationship with their local communities and some of the builders, plumbers and other tradespeople are prepared to provide the capital works at the price that they quoted. But other schools have had to come up with extra money because the government did not think through the program properly and did not make sure that the proper process was in place to ensure that once these schools had been notified of approved grants they actually received the money.

To my way of thinking, the first thing you do is put in place a process. You launch the applications, you have a closing date for the applications and then you go through a period when you decide on the successful applications. Maybe there are occasions when that can be extended. There has been quite a blow-out in this program’s extension dates and some people are still waiting to be notified whether their applications have been successful in the second round. That was supposed to be December, then it was supposed to be February and now the latest date, I believe, is April. So you have in place a process of a call for applications, closing of applications, assessing the applications and notifying successful applicants and then, finally, ensuring that the applicants actually get the money that they have been successful in obtaining through the grants program. Unfortunately, this grant process has not worked this way.

The other issue I would like to pick up on is the Tutorial Voucher Initiative scheme. The vouchers were to be used for students who were in third class in 2003. Many of these students are now in sixth class, just about ready to enter high school, and have not had their educational needs addressed. For those students in third class who failed the skills tests, showed that they would have ongoing learning difficulties and had problems in the areas of numeracy and literacy, the previous minister announced that he had the solution: ‘We will provide these vouchers to students who fail these exams and in this way we will prevent the problem being exacerbated; we will address the problem up front.’

Three years later, only 36 per cent of students who had been identified as being at risk have accessed that program. The government stands condemned for this. It is a very big black mark against the government. The member for Ryan stood up in this parliament and—surprise, surprise!—blamed the state government. It is no wonder that we on this side of the House get sick of hearing: ‘I know nothing.’ ‘It’s not my responsibility.’ ‘It’s somebody else’s fault.’ ‘No, I can’t take responsibility for that.’ ‘It’s the state government.’ ‘It’s my neighbour.’ ‘It’s got to be the local council.’ If that is an example of good government, I strongly suggest that the members on the other side of this House take a very close look at what they have been elected to this parliament to do. They have not been elected to blame somebody else. They have been elected to this parliament to deliver.

I issue a challenge to each and every one of those members to actually deliver—to make sure that students in their electorates who have been identified as being at risk actually get the assistance they need. This system was flawed from the start. Once again, it was a bright idea of the minister, who thought, ‘This sounds like something that will be effective,’ but it was not thought through or looked at properly. It took until 2005 before any of the students identified as being at risk could access this scheme. Now here we are in 2006 extending the scheme.

I have no problem with the concept of rolling over money and being a little flexible about the time it takes for funds to be spent, provided that those funds reach the people that should receive them. This government has a record of not being accountable for its actions, and that is my concern. We need improved accountability for the Tutorial Voucher Initiative program. We also need to make the government much more accountable and the process of allocating capital grants to schools in the Investing in Our Schools program much more open. The government has to get real about things. It has to act in the interests of the students, and it needs to move away from its pork-barrelling approach to education. Education is about Australia’s future; it is not about electing government members to marginal seats. (Time expired)

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always a pleasure to follow the exciting, motivating and riveting addresses of the member for Shortland, because she is always so enthusiastic and excited about all of these great initiatives that are being delivered by the Howard-Vaile government. It is always very exciting to follow her because you know that, somewhere along the line, people like to see that their glass is half full rather than half empty. You can always rest assured that the former speaker’s glass is generally half empty when we talk about any initiatives that have been delivered by this government.

I rise to speak in support of the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006. This bill is incredibly important to ensure that schools such as those in my electorate of Riverina can access funding more quickly to ensure that infrastructure needs are met. The Investing in Our Schools program, which was part of the original legislation, has been very well received, with 8,000 applications received in 2005. Last year, 4,034 round 1 projects were approved for our schools. This program is part of the Australian government’s commitment to providing $1 billion for capital infrastructure grants for government and non-government schools from 2005 to 2008, bringing the total funding for capital grants to $2.7 billion over the three-year period. The Investing in Our Schools program provides grants totalling $700 million for government schools and $300 million for non-government schools.

According to the member for Jagajaga’s press release, the Riverina was the third-highest recipient, of which I am very proud. These grants of $1.4 million for over 40 schools were announced in October. This funding allows the wider school communities to make decisions about infrastructure changes which are imperative in ensuring that students are educated in the best environment possible. Some of these projects are so urgent many schools are already concerned about the time they will have to deliver some of these enormously important infrastructure grants. There were so many applications lodged that it has taken longer than was anticipated to deliver the funds advice. There is a reason why so many program applications have been lodged. The member for Shortland has said that it is state bashing, but the reason there are so many applications is simply state neglect.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is state neglect.

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Cowper is exactly right. With this amendment, it is hoped that the funds will flow and become available far more quickly. The funding applications received from the Riverina electorate included requests for airconditioning, which shows there are still small rural schools trying to cope in extreme summer weather conditions without effective cooling. The majority of them, which I have just listed and highlighted, are for shade structure.

In December and February the temperatures in my electorate reach well over 45 degrees, and in some of these areas it is 45 to 48 degrees day after day. There is no airconditioning in public schools and no shade in public schools. What we needed to do was assist these P&Cs, the parents of the children who attend these schools, to feel more confident in sending their children off to school, knowing that they can learn within a cooler and more pleasant environment and that they have a place in the shade to play. The projects included other things such as playground equipment and sporting infrastructure, and water infrastructure for ovals so that children can have and compete in sports and so they can have a physical culture environment in their schools.

This funding has been vital in securing a number of smaller projects that schools desperately needed but which the state government has never seen as a priority. A part of our Investing in Our Schools funding in the Riverina electorate was $300,00 for the Wagga Wagga Christian College. I have just heard the member for Shortland say that ‘these rich private schools’ are the recipients of this funding. Can I say that the Wagga Wagga Christian College is not a rich private school. In fact, this school was built by the hands of the parents and students, from the ground up. I have been there. I have painted. I have done roofing. I have put up guttering. These kids and these families are not from rich backgrounds. They are probably some of the most underprivileged people within the City of Wagga Wagga, yet their commitment to ensuring that the education of their children is in the form they want has seen them deliver this infrastructure and this fabulous school with this fabulous ethos, yet they are supposedly a ‘rich private school’. Well, hello! No, I don’t think so!

This project at Christian College included the refurbishment of the library and the installation of equipment and sun screens on our very hot west-facing walls. In addition to these projects, dust extraction equipment is to be installed in the school’s workshop and the existing kiln room is to be refurbished in order to have better health environments for the children attending the school so that they are able to enter into some of these areas and move on to the extraordinarily beneficial trades and services areas.

The Investing in Our Schools funding is there for government and non-government schools, but it is just one commitment that this government has made in providing the children of today, our adults of tomorrow, with the best education possible. In the Investing in Our Schools projects we received community funding for these P&Cs that strive to achieve. For parents, their child’s wellbeing is important, and they commit so much energy and so much time. I know that my own daughter-in-law spends so much time at my grandsons’ schools, and they are public schools, assisting with the P&C, running the tuckshop and doing the fetes, the sewing and the cooking—doing everything that she can. It is almost a full-time job for her to invest in her children’s education in the state school. The wellbeing of her children is important, as the wellbeing of every child is important, and we should be ensuring that we have the best facilities within the school environments.

Through working bees and various other commitments in helping the teaching staff, these parents and friends make sure the environment of these institutions is the best that it can possibly be. Schools in the bush are often the heart of the town or village they are in. It is important to keep this partnership between the government and these communities in order to build relationships and achieve the aims and objectives for the schools. Eurongilly Public School, one in a list of schools, received $50,000 for playground equipment. With just eight pupils at that school, it is the heart of the very close Eurongilly community. For them to raise $50,000 to put in some playground equipment would have been very difficult. They simply do not have the critical mass to draw from on fundraisers, so for eight students this has been an absolute godsend.

There were recent bushfires in the surrounding areas, and hundreds of parents and friends in the wider community, right across the electorate, all showed their support for the school just after the blaze ripped through in checking that all the buildings were still standing. They own this whole procedure; they own this school. Their heart and soul is in this school. They were terrified that, if the school was not still standing, they would lose their school. Everyone came from the districts all around to make sure that that school was left standing so that it could continue to be the backbone of the community. They received a $50,000 grant for their playground equipment.

I am not quite sure of the date of the press release by the member for Jagajaga—I think it was on 27 February. I received a call from my local radio station, 2WG, advising me of the accusations of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the shadow minister for education and the member for Jagajaga, Jenny Macklin. Her press release accuses the coalition of rorting the Investing in Our Schools program by delivering more funding into electorates held by The Nationals and, moreover, as the member for Shortland said, into these marginal seat electorates.

I was absolutely staggered by her complete lack of knowledge and understanding as to why she named my electorate in this press release. She named my electorate as being third on the list of electorates having received the highest amount of funding. I was staggered at her lack of knowledge and understanding as to why my electorate of Riverina needs so much funding. My electorate of Riverina needs funding because the New South Wales state Labor government has absolutely starved the conservative held electorates of funding. Do not make accusations from the opposition side of the House about funding going to federally held coalition seats. Make accusations about the state government, which is starving my conservative held electorate of funds for my schools. I was absolutely staggered when I saw this press release come out with these accusations.

It is an absolute disgrace, and shame on the so-called Country Labor in New South Wales. I call it a so-called Country Labor because—as can be witnessed by every Hansard from the New South Wales state parliament—it is a Country Labor that has never voted against their city Labor counterparts. They have never voted any differently, even when the policy and the decision makers discriminate against the electorates that their MLCs—such as Country Labor MLC Tony Catanzariti in the Riverina—represent. He does not even have an office in the Riverina. Where does he have his office? In Sydney. They do not vote against anything.

I can stand here and say categorically that Country Labor is a sham and a farce. I would say that Country Labor were different from their city Labor counterparts if I could see one shred of evidence that they were going to vote against their city counterparts on policies and decisions that impact on country people—and that impact is considerable and happens time after time.

The member for Jagajaga dares to complain about the amount of money that the coalition government gave to my electorate of Riverina—my electorate; the electorate of a National Party member—in order to prop up and provide assistance to the many thousands of mums and dads in P&Cs there. That was to assist them because they have been discriminated against. I find it an absolute disgrace that the member for Jagajaga should put out such a press release and not recognise that conservative held seats in the states have been starved of funds in the education sector. That is the reason the federal government has had to come to the aid of these schools.

The local Country Labor representative has failed the people whom I represent in my conservative held seat of the Riverina and surrounding district miserably, and he continues to fail them. He generally takes all of the credit for any announcements but no responsibility for any decisions that impact on any of the areas around the Riverina. He goes into hiding into his office in Sydney or cannot be found at all.

I am very proud—extraordinarily proud—to have seen the very good applications that were put in by all of those schools across my electorate. I sent out a round of funding applications, directions and guidelines to every school in my electorate. Every single school was encouraged. They got application forms. I did not leave anything to chance, and I am sure no coalition member did, either. We knew that our schools needed our support. We were appreciative of the minister’s attention to ensuring that we could get our schools these fine things that they were lacking. We knew that the schools were not able to raise the money to deliver them, so we left nothing to chance. We sent them out the application forms, we advised them that they should be filling them in and we gave them the guidelines. We were diligent. And of course their applications were good.

Every application from the Riverina and every single dollar that I have ever been granted has integrity. Every single dollar that has come into the Riverina stacks up. It all has integrity. I am appalled at the fact that people have come into this House and accused the people whom I represent of being pork-barrelled. The public state schools in my electorate are all significantly challenged in many areas. If the member for Jagajaga wants to call water tanks, playground shade structures, airconditioning in areas of 45-degree heat and playground equipment pork-barrelling, I say to the coalition, ‘Come on down and pork-barrel my electorate every day of the week.’

This money is going to the people who deserve it and need it, and to people who have all demonstrated integrity in their application forms and been judged on that integrity. It is absolutely appalling that the integrity of the parents in my electorate, the P&Cs, the children, the headmasters and the teachers of our great school system is being questioned by the member for Jagajaga.

As I said, the Investing in Our Schools program has been an exciting initiative that has enhanced the education of many of the children whom I represent. I am pretty excited about having been a part of the delivery process. Rather than be ashamed, as the member for Jagajaga thought I should be, of my positioning in this little table—

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a badge of honour.

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do wear it as a badge of honour. This is The Nationals delivering; this is me as a Nationals member delivering in my electorate through coalition policy and an exciting and motivated former minister for education, Brendan Nelson. That has been carried on by the equally exciting and motivated education minister, Ms Julie Bishop. I am very pleased to have been a part of the delivery process. I am also pleased that when on 25 October I announced $1.4 million for Riverina schools—which should have been the responsibility of the state—I was announcing something that had integrity and something that was desperately needed in my electorate.

Late last year we had another delivery in one of my state schools, and it was absolutely fabulous. I am patron of Kooringal High School in Wagga Wagga, which was granted $1.4 million in capital grants funding to construct a gymnasium and covered area with disabled access. The government had previously announced $1.87 million for this project. The total money that the minister has been able to provide to Kooringal High School is $3.27 million, under the capital grants program. This is further evidence of the dedication by the coalition government, now in its 10th year, its 10th anniversary, to continue to provide for schools. The government is continuing to do what the member for Shortland insisted we should be doing—delivering. (Time expired)

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was an entertaining little address by our friend from the Riverina. I am not sure how accurate it was, but she was certainly entertaining. I am sure she will get full marks for marketing at her next assessment, whenever that might be. As we know, marketing exercises are not always truthful—

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh!

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not suggesting you weren’t; I am just making a general comment about marketing. We know how untruthful many of the government’s own public marketing exercises have been. Nevertheless, I understand the member’s commitment to her communities, and her proud boasts of being able to get large slabs of government pork—I mean money—for her electorate. I am sure her communities are most grateful to her because of that.

There are a number of issues I want to address in my contribution to this important discussion on the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006. I note the words of the amendment moved by the member for Jagajaga, condemning the government for:

(a)

failing to deliver urgently-needed capital funds and literacy support in time for schools and students to achieve the benefits of those funds;

(b)

failing to protect the integrity and probity of its program for tutorial literacy vouchers, especially in the appointment of brokers for the delivery of tutorial assistance in some states;

(c)

approving capital funding under its ‘Investing in our schools’ program in an unfair and unequal way between schools and regions, and

(d)

failing adequately to take into account the relative educational and financial needs of schools in the allocation of capital funding under the ‘Investing in our schools’ program;

and calling on the government to:

(a)

ensure that all programs are administered in ways that deliver maximum educational benefits for students;

(b)

take steps to assure the educational integrity and probity of its tutorial assistance for students with literacy needs;

(c)

direct some of the unspent funds for tutorial assistance for students with literacy needs for use by schools to develop appropriate programs for their students, in consultation with parents; and for the professional development of teachers to improve their literacy teaching skills; and

(d)

support improved accountability provisions for funding under the capital grants and tutorial assistance programs”.

Let me say at the outset that these programs are important. While the government members will decry the concerns which have been expressed by the member for Jagajaga and other members on this side of the House, it is important to understand that members on this side of the House are highly motivated to achieve the best possible educational outcomes for Australian students, regardless of who they are, regardless of their family circumstances and regardless of where they live. I think we share that objective across the chamber. Our reluctance to endorse what the government is doing whilst we are supporting the bill is because of the way in which these funds have been made available and the government’s inability to get the funds out in a timely manner.

My concern is that we need to spend more money on these types of programs, particularly for the people in my electorate of Lingiari. You would know, Mr Deputy Speaker Baressi—and it bears repeating for the benefit of those people who might be listening to this debate—that the seat of Lingiari encompasses all of the Northern Territory except Darwin and Palmerston, and includes Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands. Arguably, it represents the most disadvantaged of all Australians. Around 40 per cent of the constituents of Lingiari are Indigenous Australians. They live mostly in small, remote and isolated communities, far away from metropolitan centres and far away from services and, as I will explain later, they have poor educational outcomes. These poor educational outcomes need to be addressed. These programs are one way of addressing those poor educational outcomes.

It is important to appreciate the fundamentals of living in remote communities and the disadvantages that such people suffer. In the Northern Territory that disadvantage has been compounded by in excess of 25 years of neglect by previous governments before the ALP was elected to the Northern Territory government in 2001. Successive conservative governments in the Northern Territory took concrete decisions not to spend on educational infrastructure in an appropriate way for remote communities. As a result, the educational attainment level for Indigenous Australians who live in those places is very low—the lowest in Australia. The capital infrastructure in many communities until recently has been very poor—indeed, very run down and in need of great repair. In some places there is a need to relocate the educational facilities. In many places up until the last election cycle in the Northern Territory not one Aboriginal student had graduated out of their home community to tertiary entrance—not one. That is an absolute indictment of successive CLP—Country Liberal Party—administrations in the Northern Territory.

Unfortunately, that situation is also an indictment of the federal parliament and successive governments, both Labor and Liberal. They were not prepared or were not able to intervene in such a way as to force a recalcitrant Northern Territory government to spend funds in an appropriate way—funds which were made available to it for Indigenous education purposes.

It is worth pointing out that, in that context, the Northern Territory government is noted for hiving off in excess of 50 per cent of moneys allocated for Indigenous education by the Commonwealth—hiving off 50 per cent and more for its own purposes. As a result, it is no wonder that many schools were not receiving the full benefit of moneys made available by this parliament, either in the years when the Labor government was in power here in Canberra or subsequently when the CLP was in power.

That all changed, thankfully, when the CLP was booted out by the people of the Northern Territory in 2001 and a Labor administration was elected to govern the Northern Territory. Things were normalised. More moneys which were supposedly for direction by the Commonwealth into Aboriginal education were actually meeting the people’s needs on the ground. That is not to say that things are perfect. Recent work done at the community of Wadeye demonstrates very clearly that, in terms of funding, Indigenous communities on a per capita basis are significantly underresourced compared with their counterparts, whether Indigenous or not, who live in metropolitan centres of the Northern Territory or, indeed, elsewhere in Australia.

That is a real problem. It becomes an increasing problem when you understand how Indigenous students—students who live in remote and very remote communities—fare when we address the issue of benchmarking and performance measures. I have some real issues to do with benchmarking. I believe that the way the benchmarking levels are set and the way in which they are tested are inappropriate. Nevertheless, they are tested. Benchmarking has been agreed by the state and territory government ministers, along with the federal government, which has imposed its will. People will remember the debates in this chamber on Dr Nelson’s remarks about this issue of national benchmarking when he was the minister for education.

What do we know about benchmarking? Let me begin with non-Indigenous communities. For non-Indigenous students in 2004 and 2005 in the Northern Territory, the figures for those who achieved national reading benchmarks were 87 per cent for year 3 and 91 per cent for year 5. By comparison, the achievement rates for remote Indigenous students—those who achieved the national reading benchmark—in 2004 and 2005 were 20 per cent for year 3 and 21 per cent for year 5. If we go to the maths benchmarks—the national numeracy benchmarks—the figures for 2004-05 for non-Indigenous students were 97 per cent for year 3 and 89 per cent for year 5. They are commendable results. If we look at remote Indigenous students, the figures are 48 per cent for year 3 and 16 per cent for year 5.

Whilst I qualify my remarks by saying that I have real concerns about the approach to benchmarking that has been adopted, nevertheless it has been adopted. Those figures demonstrate the parlous state of Indigenous education in remote parts of the Northern Territory in terms of achieving those educational benchmarks.

Thankfully, the Northern Territory is starting to invest significant amounts of money in trying to address and remedy these shortfalls, but it is worth referring to the Bills Digest for this legislation. It refers to the issue of achievement levels and what that means in terms of life experience and life opportunity. It refers to a recent Access Economics study that says:

... early school leavers receive lower wages than their more skilled counterparts, are less likely to participate in the labour force, and are much more likely to experience periods of unemployment …

The Bills Digest then refers to findings of a Dusseldorp Skills Forum survey saying:

... the proportion of young people considered ‘at risk’ has remained unchanged for two decades and reaffirms the plight of early school leavers ...

The Dusseldorp Skills Forum is further quoted as saying:

About two-fifths of young people who left school after completing Year 10 (45 percent) or Year 11 (40 percent) were not studying and either unemployed, in parttime work or not in the labour force in May 2004. The corresponding percentage in these activities for young people who completed Year 12 (23 percent) is about half that of other school leavers.

The point of raising that in this context is this. If you understand that there are no high school opportunities for young people who live in remote communities and who are already behind the eight ball when it comes to the literacy and numeracy benchmarks that have been set across the country, you understand that in most instances they have no opportunity to even get to year 10, let alone year 12. As a consequence of that, we end up with a whole lot of problems which become important to this community. That means that young people who might otherwise have real lifetime opportunities because they have a good educational foundation and skills that they have been able to acquire during their schooling are not able to use them to obtain a job directly in the labour market, access further training or skill development at a TAFE or similar institution, perhaps do an apprenticeship, or go on to year 12 and perhaps get tertiary entrance. That is important and they are the goals we want all Australians to achieve.

The people I am referring to have next to no hope of achieving that objective. Because they do not have the skills necessary to get jobs in the broader labour market, they are condemned to a life of great frustration and uncertainty, which inevitably means that they will be unemployed for long periods of time and, as a direct result of that, will end up in a severe poverty trap. In disadvantaged remote communities, because of the lack of infrastructure not only in education but also in housing and health, people in a severe poverty trap have major difficulties in meeting the high standards set by government for the objectives they should be achieving.

We hear a great deal of discussion about passive welfare and the need to engage people in the labour market, to have jobs—something which this government boasts about. Let me say this: the life opportunities of the people I am referring to are being frustrated and undermined by the failure of successive governments to provide the resources necessary to equip and provide them with access to appropriate educational and training opportunities. If they cannot get access to those appropriate educational and training opportunities, they are going to be a long-term drain on the Australian taxpayer’s pocket. And when they are a long-term drain on the Australian taxpayer’s pocket, they will inevitably be blamed. They will be accused of not making a contribution to the community and they will be insulted, in the way in which they have been continually over 12 or 18 months, by those who abuse them for being on welfare.

Let us understand this: if we want to get people off welfare and give them those opportunities that we all expect to have for our children, then what we have to do is invest—invest significant taxpayers’ resources into making sure that the foundation skills that all people require to get on in life are provided to all Australians, regardless of who they are and where they live. That is the challenge.

Whilst the intention of these programs is well placed, unfortunately they have not proven to be as successful as they ought to have been. It is a matter of some concern that, in the context of these programs, education providers in the Northern Territory have not been properly consulted and the experts on the ground—the Northern Territory Department of Employment, Education and Training—have not been listened to.

I wrote to all schools in my electorate at the end of last year about two matters: firstly, encouraging schools to put in submissions to the Investing in Our Schools program and, secondly, seeking information and feedback about changes to direct funding of Indigenous education assistance.

I had already spoken in the House on the issue of Indigenous education assistance on several occasions and condemned the government for its lack of consultation with key stakeholders, a stance which was shared by many submissions to a subsequent Senate inquiry into targeted assistance for Indigenous education.

In 2004, the former Minister for Education, Science and Training, Dr Nelson, made announcements about accelerating educational outcomes, especially in the area of Indigenous education. I am most concerned that those schools and students whom I referred to earlier—and there are many thousands of students who live in these remote communities in the electorate of Lingiari—had to wait so long and complete so much paperwork to access funding for capital grants.

The former minister for education wrote to me in December 2004 asking me to keep schools informed about the Investing in Our Schools program. I received another letter in February 2005 saying that by mid-2005 the first round of grants would be allocated. That was the first round, for grants less than $50,000. Unfortunately, only now are schools finding out about the second round of funding—for grants greater than $50,000.

I received another letter, from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training, on 15 February 2006, announcing $2.5 million worth of grants to schools in the Northern Territory. Interestingly, that correspondence states that, in 2005, the allocation of funds for the NT was $1.77 million and that the extra funding was from bringing forward some of the 2006 program funds to help deliver more projects now.

If funds had been overcommitted in the Territory for 2005, and this bill is to move uncommitted capital infrastructure funding from 2005 to 2006, as well as to bring forward 2008 funding to 2006, in what states were funds undercommitted in 2005 or uncommitted in 2005? What areas have been overallocated? Are they now to miss out for the next three years?

What message is this sending to principals and teachers and, indeed, parents in these remote communities? If I were a principal, the clear message would be to apply right now for any funds that may be available, as next year there may not be any. If anyone thinks this is any way to manage infrastructure equitably and fairly then I disagree.

I refer to the tutorial voucher initiative—I have already referred to the poor outcomes in literacy and numeracy—and I make this observation: not one voucher has been taken up in the Northern Territory in 2005. The government’s program for using contracted brokers is totally inappropriate in Indigenous communities and now, I understand, the Commonwealth has reluctantly and belatedly come to an arrangement with the Northern Territory government to provide a service. This could and should have been achieved 12 months ago. (Time expired)

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006 and I welcome the effect that it will have in supporting our teachers and our schools.

I would also like to commend the member for Riverina for her fine contribution to this debate, which was in stark contrast to the endless whingeing of the member for Jagajaga. This opposition is drowning in its own negativity. They have no plans, no ideas and no policies to build a better Australia. It is the coalition that has a vision for this nation, building a stronger Australia through measures such as quality education programs like this one—the $l billion Investing in Our Schools program. In this debate, the opposition shadow minister has again shown the policy void that is the Australian Labor Party with regard to education. It is all too easy just to whinge. It was a contribution all too typical of the member for Jagajaga when she speaks in this place.

I must say thankfully that not all members of the Australian Labor Party share the same intellectual void with regard to education as the member for Jagajaga. As chair of the Standing Committee on Education and Vocational Training, I am privileged to have the Member for Port Adelaide as my deputy chair, a member who is passionate about education and who knows more about education than the member for Jagajaga ever will.

I would also like to commend other Labor members for their commitment to the work of the committee—members with a positive contribution to make to education as opposed to the feeble efforts we regularly see from the member for Jagajaga. This member has called for greater cooperation from the states. I would like to point out in this House that the very reason for this program is failure by those very states to adequately resource schools. The former Minister for Education Science and Training, Dr Brendan Nelson, produced an analysis that details the amount by which the states have underfunded their schools compared to the Commonwealth. In his press release of 17 June 2005 the former education minister detailed that, if the states had increased their expenditure at the same rate as the Commonwealth, there would have been at least $882 million extra available to state schools. In fact, if the states had matched the federal contribution, the works being done by this program could have been funded by the states.

So rather than carping on about greater cooperation with the states, I call on the member for Jagajaga to do, for once, something positive: to get on the phone to the state Labor premiers and get them to match the increase in expenditure offered by the Commonwealth. I would like her to get on the phone and perhaps talk to Mr Morris Iemma and ask him to increase the New South Wales contribution to the same level. New South Wales increased its expenditure for its schools by 4.3 per cent. How much did the Commonwealth increase its contribution? By 7.8 per cent. What is the loss to the schools of New South Wales with Morris Iemma failing to match the increase in the Commonwealth funding? Not $100 million, not $200 million, but $241 million.

While the member for Jagajaga is on the phone, she can make another call. She could perhaps call Premier Steve Bracks and ask him to match the Commonwealth’s increase. By how much did the Commonwealth increase its expenditure to schools in Victoria? Not seven per cent, not eight per cent, but 8.8 per cent compared to a paltry state increase in Victoria of 4.3 per cent. How much is that costing Victorian schools? Some $217 million could build shade structures; $217 million could provide airconditioning; $217 million could be put to a host of other uses. So rather than the member for Jagajaga just whingeing and moaning, as is her habit, I would like her to get on the phone and do something for the schools of Australia by encouraging those state premiers to match the contributions of the Commonwealth. I think that is a very important fact.

Another factor in the success of this program has been local communities deciding their own priorities and not centralised bureaucracies such as Macquarie Street, Sydney. As I said, the member for Jagajaga called for cooperation from the states, but it is those very states that are pursuing a centralised decision-making policy that is not providing for those local priorities. It is certainly providing more for metropolitan schools than for schools in regional and rural areas. The member for Jagajaga raises the issue of pork-barrelling. She claims that, on average, National Party seats received 246 per cent more than Labor electorates. I certainly make no apologies for achieving for my electorate. Education outcomes are vital, and I will certainly be fighting to ensure that good educational outcomes continue.

I would like to place on record that the Investing in Our Schools program is assessed on merit. I will say that again: it is a program assessed on merit. All of the projects are funded on the recommendations of independent, state based advisory panels. These panels comprised of parent and principal representatives, who I believe have been acting very properly. The question is: is the member for Jagajaga saying that these bodies are acting corruptly? I would like her to come into the House and clear this up and say that she believes either they are acting corruptly or that the state based assessment panels have acted properly. I believe they have acted properly, and if that is the case then her arguments about pork-barrelling have no substance whatsoever. It is vital that she clears that up.

A more likely cause for the discrepancy between regional and rural schools and those held by the state members is the fact that regional and rural schools and many schools in coalition areas have been neglected by state Labor governments around the country. That is why the need is so great: not pork-barrelling under this program, not corruption by the advisory panels, but merely the fact that state Labor neglects regional and rural Australia and that state Labor has also been neglecting schools in coalition held areas.

Let me now turn to the education issues that are at the heart of this bill. There can be few careers today as rewarding or as challenging as teaching. Not only do we ask young people with little experience of life and work, and possibly with no experience of children of their own, to take charge of a classroom of young people and start shaping their lives, we also ask older, more experienced teachers to bridge the ever-widening generation gap at a time when technological and other changes are taking place at a rate that we could scarcely imagine 10 or 15 years ago. Email, text messaging, camera phones, video on demand, iPods—all of these things are part of our children’s lives. They affect the way they communicate, how they absorb information and how they see the world. Not only do teachers have to take this into account, they also have to try to equip themselves with computer skills that many pupils take for granted. I could imagine that for any baby boomer teacher it is no mean feat to keep up with a bright class of nine-year-olds who have been using the keyboard since kindergarten and whose minds are set more in the idiom of the computer screen than the printed page, and whose curiosity and interest is barely satisfied by all the World Wide Web has to offer.

The education and vocational standing committee, which I chair, is currently conducting an inquiry into teacher training. The government have an obligation to ensure that we not only provide these young people coming into the profession with the tools they need to meet their demanding role but also help them develop once they have entered the classroom. There are constantly changing bodies of knowledge in a range of subjects, not just computing, which pose a challenge for professional learning.

Whilst the laws of physics and chemistry may remain unchanged, new fields such as nanotechnology were not even thought of when many of our currently serving teachers first trained. The need to deliver ongoing professional learning is just one of the challenges which faces our education system and poses particular problems in regional and rural areas. Research conclusively shows that teacher quality is a major determinant of educational outcomes, and quality professional learning is vital to developing teacher quality. We have to ensure that we make realistic demands on our teachers. Our curricula have become too prescriptive and wide ranging. The information explosion has meant that the problem has been not what to include in our curricula but in fact what to leave out.

There is an overwhelming trend in our society to expect more and more of our social problems to be solved by our school system. Sadly for many children, the only orderly and secure environment they know is their school. Somehow in six hours a day our teachers are being expected to compensate for the failings of some parents. A stable home life which teaches courtesy, punctuality, good behaviour and a commitment to learning is just a dream for some children. If teachers have to tackle this failing before doing their own job then clearly we are asking a great deal. One cannot but deplore this state of affairs. However, we cannot ignore this reality. It brings into clear focus the fact that an improved school environment will have a positive impact on many needy children as well as on the broader school population. Helping to create better schools is the very focus of this bill.

On the broader topic of schools and communities, I would like to take this opportunity to commend the staff and students of Bowraville Central School in my electorate for their success receiving at the National Awards for Quality Schooling an award for changing the school culture from one centred on welfare to one centred on learning. The school has successfully addressed the issues of absenteeism, high suspension and drop-out rates, low self-esteem and low literacy and numeracy levels through a range of measures in a project known as the community alliance project. Community support and involvement has increased, morale has improved and pupils are performing better academically, socially and personally. Schools like Bowraville are doing a fine job for society as a whole and they deserve our support. I am glad that they have received national recognition for their efforts.

As I said earlier, I very much welcome this amendment bill, in particular the accelerated support that its passage will bring to the Investment in Our Schools program. This is a simple and effective scheme that provides tangible benefits right in the heart of our communities, and I am glad that the merits of this scheme are being recognised. I note that the Minister for Education, Science and Training told this House on 16 February about demand for the grants the program provides and that there had been more than 8,000 applications from state government schools last year. As a result, this bill will bring forward some $186 million from 2008 to 2006.

When the first round of grants was announced in October last year, I visited many of the schools in my electorate and the staff were quick to point out the benefits from their point of view. Foremost was the fact that the choice of project is left to actual schools themselves. There is local decision making by local schools to solve local problems. Parents, students and staff are getting involved and making the right decisions for their school. They are the best people to identify the needs in their particular school. They are the best people to decide whether they need shade areas or airconditioning or playground equipment, not a centralised bureaucracy back in Macquarie Street, Sydney, and not some person hundreds—and in many cases thousands—of kilometres from the school involved. A key to this project is divestiture of decision making to the local communities. There would be very little use in having a prescriptive program for, say, shade areas. We would probably see all these cloudy towns turning up with their regulation allocation of shade areas. The local element in the decision making is a vital part of the success of the project.

These projects are not hugely expensive, but they are often beyond the means of many local schools—that is, schools that do not have the ability to raise the funds they need for these small projects. With some assistance from the federal government they are able to get much needed improvements that will be appreciated by the staff, by the pupils and by the wider school community. I have visited many of the schools in my electorate and spoken to principals, teachers and pupils. They were eager to show me how the funding was going to be spent, where the shade structures were going to be erected and where the new playground equipment was going to go. It is great to see local communities taking ownership of improvements in their schools and not being told by Macquarie Street that they need improvement X or improvement Y. Local decision making is the key to success.

In my electorate of Cowper more than 30 schools received some $1.3 million in the last round of grants. It is a great program for small communities and larger communities. We have had schools in Coffs Harbour, Kinchela, Bellimbopinni, Bonville, Smithtown and Woolgoolga, to name a few, receiving funding under these projects. Also, three non-government schools received support under the program. From talking to school principals, I know they support this program. From talking to school principals, I know they would not support the whingeing and whining of the member for Jagajaga. They would probably prefer her to get on the phone to Steve Bracks and Morris Iemma and get them to increase their funding to state schools to match the Commonwealth’s funding.

I mentioned earlier the role of the parents. Schools cannot and should not stand alone. They should be an integral part of the community, and I welcome the part that parents have played in the decision-making process and the contributions that the P&C associations have made in providing funding to go with the Commonwealth funding to complete many of the projects. I am sure those parents would be the first to agree that a school is more than bricks, mortar and sunshades. A school is all about strong leadership, dedicated staff and support from a strong school community. As I have said, the environment is important but what is crucial is the commitment of all of the partners in the learning process. Having cooperation between the local community and the federal government to deliver outcomes is very much part of building that.

In turning to the detail of the bill, I support the proposal to carry over unspent funds from the Investing in Our Schools program from 2005 to 2006 and to bring forward that funding I mentioned earlier from 2008 to 2006. I would like to commend the Tutorial Voucher Initiative, which provides $700 in vouchers to assist children who have failed to reach the appropriate benchmarks in year 3. I think it is important that we get in early and assist these young people to have better education outcomes. If they are falling behind in year 3, they cannot possibly hope to keep up in later years. Whatever criticism the member for Jagajaga may level at this scheme, it is focused on improving the outcomes for those young children, making it a better experience to go to school so they do not feel ostracised by not being able to keep up and giving them the confidence to be part of the school community and further their education. Unfortunately, the take-up rate has been low but the rollover of these funds will assist to further enhance educational outcomes.

I also welcome the extension of full Commonwealth recurrent funding to those special schools catering for students with social, emotional and behavioural problems who are likely to leave school early. This is an instance where a modest and timely expenditure can make a big difference not just to the life of an individual but also to the support, financial and otherwise, that society may have to provide to a particular individual. Evidence suggests that early school leavers earn less, are more likely to be unemployed and are more likely to experience periods of prolonged unemployment. Assistance at an early stage can help prevent this. I commend the proposals to continue that expenditure. It is a very worthwhile program.

I commend this bill to the House. I think that the Investing in Our Schools program is going to be welcomed into the future. I know that the local school communities certainly support this program. I know they are right behind it. I know that the whingeing and whining of the member for Jagajaga counts for very little. She has no solutions and she has no plans—just endless whingeing. She should be talking to the Labor premiers, getting them to increase their expenditure on schools to match the Commonwealth. When we see her doing that we will know that she is serious about education. When we see her doing that we will know that she is actually starting to get a bit of a glimpse about educational policy. Perhaps she should talk to the member for Port Adelaide and pick up a few hints on education policy. I commend the bill to the House.

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have listened to the last two hours of this debate on the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006 and feel somewhat compelled to make a few comments. A good deal of the debate, particularly from government members, has portrayed this as some state versus Commonwealth debate. We even had the quite absurd proposition advanced by the member for Ryan that some deficiency that he identified in a school in his electorate was the result of 45 years of neglect by what he said was the state Labor government. Obviously, it is an enthusiasm uninhibited by either knowledge or intelligence on the part of the member for Ryan. The simple fact is, of course, that for the bulk of the last 45 years there was a conservative government in Queensland.

Having been involved in the education system for part of that time, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, I can say that it was certainly the case that the conservative coalition government in Queensland provided funding on a per capita basis in Queensland that was, if not the lowest every year compared with other states and the Commonwealth—which then administered the ACT—then the second lowest. That is, for about 20 years Queensland students and schools suffered with one of the lowest per capita funding rates of any state—consistently, year after year.

But the reason I really wanted to enter this debate was not to make that point. It was to say that this is not a debate about state versus Commonwealth; this is a debate about the needs of our schools and the children in our schools. That is what this is a debate about. The Commonwealth and states have for the last 50 years had a shared responsibility in discharging our community obligations to young people in education and to the not-so-young in education.

Before the GST Commonwealth governments provided large amounts of money to the states, albeit through different vehicles. The GST just happens to be a current manifestation. It gets portrayed in this debate as though it is a panacea from which all problems are resolved. No-one believes that to be the case. It would raise the standard of the debate in this place if government members stopped trotting out that argument about GST funding of states every time an issue came before this parliament. It is the panacea to fix all school problems, all road problems, all health problems, all policing problems. All of us in this place know that is a lie. It is not. It just economically does not add up, I am sorry. So the sooner we start to elevate the debate in this place a little bit more seriously, I think the sooner the public will appreciate all of us a little more.

The simple fact is that funding of education in this country has been inadequate. We have a number of academics and scientists here in the parliament today as they conduct their annual Science Meets Parliament activities. Those of us who meet with those visiting researchers and academics—and that is most of us, on both sides of the chamber—know from those private meetings, when we discuss this with them, that there is a shortage of investment in this country in education, training and research. That is not a new thing, but it is a real problem.

We have at the moment a resources boom. With the resources boom we still have a balance of payments problem that is the worst recorded in our history. If we cannot trade profitably when we have a resources boom at our feet, what prospect is there when that falls away? What do you do about that? You invest in the skills of your people. You invest in education and training and you invest in research. We have not, as a nation, done that. There has been a disinvestment. We rate poorly on the global comparison table when it comes to government funding of education, of tertiary education and of research and development. That is an inescapable fact.

This bill provides some money for education, and that is welcome. I have stated in this parliament and outside the very strong belief I have that governments should fund education, research and training at much higher levels than we have in the past. I think it is essential for the future wellbeing of our nation, for our children and our grandchildren, that we do that. That has to be done. You cannot invest too much in education. You cannot have a population that is too well educated. It is easy to waste money. You can put a little bit of money into education and waste all of it. But, properly invested, you cannot spend too much money on education and training. So to the extent that this bill provides some funds for education, I welcome it.

What I do not welcome is the way in which these funds are administered. They lack transparency. They lack any identifiable process to show that the funds are going where they are needed, that they are going to achieve some overall benefit for the educational standards of Australians. Yes, there are many laudable, useful projects that these funds go to, as is the case with pretty well any other program—not just in education but elsewhere.

But the simple fact is that these funds are allocated in secret, behind closed doors. It is little wonder that members in the opposition look at the final outcome, see massive amounts of money going into marginal, government held seats, see massive amounts of money going into National Party seats and say, ‘This secret process seems to turn up a hell of a lot of money for National Party and Liberal members, their seats and constituencies, but not nearly as much for seats that the government members don’t hold.’ There is no accountability in that. There is no transparency. If the government wants to establish its credentials in this, as part of a debate on education and improving the lot of Australians in accessing quality education, it should properly provide to the public—open to the public—a clear statement of the criteria on which these funds are allocated, and that process should be transparent. This should not be a dirty deal done in a backroom in negotiations between some marginal members and the powerbrokers in the government. This should not be some dirty deal done in the backrooms of the minister’s office, but it has that smell about it.

One of the things that give that impression is not just the allocation of funds but what this government then says to the schools. I have a school in my electorate that received funding under this program last year—and I supported a number of applications from schools in my electorate for funding under this program. Because I have a background in teaching, I know a lot of the teachers in my electorate, not just from my current position as their member of parliament but from having worked with them in other roles. The school had the official opening coming up. They wanted me to come along, but people in the school who are my mates rang me and said: ‘Listen, this is happening. We’d like to invite you, but we don’t know whether we’re allowed to.’

These were experienced teachers; they had been in the system for 20-odd years plus. They had been led to believe by the people acting on behalf of this government that they had to invite a nominee of the Liberal minister but they should not invite the local member of parliament, who happened to be a Labor member of parliament. I would not have known that, except for the fact that the people involved are longstanding friends of mine. I said to them: ‘Yes, you’re right; the government are putting the screws on. They are saying that the minister’s going to send someone along from the Liberal Party, and there’s nothing you or I can do about that, but I’m entitled to go as well. I’m the local member, I’m entitled to go, and you should feel no qualms whatsoever about inviting me.’ Of course, they did, and the ceremony unfolded.

When you have people at a school level who are experienced educators, experienced administrators in the school, who are concerned about that situation, it adds to the flavour of this. It adds to the odour; it adds to the smell. It is a bit like the CSIRO scientists who recently expressed concerns. And I think that is a great pity, because one of the areas in need of additional resources and support on both sides in this place is education research and development funding. All of us should be supporting it to the extent that we are able to, properly, within financial constraints. We should all be doing that. I think it is unfortunate that programs like this are being administered in a way that does not comply with those ideals.

We do need to have additional funds. The process should be transparent. There should be a clear needs analysis. The funds should be allocated to those in greatest need for projects identified as fitting an overall objective. No evidence has been put forward to the public or even in this parliament by the government to show that that is the case. Until the government does that, government members will continue to incur the wrath of people on this side of the parliament for behaving in a partisan and crass way. If that is uncomfortable, that, I guess, is the state of play. But I say to those on the government benches: do not pretend that you can absolve yourselves of the problems you have created in that respect by simply saying that it is the states’ fault; they got GST money. Let us lift the debate a couple of notches above that.

In conclusion, can I say that I am delighted to see Sir James Killen in the chamber—a fine Queenslander and a decent and honourable man. I am delighted to see you here, Sir James. I am sure he is here for the celebrations that government members are having this evening. I cannot say I am celebrating in the same way, Sir James, but I am delighted to see you in good health and here to join in those celebrations.

Stuart Henry (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on a bill which is particularly important to my constituents in Hasluck. The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006 contains provisions which are vital to the continued success of a fantastic school in my electorate of Hasluck—that is, Corridors College, a non-government school in Midland. I must say that it is very nice to see school students here in the gallery to hear part of this debate, although it is a bit of a shame that the member for Brisbane could not lift the level of it—talking about dirty deals et cetera. The only dirty deals that are done in this House are on the opposition benches, between their union supporters and those seeking preselection in the Labor Party. They are the only dirty deals that are done in this House.

Corridors College was established in 1998 to provide educational opportunities for kids who have been excluded from mainstream schools or who just cannot adjust to formal school environments. These young people are in danger of dropping out of school entirely, which would be a tragedy for them and for our communities. Corridors College provides a unique opportunity for them to continue their education. Essentially, it is a high school for street kids. Almost all these kids are involved with the state child welfare and juvenile justice systems. They have often been subject to physical, emotional and sexual abuse; neglect; exposure to violence and drug use; poverty; and homelessness. They struggle just to survive.

Under the act, the non-government special schools automatically have an SES funding level of 70 per cent of the relevant average government school recurrent cost amount, which is the highest general recurrent funding level. Recognition as a special school does not always include schools that cater for socially and emotionally disturbed students at risk of dropping out of the education system. This bill corrects this anomaly in existing legislation, providing maximum general recurrent funding to these schools. This is consistent with the original intention of the SES funding arrangements for these schools. This translates into a five per cent increase in recurrent SES funding for Corridors College, amounting to about $50,000 per annum. This recognition of and funding for the school, which provides such a worthwhile and important service, will be warmly welcomed.

Dr Terry Parsons, a dedicated educator who has been Principal of Corridors College since 1999, is very pleased that the Howard government is putting forward these amendments. I would also like to congratulate him on his plans to extend the vocational and training options for students at Corridors, and I look forward to working with the school towards this goal.

At this point I might mention that the school is very well served by its board of directors. The chairman of the board is Andrew Gaynor and the deputy chairman is a gentleman by the name of Jim Thomason. These two gentlemen are well known to me for the huge contribution they have made over a good number of years in vocational training programs for disadvantaged youths. I certainly compliment them on their continued support of and involvement with these disadvantaged people in our community. I know that their involvement with Corridors College will be an ongoing success, and I congratulate them for making the effort to be involved.

Returning to the substance of the bill, its purpose is to amend the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Act 2004, which provides funding to states and territories for government schools and funding for non-government schools for the 2005-08 funding quadrennium. I am proud to say that the Howard government will provide approximately $33 billion in funding to schools between 2005 and 2008. This is the biggest commitment ever made to schooling by an Australian government. This legislation provided for investment in school infrastructure, providing an additional $1 billion of Australian government funding for the Investing in Our Schools program. This helps Australian schools build and restore school buildings and school grounds by providing additional funds to schools for these sorts of projects.

In my humble opinion, one of the best features of the Investing in Our Schools program is that, in government schools receiving funding, it is the community—parents, students, teachers, principals and parents and citizens associations—who decide the infrastructure priorities, not the state government bureaucrats. I know that this is relished by the people and the school communities of Hasluck.

I note that today in the chamber the member for Jagajaga has also attacked the Investing in Our Schools program—along with the member for Brisbane just a little while ago—making all sorts of claims and complaints of bias. She complained that Labor seats receive less funding overall. It seems obvious to me that the coalition simply holds more seats in parliament than the Labor Party and holds the vast majority of large rural and regional seats. Furthermore, all schools are eligible for the Investing in Our Schools program. It is a school based initiative, an opportunity for schools to take advantage of funding being provided by the federal government. It does not go through state governments, because it needs to be transparent. The full benefit of that funding needs to go to the schools, not to state governments.

It is very difficult to give equal funding to Labor seats when there are so few, particularly when Labor members do not promote this initiative in their electorates. They need to get off their backsides and do something about it in their electorates to make sure that schools in their electorates benefit.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Swan interjecting

Stuart Henry (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lilley is interjecting. I will go on and talk about Labor’s state electorate seats shortly. Even so, 53 per cent of the funding in Tasmania and 67 per cent of the funding in the Northern Territory was in Labor held seats, somewhat confounding the claims by the member for Jagajaga. The assessment process for these grants is independent, and the government accepted in full the recommendations from the independent state based assessment advisory panels. These panels have parent and principal representatives who vote in the assessment process. State governments and the Commonwealth government do not have a vote in this process. What the opposition are concerned about are their Labor mates in state governments not being able to manipulate Commonwealth money.

I think any accusation of bias is just sour grapes from the opposition. They know that their mates in state Labor governments have failed to address the needs in schools. I do not know about other states, but in my home state of WA there is no excuse for this. The state Labor government there have a huge budget surplus, thanks to the boom in the resources sector. What do they do with it? They fund railways that never seem to get any closer to being finished, they ignore schools, they ignore hospitals and they ignore law and order. In fact, in this morning’s or yesterday’s West Australian it was reported that, in the first half of this financial year, the Western Australian government had made a surplus of over $1 billion. It is interesting to note also that some of the schools in the state Treasurer’s electorate of Belmont, a Labor seat, are benefiting from the Howard government’s Investing in Our Schools program. They are not missing out on available opportunities.

The member for Brisbane said that this is not a state versus Commonwealth issue. This is absolutely right: it is about adequately funding our schools, because the state Labor governments and territory governments are not funding schools in an effective and appropriate way. No wonder schools are falling over themselves to take advantage of the funds available in the Investing in Our Schools program.

Once again, the Howard government provides the funding and puts in place an independent assessment program only to suffer the sort of abuse that we have had from Labor members on the other side. At least we know that those of us on this side of the House are part of something positive for education and for our children and the children of this country.

I would like to outline some of the schools in the federal electorate of Hasluck that have benefited from this program. The Gosnells Primary School has recently been informed of a grant of $69,459 under the approved projects under the Investing in Our Schools program. Gosnells Primary School is one of the oldest primary schools in the Hasluck electorate. It is in what would have to be considered a very strong state Labor seat. The state Labor government has ignored this school for years. The Gosnells Senior High School has just received $150,000 for a whole range of programs to help provide amenities for students at that school, including shade structures, an outdoor area upgrade, classroom improvements and playing field upgrades.

High Wycombe, in the strongly held state Labor electorate of Belmont, held by the state Treasurer, Eric Ripper, have just received $72,000. They are more than happy to see these funds coming into their school from the Investing in Our Schools program, because they are providing the sorts of amenities that all of our children should have at their schools. Similarly, the Yule Brook College in Maddington, another state government held seat, has just received $72,000 from the Investing in Our Schools program. I see the member for Jagajaga is in the House now, so it is very pleasing to be able to let her know that state Labor seats are certainly benefiting very well through the Investing in Our Schools program. This bill will do a lot to help schools all around Australia and schools like the Corridors College in the electorate of Hasluck are great beneficiaries of the Howard government’s program and the changes that are occurring in education.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 2 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.