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 (No. 2) 2006 is part of the federal government’s support for capital works in Australian schools. It provides funding for the three years beyond the current funding quadrennium to enable approval of capital works in advance of funding for the years 2009, 2010 and 2011. These advance approval arrangements have been in place for many years, and the opposition will of course support the bill. We will always support increased funding for schools in need. The funding provided by the bill is for the general capital grants program. The Commonwealth also provides funding for capital projects in schools through its Investing in Our Schools program. As is well known, the government has allocated $1 billion of funding under this program for the 2005-08 quadrennium. I will come back to the Investing in Our Schools funding shortly.

I would like to make some observations about the general capital grants program, which is the focus of this bill. The Commonwealth has provided funding for school buildings and capital infrastructure in schools since the 1970s. Indeed, some would say that the Commonwealth has funded capital infrastructure since 1964, when the Menzies government introduced funding for science laboratories and equipment for secondary schools. This investment was significantly enhanced when the Whitlam Labor government introduced major capital funding for government and non-government schools in 1973. The Commonwealth’s capital grants program has continued since then, and in 2006 provides just over $350 million for government and non-government schools—that is in 2005 prices. This amount is supplemented each year by the building price index, which, according to the administrative guidelines for schools, ‘reflects movements in an index of building prices and an index of wage costs published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics’.

This bill extends capital funding for government schools for each of the years 2009, 2010 and 2011 and provides $249 million for each of these years, in 2005 prices. This is the same annual amount in real terms that the government has allocated for government schools since 1996, and it certainly continues to be an inadequate response to the critical needs of our government schools for quality buildings and other school infrastructure. The Commonwealth’s $249 million per annum represents just $110 for each of the 2.2 million students in government schools across Australia.

The latest National report on schooling in Australia says that per capita expenditure on capital infrastructure in government schools in 2005 was $493 per student. By comparison, total funding per student from all sources for independent schools in 2004—that is the latest available published data—was $1,971, more than four times the per student expenditure on capital works in public schools. The Commonwealth’s contribution from the general capital program is currently about 22 per cent of total funding for capital works and infrastructure in government schools. This proportion is down from average Commonwealth capital funding in government schools of 32 per cent over the years 1987 to 1997. The Commonwealth is clearly a major source of public funding for these purposes.

There continue to be very real concerns about the quality of capital infrastructure in our government schools. Professor Brian Caldwell, a regular consultant for the government and a contributor to the Menzies Research Centre, has researched the state of capital infrastructure in Australia’s government schools. His conclusions: that the overall state of facilities in government schools is, to use his word, ‘deplorable’. To quote him again:

We’ve got hundreds, if not thousands of schools that were built 30 or 40 years ago that have long passed their use-by date. They should be bulldozed and replaced by schools that are suited to learning in the 21st century.

The editorial response in the Age to Professor Caldwell’s earlier research was as follows:

According to one of Australia’s leading education authorities, Professor Brian Caldwell, the “deplorable” condition of government school buildings is having an adverse effect on the morale and wellbeing of teachers and students. Indeed, it would be surprising if it did not. We do not expect people in other professions to work in dingy, draughty, unheated environments, so why should we expect teachers and students to?

The Commonwealth’s response to this is $110 a student. There has been no increase in real terms to the general capital grants program for government schools since the Howard government came to office in 1996. It really is not good enough. Yes, it is true that the government has provided additional funding in this quadrennium, starting in 2005, for minor school projects under the Investing in Our Schools program. This funding is directed at small-scale projects and of course is very welcome. But it is not a strategic response to the fundamental needs for infrastructure renewal in our government schools. This would require a serious partnership between the Commonwealth and the states towards an agreed vision of capital infrastructure improvement over the years ahead.

Unfortunately, all we hear from this latest education minister is a repeat of the mantra adopted by her predecessors, Ministers Kemp and Nelson, that it is all the states’ fault. Of course state governments have to answer for their budgetary decisions and the quality of the facilities and services they provide. But the federal government also has to accept that it and it alone is responsible for its decisions on budgetary priorities when it comes to funding decent buildings in our government schools. It is clear that the provision of quality improvements in the capital infrastructure of government schools has been a very low priority for this government for 10 years.

The Minister for Education, Science and Training made much of the government’s schools funding record in the last federal budget. In the glossy that came along with the supplementary budget papers, she trumpeted the record $9.3 billion to be spent on government and non-government schools, noting that this represents a 158.2 per cent increase in funding since 1996. What the minister’s publicity does not say—of course, we are used to the sort of spin that does not tell the whole story from this government—is that virtually all of this increase was for real increases in recurrent funding for non-government schools, indexation of grants for cost increases and the Investing in Our Schools program. I say to the education minister: do not just blame the states; actually face up to your own responsibilities. If there is one thing the Australian people are absolutely fed up to the back teeth about, it is governments flicking responsibilities to other levels of government in our federal system rather than taking responsibility themselves.

Adequate capital facilities are not just about making schools and students comfortable, even though that is important. We know from research that there is a causal link between building quality and design and student outcomes. The former head of the OECD Program on Educational Building, Dr Kenn Fisher, reported in his digest for the former Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs that research clearly demonstrates that student academic achievement improves with improved building condition and that factors such as lighting, air quality, temperature and acoustics have an effect on student behaviour and learning.

Fisher reports on studies that demonstrate the link between building age and student achievement. These studies show that students in newer buildings achieved academic results that were some seven per cent higher than similar students in older buildings with poorer maintenance, lighting, temperature control and floor coverings. Fisher’s work also refers to the importance of such factors as acoustics, colour and furniture design for students’ health, comfort and learning. UNESCO research also advises on the effects of unsuitable furniture on students’ discomfort, backache, concentration span, writing difficulties and learning opportunities. One of the key messages of this research as summarised by Fisher in his paper for the minister’s department is that governments are underestimating the effects of school design on student and teacher performance.

The Australian based Education Foundation has taken up these themes in its recent paper New spaces for learning. The foundation points out the significance of students’ learning environments and the educational importance of the quality and design of school buildings. I quote from the foundation’s paper:

Public schools are public places with which people form relationships full of meaning, memories and values, yet in Australia, school design arguably remains the most neglected aspect of public education reform. From the outside, the typical Australian public school is fenced, inward looking and unwelcoming. On the inside, it is industrial and inflexible ... These buildings operate as a hidden curriculum, transmitting messages about how and for whom learning takes place. They work against innovative teaching, restrict student learning, inhibit greater connection between the school and its community, perpetuate a negative public perception of the school and in worst cases, give the message that they are poor resources for an undervalued community.

Personally, I do not know that I would go quite as far as those remarks, because it is the case that there are some excellent and well-designed public schools and some of our older public schools have been innovatively renovated. But, nevertheless, there is an underlying truth in that quote from the foundation’s paper.

The Fisher paper has been influential in many other countries and is now a reference point for school authorities in England, Scotland, the United States and New Zealand, as well as in some of our Australian states. But, unfortunately, it would seem that it is not a reference point for the government that actually sponsored the paper—our federal government. The Howard government, unfortunately, has done nothing more with its commissioned research than put it on the department’s website—a virtual but not very virtuous response. That seems to be its preferred strategy.

We hear it time and time again from the minister: let somebody else—preferably the states, from her point of view—take the necessary action. When it comes to the fundamental capital needs of schools, this federal government’s key strategy is basically to offer advice—and the advice it commissioned is good advice—but then blame other people, mainly the state governments, for any deficiencies. I must say that it would be better if the minister could just take even half an hour out from threatening state authorities with withholding her funding if they do not comply with her latest thought bubble or media release and instead took a bit of time to actually read her own commissioned paper.

Undoubtedly, the minister will respond that all this money has been put into Investing in Our Schools, and it is true that a substantial amount of money has been put into both our government and non-government schools through this program. But, as I said, it is really in the main for minor capital projects, and that is particularly the case in our government schools. It is valuable funding. It has enabled our school communities to fund projects of up to $150,000, and many of those have been useful. However, the maximum funding of $150,000 cannot deliver on the fundamental needs for improvements in school building quality and design in our government schools. The $150,000 is the maximum amount of funding available to a school. To date, the average grant seems to be lower than that, and I would appreciate it if the minister, when she is summing up the debate, could give us more recent information on the range and average grants made under the program.

The Investing in Our Schools program, as we all know, is due to finish at the end of 2007. That is not very far away, and school communities and authorities are facing uncertainty about the future of this program. This bill contains no advance approval opportunities for the Investing in Our Schools projects. School communities would be greatly helped by early advice on the future of this program as many valuable projects will be jeopardised as a result of the uncertainty about the program beyond 2008.

The previous amendment bill, the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2006, redistributed the funding for government schools so that more than $500 million will be allocated by the end of this year and all of the funding from the Investing in Our Schools program committed in 2007. That means no funds are available for 2008, and there is no sign of anything for 2009, 2010 or 2011. However, there will be funds for the general capital grants element, which is a smaller program. So there is no advance approval for the Investing in Our Schools funding beyond 2007. For the health of our schools, I say to the minister: it is time we had a very clear indication about whether or not this program is going to continue so that schools can plan for the future.

This bill also allocates just over $86 million for capital works in non-government schools for 2009, 2010 and 2011. This is down from almost $102 million in 2006 and $90 million in 2008. These are projected figures and, once again, they are in 2005 prices. The Bills Digest for this legislation explains that the reduction in funding for non-government schools arises from the lapsing of two program elements for those schools. Firstly, the government has augmented the base funding for non-government schools by around $10 million a year for a number of fixed-term elements, such as hostels and technology infrastructure for Indigenous students. That would have ended after the 1996 election. This funding lapses in 2007 and its funding beyond then is subject to review.

Secondly, the government introduced an additional $17 million in capital funding for non-government schools in the Northern Territory in 2004. This funding was provided in recognition of the fact that none of the Catholic systemic schools in the Northern Territory received increases in general recurrent funding when the previous minister announced the Catholic systemic schools would be brought into the SES funding scheme from 2005. The fact is that all of the Catholic systemic schools in the Northern Territory had to be categorised as maintained or they would have lost funding if they were funded at their assessed SES rate.

This situation is not much better for all of the non-government schools in the Territory. There are currently 30 non-government schools in the Northern Territory. Of these, only eight are funded at their assessed SES rate. The remaining 22 schools are categorised as ‘funding maintained’, or ‘maintained Catholic’ to preserve their entitlement to continued funding at their 2000 rate and ongoing indexation against increases in average government schools recurrent costs.

This state of affairs says much about the policy fragility of the government’s general recurrent funding scheme. It is a scheme that is unable to cater for the real needs of schools such as those in the Northern Territory. So we would certainly hope that the minister’s current and closed review of the SES funding scheme would resolve this situation for non-government schools in the Territory. It says even more about the government’s piecemeal and stopgap approach to policy development. Its response to the failure of the funding scheme for general recurrent grants to non-government schools in the Northern Territory was to just plaster it over with some funding for capital works in those schools. Of course, this patching-up is not going to last. The chickens have now come home to roost in this bill. The compensatory funding for capital works in the Northern Territory will end in 2008 and the funding levels for non-government schools will go down from $102 million in 2006 to $86 million in 2009 and beyond. This bandaid approach does need attention from the minister. It needs much more strategic and integrated thinking both for recurrent and capital funding into the next quadrennium.

There is one final point I want to make on accountability. To say the least, accountability for the capital grants program remains thin. Decisions about the projects to be approved by the minister under the capital grants program are made by the relevant school authorities: the state and territory departments for government schools; and the Catholic and independent schools’ block grant authorities for non-government schools. These authorities make their decisions against guidelines issued by the minister’s department. These guidelines require the authorities to recommend projects that are consistent with the Commonwealth’s objectives, and these include the specific objective that grants would ‘provide and improve school capital infrastructure, particularly for the most educationally disadvantaged students’. So far, so good.

Labor supports the emphasis on need in the guidelines and the devolution of administrative responsibilities to the states and the territories. In fact, it was a former Labor government that established the block grant authorities for non-government school capital grants. But the objectives for the capital grants program are not covered by legislation. There is no legislative provision that requires the program to give priority to educational need. This is left just to administrative guidelines and ministerial discretion. I would say to the minister that this should be rectified in the legislation for the new funding quadrennium.

Where, you might ask, is the evidence that the capital works program funded by the Commonwealth is actually meeting its objectives, especially the priority for educationally disadvantaged students? The latest formal evaluation of the capital grants program appears to be the 1999 report of the department’s research and evaluation branch called Capital matters: an evaluation of the Commonwealth’s capital grants programme for schools. Well, 1999 is quite a long time ago. Even so, that report concluded that even then there was an urgent need for a national picture of school infrastructure. In other words, the Commonwealth did not have then, and certainly does not have now, enough information about capital needs to make a proper assessment of the program’s impact and to provide a sound basis for future funding decisions. This report back in 1999 also recommended greater clarity in program objectives, noting in particular that the focus on educational disadvantage requires a stronger set of criteria. I quote from the report:

Assessment of educational disadvantage should be re-focused on more immediate assessments of needs for facilities (based on some benchmark or standard) and on whether or not a particular school has the financial capacity to undertake the project without assistance.

Labor agrees with these findings. Assessing need for Commonwealth funding should be based on a relevant standard and should take into account the resources available to a school.

I have read the current accountability requirements for Commonwealth capital grants, and the specific requirements go to financial accountability procedures while the educational accountabilities are swept up in the requirements for the general recurrent and targeted programs. Unfortunately, there is no mention of the issues raised in the 1999 evaluation. Again, the Commonwealth’s main response appears to have been to put its report on the department’s website. Whether or not it has been read by the minister, who would know? Certainly, it has not been taken seriously and is not reflected in this bill or in the government’s policy.

Another accountability issue is: where is the information on the projects that have been funded and how do they meet Commonwealth objectives? To my knowledge, the last available public report on the schools that have benefited from Commonwealth capital funding is the department’s report to the parliament on expenditures under section 116 of the States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance) Act 2000 for the 2004 calendar year. I certainly expect the report for 2005 to be tabled in the parliament in the near future. It would be helpful if the minister could indicate when that will happen.

The report sets out the Commonwealth’s objectives for the capital grants program, noting in particular that the ‘determined priority for funding of schools’ capital projects is based primarily on the basis of the relative educational disadvantage of students’. But, as I said, reporting on funded projects is, to say the least, vague about how these objectives and priorities were met. The descriptions of the projects make it pretty hard to make that assessment. They refer to things such as ‘learning areas’, ‘walkways’, ‘hospitality areas’, ‘parking’, ‘landscaping’, ‘bathroom fittings’ and ‘hard surface games courts’. There is no mention of funding benchmarks or how the projects actually meet needs criteria.

We know that the minister is very keen, copying the previous minister, on plain English reporting. She seems to go from one requirement to another on this matter. I would suggest to her that she actually impose this plain English reporting on herself and on how her own projects meet Commonwealth objectives. Could we have some plain English reporting that actually enables the public to see whether or not needs criteria are being addressed by the funding allocations? The grants provided to the individual schools listed in the report may or may not meet the needs of educationally disadvantaged students, but that certainly cannot be assessed from the information provided by the major accountability report to the parliament. So some plain English reporting by the minister to the parliament would be helpful. We also do not have any information about the educational outcomes that have improved as a consequence of the Commonwealth’s capital funding. Of course, we cannot say anything about whether or not any of the projects that have been funded have necessarily been bad. I am not suggesting that. My point is that the process is certainly not transparent.

In conclusion, I reiterate that we will support this legislation to allow funding proposals for capital works in schools in the three years after the current quadrennium. But I want to say again that this bill does nothing to tackle the issues that really need to be addressed: the significant capital needs of public schools, the absence of a government commitment to continue the Investing in Our Schools program beyond 2007, the funding disruptions to elements of the capital grants program for non-government schools and the absence of accountability criteria and arrangements that demonstrate the effectiveness of the Commonwealth’s capital funding for schools. I certainly call on the government to attend to these very serious matters.

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

I am pleased to speak today on the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006. At the outset, I would like to say: thank goodness the coalition government won the last election in 2004, because, if we had not won the election in 2004, we would have had placed upon us, from the Socialist Left of the Victorian Labor Party, all of those ideological problems that they brought to us in terms of the school hit list, which the representative opposite—

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This bill is about capital funding; it has nothing to do with the matters that the member is raising.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will come back to the terms of the bill.

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

The bill is about education and funding for schools. With regard to funding for schools, as we know, the Deputy Leader of the Labor Party had a hit list, along with Mr Latham.

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This is entirely about capital funding—funding for buildings of schools. You should bring the member back to order.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the member for Canning is addressing the funding issue.

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

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Capital funding is the nature of the bill and, as we said, we do not want any schools on the hit list. In fact, the Australian electorate rejected having any schools on any hit list.

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Once again, the member is not referring to the matters that are related to this bill.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order.

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

On the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: this bill has nothing to do—

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Jagajaga, I have ruled.

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

At the beginning of addressing this bill, I point out that thank goodness the coalition won the election of 2004, because we would have been subject to these sorts of ideologically driven nasties from the opposition had they come to government. But the purpose of this bill today, as we know—and the member just said that the opposition supports it—is to address a number of issues. The issues—

Kim Wilkie (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member for Canning will resume his seat. Is the honourable member seeking to ask a question?

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

No. I am actually going to speak to the point of order that the shadow minister spoke to. I can see absolutely no connection whatsoever between this bill and the issues that the member for Canning is raising. He is talking about nasties prior to the last election when we are talking about capital works. Mr Deputy Speaker, I really ask you to draw him to the bill.

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

On the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker—

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am quite happy to rule, and I think you will be pleased with the ruling. Having only just taken the chair, I am unable to establish at this point in time whether the member for Canning is relating to the bill or not. I understand from Deputy Speaker Causley, who was in the chair, that the debate has been quite wide ranging, so I will allow some latitude. But I will be listening carefully to the member for Canning during his contribution.

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

What I wish to raise, not as a point of order but as an observation, if you wish, is that the previous occupier of the chair just ruled on that point of order. However, as I said, the purpose of this bill is to do several things and it will be a wide-ranging debate. The wide-ranging debate will obviously address, for example, the provision of a new category of non-government school, which is going to be called a special assistance school. The reason for providing a special assistance school is that, currently, recurrent funding for non-government schools under the SES systems enables the maximum level of funding for those schools mainly catering for students with disabilities rather than students with social and emotional problems.

There is also the issue of schools which have serious problems with retaining students. We know the retention of students is the desirable outcome because, if students get a good education, they are able to benefit far greater in life by getting a better job and staying in a job, and their earning capacity is far greater. The creation of this new category of non-government school or special assistance school is something that is desirable because it helps schools that have fallen through the cracks in terms of the assessment model. I think it is great that those schools in need will get maximum general recurrent funding on that basis once this bill passes through these houses.

The bill also seeks to redistribute the funds in the Investing in Our Schools program as it applies to government schools, carrying over some of the 2005 funding and bringing forward the 2008 funding to 2006. We know why that is. I will address that shortly. It is because it is so popular. Every school in this country wants a piece of the Investing in Our Schools program. There would not be a member in the House of Representatives that has not been contacted by many of their schools, both government and non-government, who wish to avail themselves of those funds.

This bill also seeks to reallocate unspent tutorial vouchers, which we know have not been taken up at the rate that they might have been. It reallocates the availability of this tutorial voucher initiative into the 2006 year for the national project elements of the Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs program. That is a great idea because, firstly, we do not want people saying that we did not maintain the level of funding and, secondly, if there is a need then we want to see that funding maintained and going ahead.

The bill also inserts a new provision in the act to enable the minister to redistribute program funds between particular years by regulation rather than by legislative amendment. That gives the minister flexibility. We know that that flexibility comes with certain responsibilities, but the 2003 legislation allowed for disallowance mechanisms should they not be adhered to properly. Given the fact that this bill is deemed noncontroversial, that means that the opposition also agrees with that operation. Finally, this bill seeks to carry over to 2006 minor unspent 2005 funds for the national project elements of the Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs program and languages education.

The previous member endeavoured to say, as she always does, that this government’s commitment to educational funding in this country has diminished. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, since 1996 the Australian government has continued its trend of providing increased funding for schools education. In the 2006-07 year, nearly $9.3 billion will be provided in funding for both state government and non-government schools, representing a $760 million or 8.9 per cent increase in the funding from last year and—and here is the rub—a 158.2 per cent increase in funding since 1996. So when the opposition say that the federal government’s commitment to education in this country has been diminished, we know that the figures tell the truth. And the figures tell the truth by saying there has been a real increase of 158.2 per cent. So we stand proud on our commitment to both government and non-government education.

This is where I must give some background information in terms of the roles of the federal and state governments. There was a very good article written by Paul Kelly some years ago called ‘States Cry Wolf Over Public Funding’ that I recommend to anybody who wants to read an unbiased report. Nobody could call Paul Kelly, the national affairs writer of the Australian newspaper, anything but straight up and down. He pointed out quite clearly the obligations of the state governments and of the federal governments. We know that much of this has come about from a historical point of view. Since 1901, federal governments have gradually taken up the responsibility for the major funding of non-government schools. By their very name, the state governments have been responsible for the funding of state government schools.

Unfortunately, in this process, it seems that health and education suffer from this hybrid sort of funding mechanism in which both state and federal governments take some responsibility. There are always arguments at the margins about who should be paying more and who should be paying less. I am a product of a state government school. Please believe me: I am an enthusiastic product and supporter of state government schools. In fact, my whole family came through the North Merredin Primary School—whose anniversary I will be going to next year—and also through the Merredin high school. We all got a good education and unfortunately we all ended up as teachers, but that is a product of being in a small country town, I suppose.

State government schools do a fantastic job. The federal government puts more money into state government schools per capita than it puts into non-government schools. The opposition has a voracious ‘them and us’ mentality. The opposition always picks out the King’s School on the eastern seaboard as an example of a luxury school that gets too much funding.

My son goes to a state school, my wife teaches at a state school and my daughter goes to a non-government school—and I can assure you that a lot of the $14,000 a year I pay goes towards her education. Thank goodness she is finishing year 12 this year and the pain will stop! But one of the reasons why some non-government schools are able to provide so much more—and the previous speaker talked about the quality of the buildings being a significant factor in the quality of education for students across Australia—is that the parents pay the difference. Parents pay something like $4 billion a year out of their own pockets to support their children’s education in non-government schools. That is why they get quite a bit more opportunity in terms of the things that are available.

As much as it pains me to say it, we all pay—because we make choices. I am proud to say that the government I am a part of provides choice in education. We do not want to send all students to government schools and, of course, no-one would support the elitist attitude that everybody should go to non-government schools—and that includes Catholic schools. Right from the beginning, Catholic schools did not receive one cent in public funding. In fact, for years they were run almost as charities. Over time, the federal government picked up some of their funding and, as we know, we have now put them on an equal footing with all other non-government schools. That is only fair, because their parents pay taxes as well. Why shouldn’t you receive back a proportion of that tax if your children go to a Catholic school?

The whole capital grants program, as part of this legislation, should be endorsed, because the minister should be able to make long-term funding commitments outside the current triennium. We need to be able to predict funding for the years ahead, because there is a long lead time for capital funding in schools.

I have an anecdote to share with you. When I was sitting amongst the audience at one of the high schools in my electorate last year, the state member for Armadale, Alannah MacTiernan, who is also the Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, stood up and said that the school was going to get $3 million in capital funding. I sat there thinking it was fantastic that the state government was going to come up with $3 million to do up this tired, old school. I found out about six months later that $2 million of that $3 million was federal government money—I had not been told. We give block grant contributions to education departments and they decide where they are going to spend the money.

Without the courtesy of letting the federal government know where the state government was going to spend the money, the local member and minister jumped up and, making a big person of herself, said, ‘We’re going to spend $3 million on your school.’ But she did not say, ‘By the way, we’re only putting in $1 million of that money.’ So I got myself into action and mailed all the people around that school to tell them who was actually giving the majority of that money and who was being disingenuous about how they were going to distribute the money. As a result, I will be opening the extensions to that school.

The protocol is that the federal member does the opening if the federal government puts in the majority of the money. I will be making sure that Cecil Andrews Senior High School makes sure the protocol is observed and that the state member, rather than being disingenuous, realises her role in the whole program. It is only proper. I attended an opening at Campbell Primary School in my electorate. The state government had contributed the majority of the money so, of course, the state member, Paul Andrews, took the lead that day—as he should have done. At the time, the Premier of Western Australia, Alan Carpenter, was the Minister for Education and Training. They made sure I sat in the back row and that any photos taken of me, the federal member, were not included in the coverage. That is how churlish Alan Carpenter was as state education minister. We will not be playing those sorts of games, but that is the mentality you have to deal with at the state level.

In the last few minutes left to me I would like to deal with the Investing in Our Schools program, which, we know, has been an outstanding program. Everybody wants to be involved in it. The funding goes directly to schools. But, because it goes straight into schools, we have a problem with the program in Western Australia, because the schools decide, through their state based authorities, who gets the funding. We have found that that is a problem in a few cases, particularly in outer metropolitan schools—such as Mandurah, which is a case in point in my electorate, and Falcon Primary School, which is a further case in point—where the schools determine what they would like and put that forward. Strangely enough, Falcon Primary School did not get all the things that they put in for, and the things they did not really strongly endorse they got. They then tried to work with the local member for Dawesville, Kim Hames, and me to try to reverse that. The minister of course said, ‘I have to take advice from the recommending body.’ So it is not a flawless program.

The previous speaker, the member for Jagajaga, tried to say that we need some commitments about this program extending past 2007. I do not have the authority to say whether it will or not, but I can be a Nostradamus on this issue and predict that, because of the absolute passion that the schools have for the Investing in Our Schools program, it will be carried on past 2007, because it fills a need. As a former schoolteacher, I can tell senators that, based on the years that the Labor Party ran the state government schools, you can always tell when they are in power, because the maintenance and the amenities stop. The paint starts peeling. The gutters start falling off. But when the coalition get into government they start spending the right amount of money on schools in making sure they are maintained properly et cetera.

The Investing in Our Schools program has been so popular that there is increasing response every time a round comes out and we are asked to provide funds towards the program. To give an example of some of the projects which have been outstanding in my electorate of Canning, out of the $28.4 million provided to Western Australia—not an insignificant amount of money—$10.6 million went to non-government schools. There was also the Canning Vale College, a government school, which received funding of $4 million, which is not insignificant, for stage 2 of the construction of a senior teaching block. That was part of the capital grants, not the Investing in Our Schools grants.

In terms of the Investing in Our Schools program, there were 77 applications received from Canning in the recent rounds. I am very keen on promoting the prospects of the schools in my area, because P&Cs cannot raise those amounts of money. If they need $15,000 or $20,000 for certain structures or technology, they cannot raise it. I come back to the point that the problem in Western Australia is that the state education department got a bit churlish and said, ‘We will take a handling fee of 11 per cent off you.’ That causes a lot of problems, because, if there is a $100,000 project and they take 11 per cent, the P&C has a real problem trying to raise the funds. The department also said, ‘You have to use the recommended contractors that we have at central office.’ If you are down in Mandurah and you have to use someone from Belmont it does not work because, No.1, they do not want the work as it is too far away and, No. 2, it is too expensive. But it is a great program and we want to see it keep going. The federal government’s commitment to funding in this area is outstanding and will be maintained. (Time expired)

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to make some relatively brief comments on this bill before the House. The Commonwealth provides around 30 per cent of the total funding of capital works in government schools, and this has been the case since the 1970s. The Whitlam government increased the amount of Commonwealth funding to government schools. Commonwealth funding has been a major source of funding to government schools since the 1970s or before.

Commonwealth funding as a percentage of the total capital works spending in government schools has fallen since this government came to office. There has been no increase in a general capital works program since 1996. If you listened to the daily rants of the Minister for Education, Science and Training in question time you would think that it was this government that started federal government funding of capital works in public schools or that they had dramatically increased the amount of capital works funding in Commonwealth schools. The opposite is the case, but you would not know that if you were a disinterested observer of question time. You would assume that it was this government that had invented it and it was this government that had increased it dramatically.

The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006 extends the funding under the general capital works program for 2009, 2010 and 2011. This is in accordance with normal practice and it has been the administrative arrangement for some decades. This allows for long-term programming, scheduling of works and efficient project management. I am confused as to why there is no similar bill coming forward for the Investing in Our Schools program. I was glad to hear that the member for Canning had promoted himself to minister for education and announced it was continuing, but it would be nice to hear it from the real minister for education.

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

Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In terms of relevance and accuracy, I did not announce future funding; I speculated that that would be the case. It needs to be corrected.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Bowen.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. I note that the member at the table indicated that the funding would be continuing, but it would be nice to hear an official announcement from the government. This would enable forward planning on behalf of the education bureaucracy and on behalf of schools themselves. Investing in Our Schools provides funding for minor but important works in schools. I have worked closely with several schools in my electorate, both government and non-government, to obtain that funding—as I am sure all honourable members on both sides have. Certainly I think I speak for all honourable members when I say that we will work to get funding under any project or program if it benefits schools in our area. While principals in my electorate have been frustrated with the administrative delays and problems, nevertheless we have been able to secure funding for some very worthwhile projects, and nobody is going to criticise that. But advance approval for the next three years might avoid some of the administrative hassles that we have seen and that have plagued this program.

There needs to be a serious national effort to upgrade the physical quality of our schools. This is not a measure for posturing. It is not something that should be used to score political points. This is something that all levels of government should be working together on. Parents do not expect their members of parliament and ministers of governments to be posturing on this. They do not expect to see question time used as a great political point-scoring exercise. They expect the Commonwealth minister and the state ministers to sit down together and to look at the extent of the problem of the lack of capital funding of government schools.

Professor Brian Caldwell, the former dean of education at the University of Melbourne and a consultant to the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training has said ‘these schools should be bulldozed and replaced by schools that are suited to learning in the 21st century.’ I do not say it is the Commonwealth’s job to fix that in its entirety. It is not the states’ job to fix it in its entirety. But why don’t we have a summit on this? Why don’t we have a summit about the state of capital works in our schools? Why doesn’t the federal minister sit down with the state ministers and have a summit on that? Why don’t we see some constructive work going into it? Instead we see this constant and consistent opportunism and point-scoring from the Commonwealth. We had a history summit. I do not have a problem with that, but why don’t we have a summit about capital works in schools? Why don’t we have a summit about the physical quality of our schools? I think the opposition would join with the government and congratulate them if they did that, and we would see a bipartisan effort.

I think the general reputation of people on both sides of parliament—state and federal—would be improved in the community if there were a bit of commonality and if the community saw us working to improve the schools, both public and private, that our kids go to. If there were a bit of that, the reputation of the government might improve and parents might say, ‘At least they are getting along together and working together to improve the quality of the physical being of our schools.’

As I said, this is part of the consistent opportunism we see from the government on this matter. We saw it in the history summit. I speak as somebody who thinks that history should be taught as a discrete and individual unit in every state. It should be taught as a stand-alone subject. I support the concept of a history summit, but why were the states not invited to the history summit? We have a situation where the Commonwealth minister holds a summit and does not invite the state ministers who actually have carriage of the delivery of the program. This is the sort of non-cooperative opportunism that we see from the government. We see it again with reports. We have seen this minister and the previous minister threatening to withhold funding from the states unless they agree with the federal government’s position on reports.

I do not have a problem with plain English reporting. I think there should be plain English reporting in high schools. I do not have a problem with A to E gradings in high schools. I think we could sit down with the states and talk about whether it is really fair to say to a five- or six-year-old, ‘You are going to get an F.’ We should discuss whether that is really the way to encourage them to do better and whether we can come up with plain English reporting which does not pigeonhole kids as young as five and six into being failures. If the federal and state ministers actually sat down together and worked through some of those issues, I think we could get a result through consensus. I think A to E is appropriate for high schools but I think it is inappropriate for primary schools—certainly for the early years of primary schools. If the ministers sat down together with the stakeholders, we could see some results. But we see this opportunism and this constant narking from the Commonwealth government.

We saw it again this week when it came to training. Honourable members may not have all seen it, but the minister for education announced that, unless states sent their teachers for more training, funding would be withheld. Again we see this belligerent attitude. Nobody is opposed to more training for teachers.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Neither are teachers.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Teachers are not opposed to more training for teachers. When I heard that announcement, I thought, ‘That is a lovely announcement. Who is going to teach the kids when the teachers are off doing all this extra training? Where are the resources coming from for the extra teachers to cover the load?’

I thought the member for Jagajaga, in her contribution this morning, expressed it very well. She said, ‘These are the minister’s thought bubbles.’ The minister has a thought bubble and the states are threatened: ‘Unless you do what I say, your funding is going to be withdrawn.’ We see it with the history summit, we see it with reports, we see it this week with training and of course we see it with capital works.

The Commonwealth could be doing something constructive about the drift of students out of public education. Instead of saying, ‘We are going to fund private schools to a greater and greater degree’—of course I support funding for private schools—why don’t we have a summit about the future of public education in this country? Why don’t we say, ‘Let’s look at some innovative things to rejuvenate public schools’ so that we have a genuine competition—for want of a better word—between government funded and private schools? Through competition, we will get much better educational outcomes and parents and children will be the winners.

I am going to be a little bit controversial here and say that I think there needs to be a debate in this country about charter schools, about public schools having their own charter, about parents having more of a say in running public schools. I go to schools in my electorate and ask, ‘How is the P&C going?’ Some say, ‘It is going great—we have got lots of members and we are raising lots of money.’ Others say, ‘Actually, our P&C has closed down—we can’t get parents to come.’ If parents felt that going to the P&C meant they had a stake in running the school—if they had a say on who the principal was going to be, if they had a say on the values of the school—we might see more parent involvement and we might see public education becoming more attractive to people who are moving to private education because of its values.

The honourable member for Canning said, ‘On this side we believe in choice.’  Newsflash: there have been Catholic and private schools in Australia for 150 years or more.

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

I said that, you clown!

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Both sides agree with choice. When you are called a clown by the honourable member for Canning, you really know you are in big trouble.

Why not have a debate on charter schools in this country? The Commonwealth could initiate it. Charter schools have worked very well in places like Washington DC, where some of the most disadvantaged people in the community go to public schools. We have seen excellent educational results in charter schools.

Whenever you go to a school, as I am sure all honourable members would agree, you find energy and commitment. It does not matter how tired I am when I walk into a school—whether it be government or private—I always walk out feeling better, because teachers and students are dedicated and there is a lot of energy around. It is always an uplifting experience. If we had a proper debate and some trials of charter schools in this country, we could see a very good development in the reputation and governance of public schools.

I know that many people would be unhappy with that. I know, for example, that some elements of the teachers federation are unhappy with that. I know that some of the educational bureaucracies, both state and federal, are unhappy with that. And I am not here to defend every element of state education department bureaucracy. But, instead of wanting to score points off the states all the time, if the Commonwealth wanted to have a national dialogue, it could have a summit about the future of charter schools and it could have a summit about the capital funding of our government schools. It could sit down and make some progress in relation to the capital funding of our schools. Instead, we see the minister for education walking into question time every day and attempting to score points off the state governments. I have no doubt that, in state parliaments around the country, state ministers are walking in every day and criticising the Commonwealth government. I do not think that is particularly fruitful either. I do not think that is a particularly helpful way of engaging in the debate. We are seeing this constant carping and criticism, when we should be getting on with the job.

The government talks about the Investing in Our Schools program ad nauseam. As I have said before, we on this side of the House welcome any initiatives to improve capital funding for any school, particularly in our own areas. We will fight to get that funding. I have worked very hard with principals of both sorts of schools in my electorate to get funding. I have been on the phone to the department and the parliamentary secretary’s office—and I have to say that I have always had a good response from them and a good working relationship with them. But we see the government winding down the general capital funding in real terms. We have seen no increase in real terms in capital funding since 1996. We have seen the percentage of the Commonwealth contribution to general capital funding in public schools fall quite substantially over the last 10 years. Yes, some of that has been made up through the Investing in Our Schools program, and we welcome that. But let’s not claim that Investing in Our Schools is this new invention, that it is the first time the Commonwealth has ever been involved in funding the capital works program of government schools, because it is not. It has been happening for over 30 years.

In fairness—I always like to give credit where it is due—the government has commissioned a report. We have seen Professor Caldwell’s recommendation that schools should be bulldozed and replaced by schools that are suited to learning in the 21st century. Nobody has suggested that that is going to happen overnight—of course it is not. It is going to take years to happen. I have seen estimates of billions of dollars for doing that. No government has the resources to do that quickly.

That underlines why the Commonwealth and the states should not be scoring points off each other. The minister should not be waltzing into question time to say that the states have let the system down. I see that the minister’s latest tactic is to refer to every school as a state government school and not a public school, just to underline the point that the Commonwealth, out of the goodness of its heart, is giving back Commonwealth funding—when the Commonwealth has been involved in funding government schools for more than 30 years. Instead of this constant point-scoring and political posturing on the issue of capital funding, it would be better if we had a summit and sat down with the state governments and worked together to fix the capital funding crisis in this country.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was interesting to hear the member for Prospect repeating at least five or six times the word ‘summit’. I well remember the first summit that Bob Hawke called, which was before the parliament had convened. I stacked on a show at the time and said, ‘Why are you going to fill the parliamentary chamber up with non-elected people?’ I was not supposed to be there, so I turned up and occupied a seat for the day. It was the most boring situation that I have ever been involved in; it was a talkfest. If you ever want not to do anything—if the determination of a government is to do nothing—you hold a summit or an inquiry. The Hawke-Keating government was full of it.

I might add that the last Labor Prime Minister since I have been here continues to advise us—and sometimes I think correctly so—that you should never give untied money to state governments. That is a Paul Keatingism: you never do it because it will be wasted. He and I have a generic view about that. I do not restrict it to one side of politics or the other. The great Treasurer of the Labor Party over time, Keating, gives us strong advice about that.

Consequently, whenever we have debates about education funding, it is the wont of the Labor opposition to deal only with specific grants when in fact I can well remember the Prime Minister, in fighting for a sensible tax reform agenda incorporating a GST, made it very clear to the Australian community that this was going to be a growth tax to give adequate resources to the state governments to do their job. Their job, constitutionally as I understand it, is to provide adequate public education, adequate public hospitals and adequate policing and to deal with issues related to land management et cetera. They were the responsibilities the colonies preserved for themselves at the time of Federation. And yet schools are falling down in my electorate.

So the Australian government has to turn to the Australian taxpayer—you would think we manufactured this money to hear some of these people talk. When the government extracted the GST—and I might add that in a political sense we sacrificed about 15 seats in parliament to get it through—the government lacked the support of the present Leader of the Opposition. But when Paul Keating confronted John Hewson on this issue he said, ‘If you vote Hewson in, I will support a GST.’ That is what he said. And he was the first to promote a GST. They had another summit about a broad base consumption tax. Keating was called over to a motel room one night and sitting there was Bill Kelty, the trade union heavies and the Prime Minister, and they pulled the rug out from under the Treasurer. I think he was proposing a 12 per cent tax at the time.

Here we are forcing the Australian taxpayer to pay the GST to fund state governments to do their job, yet we are today debating a bill—which is apparently being criticised for its inadequacy—to give extra money. We had a lecture from the member for Prospect about us all getting together. We are going to have a love-in or a summit and we are all going to love one another. But if you go back and look at the Hansard record you see that the government was pilloried day after day—it is the tall poppy syndrome—about funding non-government schools, sometimes called private schools. We had criticism from the member for Jagajaga, who was lauded a moment ago by the member for Prospect and others, but she identified only the specific grants that we provided to government schools—which, as I will point out in a moment, are very substantial. She totally ignored the GST.

The present Treasurer in the Western Australian government, Mr Ripper—well named—stood up one day and discovered that he had a $700 million surplus. It was a bit of a surprise to him. The West Australian published a table showing where the money came from. When you added it up, 50 per cent of the total revenue of the WA government came from the Australian government—in reality from the Australian taxpayer. That is commonplace throughout the country. So any analysis of the cost of funding a government school, and who provides the money, must be made on that basis. In other words, if it costs—as has been mentioned in the past, and it might have increased a little—$10,000 to educate someone in a secondary school, $5,000 of that comes from the initiatives of the Howard government, including the GST. I quote the remark of Mr Keating, who said: ‘You should never have given them the GST untied, Mr Howard. You should have stipulated every cent.’ We did not believe in that, and you could argue the pros and cons of that for a long time; but the reality is that 50 per cent of the cost of educating and housing, in terms of school buildings and other facilities, is provided through the initiatives of the Howard government. Of course, we are coming to that today, particularly in capital works.

Considering the restrictions on time that I have, I would like to have incorporated in Hansard a list of projects in my electorate of O’Connor which have been funded through government initiatives, including the Investing in Our Schools program. I seek leave from the representative of the Labor Party who is sitting here at the moment to have that list incorporated in Hansard. I am extremely proud of it, and I take every opportunity to attend in those areas.

Leave granted.

The document read as follows—

ELECTORATE OF O’CONNOR

Capital projects (EXAMPLE)

Government 

Mount Barker Primary School, Oatlands Road, MT BARKER, WA 6324

Funding of $2 million in 2006 for construction of new facilities for years 4-7 including a library, cafeteria, eight class rooms and music and art facilities.

Non-government 

Great Southern Grammar, Nanarup Road, LOWER KALGAN, WA 6330

Funding of $275,000 in 2003 for the construction of eight secondary classrooms, student amenities and change rooms, walkways, stores, offices, professional fees, furniture and equipment, fire services and siteworks.

Investing in Our Schools Programme 

In Round One 63 projects for the electorate of O’Connor were approved.

In round Two 53 projects for the electorate of O’Connor were approved.

A total of $4.4 million for both rounds has been approved.

Round Three for Western Australian schools closed on 29 March 2006 with 1180 applications received. 230 applications have been received from the electorate of O’Connor.

The applications have been checked for compliance with IOSP Guidelines and also reviewed by the State Government Advisor. The SAAP meeting to finalise the recommendations of these applications is scheduled for 12 October 12 2006.

Round One approved projects —O’Connor, WA 

Round Two Approved Projects —O’Connor, WA