Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007 appropriates additional funds on behalf of the Commonwealth parliament to provide infrastructure grants for Australian schools. As a matter of principle, any expenditure by the Commonwealth to enhance the facilities of our schools, whether to the government or non-government sector, is to be welcomed. However, we do not support the cynical way in which the government changed the guidelines midstream for the Investing in Our Schools program, reducing the amount of funding government schools can apply for from $150,000 to $100,000. Labor support the bill, but our concerns on this point are reflected in a second reading amendment, which I will formally move at the conclusion of my remarks.

Labor acknowledge the infrastructure shortfall our schools face and support the injection of additional funds into the Investing in Our Schools Program. We note, however, that as well as changing the guidelines for government schools, essentially cutting access to the funding for many schools, the Howard government has not committed to continuing this program beyond the current funding round.

Education is the cornerstone of our social and economic prosperity, with school education at the forefront of our success in an increasingly globalised and competitive world. Australia must increase the number of exceptional school graduates and the average performance of all our school graduates, and reduce the numbers of those who fail to complete secondary schooling. We need to ensure that all young Australians have access to the resources they need to help them maximise their educational potential. This bill will increase funding for capital grants in non-government schools and the literacy, numeracy and special learning needs programs. Labor support this increase in funding to our schools as we believe that a greater investment in education is the key to securing our long-term prosperity.

The bill provides an additional $181 million for the Investing in Our Schools Program and transfers $48.7 million of uncommitted funds for government schools from 2006 to 2007, bringing the total commitment for government schools for 2007 to just over $362 million. One can only question why such a significant amount of funding, nearly $50 million, remained unspent when, by its own admission, the government has been flooded with applications. I hope that the government has not just been playing politics and delaying the allocation of this money so that it can be spent in the run-up to a federal election.

Meanwhile, as I indicated earlier, government schools across the country have had the rug pulled out from under them after discovering halfway through a program that they are no longer eligible for the amount of funds under the program that they had previously been relying upon. When the program was announced as part of the coalition’s 2004 election commitments, the then Minister for Education, Science and Training, Dr Nelson, indicated in a letter to all school principals that:

… the maximum amount an individual school community will receive is $150,000 over the next four years.

The same amount was included in the guidelines for previous rounds of the program and in the advice issued on the website of the Department of Education, Science and Training at the time. That said, schools could apply for several projects up to a $150,000 limit over the life of the program. The guidelines for the latest round, however, which were released on 19 February this year, indicate that government schools are now eligible for a total of only $100,000 in funding.

When the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education, Science and Training selectively leaked and then formally announced the additional funds for the Investing in Our Schools Program, they failed to draw attention to the fact that they were changing the rules, making many government schools ineligible for the additional funds we are discussing here today. The Prime Minister made the announcement at Balcatta Senior High School in the electorate of Stirling in Perth, Western Australia. Minister Bishop when she was there said that she was delighted that Balcatta Senior High School was able to access federal funding for air conditioning and ICT and computer equipment for the school library. What she did not mention, though, was that under the new guidelines for the program Balcatta Senior High School would not have been eligible for the funding it received, which totalled over $140,000.

The minister has defended this change to the guidelines and was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald on 15 March this year as saying:

It was never intended, nor was there funding for, all schools to receive $150,000.

When did we see that in the 2004 election commitments of the government or at any time thereafter until now? The minister may like to tell this to the schools that will now miss out on these funds—schools like Capel Primary School from the south-west of Western Australia, which has approached my Perth office, which received close to $100,000 through the program in 2005. While there is no certainty that Capel primary would have received additional funds through the final round of the program, they are now not even eligible to submit an application, potentially missing out on $50,000, an amount, on the advice I have received, that would take the school over 10 years to fundraise. In New South Wales alone at least 50 primary schools which are hoping to apply for funding are no longer eligible under the new guidelines.

While the announcement of new funds failed to highlight the funding decrease for government schools, the Howard government is also hiding the fact that it has failed to guarantee the future of the Investing in Our Schools Program. By announcing the extra funding for this program, the Howard government on the one hand is saying that our schools need more funding for infrastructure but on the other hand is changing the rules midstream and then leaving them hanging in the balance wondering if they will have access to vital funds after the current round.

Mr Rudd and I have made clear this week that a federal Labor government will have a schools infrastructure funding program. That occurred on Monday when Labor released an innovative new policy directions paper for local schools working together. The Local Schools Working Together pilot program will provide capital funding for government and non-government schools in growth regions across Australia. Financial incentives will be available in the first instance when new government and non-government school communities choose to share infrastructure.

The pilot program will provide $62.5 million in capital funding for an estimated 25 pilot projects across Australia to encourage new models of schooling. The program will be evaluated after three years and will be targeted towards, but not limited to: newly establishing schools in areas of high growth and communities where infrastructure is currently under strain, underdeveloped or simply unavailable; projects between schools from the government and non-government sectors which address areas of critical need, such as the development of science and language laboratories and information and communications technology infrastructure; and new or upgraded facilities for existing schools which demonstrate it is viable to share facilities or resources with a nearby educational institution. This program builds on Labor’s education revolution and our previously announced commitment to provide up to $200 million in capital funding to build 260 childcare centres on school sites.

The Investing in Our Schools Program does not allow for innovative projects such as those envisaged through Labor’s Local Schools Working Together pilot program. This prevents collaboration between the educational sectors in cases where there would be a clear benefit to local schools and their students from sharing new resources. There are already examples of resources sharing between private and public schools in Australia. In South Australia, the Golden Grove ‘experiment’, as it has been called, has been running successfully now for more than 15 years, with a government, a Catholic and a joint Anglican-Uniting Church secondary school all operating from the same site. Mr Rudd and I visited the co-located schools—

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

Order! I am sure the member will refer to him as the Leader of the Opposition.

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How could I, of all people, make such a mistake, Mr Speaker! The Leader of the Opposition and I visited the co-located schools on Monday. These were built in a greenfields community in Adelaide’s north in the 1980s as part of a joint schools project. There was an identified need for a public secondary school in the area and demands for religious schools. Three schools were developed on the one site to meet this demand for choice in schooling, but they were co-located to ensure all of the schools would be able to provide high-quality facilities for their students.

The result was Golden Grove High School, a public comprehensive coeducational secondary school, sharing a campus with Pedare Christian College and Gleeson College, a Catholic school. Each school has its own oval and quadrangle area, but the schools have many shared arrangements such as a recreation and arts centre. The campus shares specialist facilities, including science and computer labs, electronics rooms, music facilities, libraries and trade training workshops. The three campus schools have their own philosophies, identities, buildings and management, but share some specialist buildings and sporting and cultural facilities. The schools work cooperatively in the sharing of facilities, and senior staff members conduct regular meetings to administer their use. As a result of the schools collaborating, they have been able to afford outstanding facilities—far better than the schools could possibly aspire to if they were acting alone.

The collaboration has even extended beyond the campus. The local district’s seven secondary schools have combined to develop a package of vocational education and training courses available to students. Each of the three schools operates the same timetable to enable cross-campus study and there is constant communication concerning the joint use of the shared facilities. Beyond this, though, the separate schools have their own ethos, traditions, rules and manner of operation.

The Golden Grove educational precinct has been successful in raising the profile of public schools, with Golden Grove High School being in high demand. In Golden Grove, all three schools benefit from the joint approach. The Catholic school, Gleeson College, has asserted:

The facilities we share, as a campus, offer students well resourced and equipped learning areas that would be unaffordable as stand alone schools. As a campus we also offer very broad curriculum opportunities for senior students too.

In addition to the educational benefits of the project, the schools have achieved significant efficiencies from sharing facilities at Golden Grove, including a capital saving of $40 million and an annual recurrent saving of $5 million.

Here in the Australian Capital Territory, Holy Spirit Primary School and Gold Creek Primary School have recently become the first schools in the Australian Capital Territory to share facilities. The schools, which the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Rudd, and I visited yesterday, are located together and share facilities including a car park, resource centre, canteen, gymnasium and oval. Both education systems provide funding for equipment and resources for the shared facilities, such as computers and books for the library and gymnastics equipment for the gym. The gym, library and canteen are much larger than would be found in single new schools because both education systems have contributed towards their building costs.

As well as committing to this innovative policy that will encourage government, Catholic and independent schools to work together locally, Labor is currently developing a comprehensive schools infrastructure funding election commitment that will provide funding for the infrastructure needs of Australian schools. Instead of welcoming this positive new policy announcement from Labor and acknowledging that collaboration between public and private, religious and secular schools is a good idea, the minister simply accuses Labor of recycling a 2004 election policy.

Regrettably, the minister is really clutching at straws and simply should have embraced a good idea. Labor’s 2004 election commitment was for so-called education precincts, which dealt with a range of matters, including curriculum, assessment methods, teaching materials and professional development. Yesterday in question time the minister for education criticised Labor’s Local Schools Working Together program. In response, at question time, I asked the minister the following question:

Can the minister tell the House how much money the Howard government has allocated over the past 11 years specifically to enable Catholic, independent and government schools to share school facilities?

In her answer, the minister said:

The Howard government has a number of programs in place that encourage schools to share resources. The Boys’ Education Lighthouse Schools project, the school chaplaincy project and the Investing in Our Schools project are all programs that are designed to ensure that schools can share resources in appropriate circumstances.

Unfortunately for the minister, not one of these programs relate to schools—whether government, Catholic or independent—jointly sharing infrastructure facilities. The Boys’ Education Lighthouse Schools program, for example, is a school based approach to developing and testing the effectiveness of strategies for improving learning outcomes for boys. Under the government’s school chaplaincy program, schools can share a chaplain but not infrastructure facilities. And under the government’s Investing in Our Schools Program, guideline 5.3, Ineligible Project, says:

IOSP funding is not available for projects located at an eligible school, which are for the benefit of an ineligible population of students, including Kindergarten/Pre-school ... and transient student populations ... An example of this would include the building of an environmental centre to be used by students at the applicant school as well as visiting students from other schools and the wider community.

So the assertions made yesterday by the minister in question time were, frankly, a nonsense. The correct answer is that, after 11 years of the Howard government, there is not one program, and not one dollar has been spent, to specifically enable government, independent and Catholic schools to share facilities. The minister would have been better off simply admitting that, rather than bungling yesterday in question time as she did.

In addition to our Local Schools Working Together program, Labor has this year released a range of positive policy proposals on education, including providing universal access to 15 hours a week of high-quality early childhood education for all four-year-olds; encouraging young Australians to study and teach maths and science; and establishing a national curriculum in the core areas of maths, English, science and history, in collaboration with the states and territories.

Earlier this week, Labor also made a commitment about schools funding. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Rudd, and I have made it crystal clear that: we believe a greater investment should be made at all levels of education, including schools and schooling; we will fund all schools on the basis of need and fairness; we will not cut funding to any school; and we will not disturb the current average government school recurrent cost indexation arrangements for schools’ funding.

Which schools parents decide to send their children to is entirely a matter for them. It is their choice. Parents make their decisions on the basis that they want to maximise their child’s potential and give them the best start in life. Often parents make these decisions at considerable personal financial cost, and often that choice is based on a variety of reasons, including religious or personal conviction. A Rudd Labor government will support parental choice. We will do that by funding all schools, whether government, non-government, religious or secular, based on need and fairness. A Rudd Labor government will be concerned about the quality of education rather than engaging in a government versus non-government schools debate. That is, in my view, very much behind us.

Previous attitudes by federal Labor to a so-called hit list in non-government schools were wrong. Our objective is to raise standards in all schools—government and non-government. Funding all schools on the basis of need and fairness will also ensure we do not end up with a two- or three-tier school system. Federal Labor has made it crystal clear, through its continued education revolution policies, that it will make a greater investment in education at every level. This includes schools and schooling.

Labor will not cut funding to any government or non-government schools. We are about supporting schools rather than taking money away from them. We will invest in our schools. As a consequence, no school will be worse off and no school will have its funding cut.

Federal Labor is now working on options for funding schools and on its approach to the next four-year schools’ funding round, the 2009 to 2012 quadrennium cycle. This will be reflected in Labor’s detailed schools funding election commitments. Federal Labor will consult widely with the Catholic and independent education systems, as well as the public sector, on our approach to schools funding generally and on detailed funding issues.

In response to those statements by the Leader of the Opposition and me, I noticed yesterday the minister suggested that that would mean that our commitment to funding all schools would see funding frozen for Catholic and independent schools. That, frankly, is a nonsense. The Leader of the Opposition and I have made it crystal clear that we believe a greater investment should be made at all levels of education, including schools and schooling; that we will fund all schools on the basis of need and fairness; that we will not cut funding to any school; and that we will not disturb the current average government schools recurrent cost indexation arrangement for schools funding. It is not possible for funding to be frozen under that approach. So rather than clutching at straws, the minister should not, as she did again yesterday in question time, continue to embarrass herself on that point.

I am very pleased that Labor’s policy approach to the funding of schools has been warmly welcomed. I note the press release issued by the Executive Director of Schools at the Sydney Catholic Education Office, Brother Kelvin Canavan, who warmly welcomed the announcements. I also note the press release from the Executive Director of the Independent Schools Council of Australia, Mr Bill Daniels, who did likewise. I note also that Mr Stephen O’Doherty, the CEO of Christian Schools Australia, Dr John Roulston, the Executive Director of Independent Schools Queensland, Mr Dick Shearman, the General Secretary of the Independent Education Union, and Mr Ian Dalton, the Executive Director of the Australian Parents Council, all did likewise with media releases on 19 March.

I am very pleased with the response we have seen both to the Local Schools Working Together infrastructure program and also to the general commitments that the Leader of the Opposition and I have made so far as schools funding is concerned. I indicated at the beginning of my remarks that I would move a second reading amendment. 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 welcomes the additional funding for the Investing in our Schools program, it notes that when making the announcement the Minister was silent on the change of criteria for Government schools halfway through the life of the program and condemns the Government for:

(1)

leaving many Government schools ineligible to apply for additional funds by reducing the funding cap from $150,000 to $100,000; and

(2)

failing to guarantee the future of the Investing in our Schools program beyond the current funding round”.

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

Is the amendment seconded?

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I enthusiastically support the government’s Investing in Our Schools program for a wide range of reasons. There are millions of reasons in my electorate alone—millions of Australian taxpayers’ dollars are going to school communities so that P&Cs and principals can get the priorities dealt with that they know have not been met by state governments over many years. That is at the heart of this matter. Let us get down to the heart of this. Under the Australian Labor Party there has never been a program like this because the Labor Party like big governments, big unions and big business, and they want to organise things that way. State Labor governments steal from schools in this country. They steal management fees from public works departments that need to conduct works in those schools. They steal from teachers and students and from the parents who send those students to those schools. They steal one dollar out of every four that this government sends to state governments to help with meeting the cost of public education. State governments steal it. They take it off the top.

You would think that, if you are going to fund an education system, the first thing you would do is ask: ‘What is at the heart of this?’ At the heart of this is the relationship between the professional educator and the student. So how do we resource that? How do we actually back that relationship in a way that makes sure there is bang for the buck—value for the dollar—and the results are achieved? Get the money as fast and as close as you can to that equation. In other words, get the money into the classroom. But no! The way the education system operates in this country, because of our apparently cooperative federalism, is that state governments take their slice off the top before any money floats through to any classrooms. I keep saying that it is like that Yes, Minister episode about the most efficient hospital in the national health system being the one with no patients. The way that education works in this country is that you pay the raft of bureaucrats in central office first and you pay for the teachers and the education process last. It does not matter how many students are in the classroom. The preservation process for the bureaucrats at head office is first and foremost the priority of spending.

New South Wales is the worst offender, with thousands of people at ‘education central’ who get paid big dollars and, surprisingly, are all card-carrying members of the Labor Party—I have no reason to doubt that my claim is correct. That is the way this political operation of state governments works. It is certainly true in Queensland. The way to get ahead in education in Queensland is to leave the classroom, not stay in the classroom, become a bureaucrat within the system at the district office and then leave the district office and go to head office—and by that time you had better be a card-carrying member of the Labor Party or you will not last. That is the way state governments organise their spending priorities on education in this country and it is an absolute disgrace.

The breath of fresh air which occurred after the 2004 election was the Investing in Our Schools Program. It for the first time identified the fact that the Australian government had never been big enough to trust local communities to know what their priorities were. I want to give some background to the House as to how this all came about. This is my story and it is true, because I would not be saying it to the parliament if it were not. I visited schools in my electorate, including Wellers Hill State School. The soffits were falling out of their buildings. This is a great old school. It has the best part of 100 years of history and service to our local community. The buildings were old and needed paint. They could not get paint onto the buildings; the soffits were falling out—the building structure was falling apart. They were asking, ‘Why doesn’t the federal government spend more money on education?’ and I thought, ‘We are now spending record amounts.’ I heard the Minister for Education, Science and Training say yesterday that there has been a 160 per cent increase in expenditure. Over $9 billion a year is going from this government to state governments. Bearing in mind that their first priority is to spend a quarter of that on bureaucracy, not on building maintenance, you can understand why the soffits were falling out at Wellers Hill State School.

I went to MacGregor State High School, my old school. I left there 30 years ago. I was the vice-captain there—or, as they used to say, the school captain in charge of vice, but that is an old story! The old manual arts block, where I learnt my woodworking and metalworking stuff in year 8 in 1973, was built in 1968. It is still there now and still servicing the community. I went into the staffroom; talk about occupational health and safety—the staffroom wall had three- and four-inch gaps in it where the building was falling apart. In order to keep the manual arts building safe, they had to put five-ply up on the louvres of the windows—something not known to members from the south—which should have created airflow for all the students and indeed the teachers in the classroom. But the louvres had to be covered off because they were breaking as the building was collapsing. Its foundations had given way. The state government would do nothing about it. The school principal, Karyn Hart AM, a former National President of the Australian Secondary Principals Association, showed me around all of these things. I do not want Karyn to now be subject to a witch-hunt—although anybody who tried would fail because she is a very formidable person, a very capable woman, a very dedicated educator. She said to me as the local federal member, ‘Where’s the federal funding to fix this?’ I said, ‘But, Karyn, we’re giving you record amounts.’ Again, it is back to this: record amounts are being stolen off the top before any money goes to resources.

I have been to Salisbury State School. It has provided almost 100 years of dedicated service to the people of that part of my electorate. The root systems of the Moreton Bay fig trees have now got into so much of the sewer main that two toilet blocks are not working. The school was given a quote for $125,000 to fix it, 10 times their current annual maintenance budget. Would the state government help them out? No. So what do the kids do? They queue in the toilet block that is working, while the school shut down the toilet block that was not. It is an absolute disgrace.

Back to MacGregor State High School. The assembly hall that was built a couple of years after I left—so it is about 27 years old—is falling down the hill. It is actually falling down the hill towards the main oval. The thing was not built properly. It is going to cost millions of dollars to fix, and frankly it should be fixed up. Just the other day I had the school captains from MacGregor high at my regular Moreton youth advisory group meeting, where all of the high school captains in my electorate come and talk to me about issues in their school, and they are still telling me that essentially the hall is not usable. It is deemed unsafe. And this is not a small high school; this is the third largest high school in Queensland. When I attended the school 30-odd years ago, it had 1,650 students. It still has 1,650 students. It is a huge high school, and the rotten Queensland Beattie Labor government’s priority is to spend money on the bureaucracy first and on buildings and resourcing student needs second. So, again, here entered the Investing in Our Schools Program.

All of those schools said to me, ‘We want something to help us with projects.’ I wrote to the Prime Minister about this in 2004 and I said: ‘I am sick of being accused of under-resourcing education when I know we’re putting in record amounts. I am sick of taking the fall for state governments who see the priority as spending money on big offices and flash cars and big bureaucracies of Labor Party card-carrying members’—the sort of environment we would have if there were ever a Rudd Labor government elected, I must add; we would see the same thing in Canberra. I told the Prime Minister, ‘We need to directly invest in our local schools; we need to do it.’ I reckon I gave the loudest scream of support when the Prime Minister made an announcement at the campaign launch in Brisbane City Hall in September 2004, because he backed my idea—and I am sure other colleagues made the same suggestion; I do not think that just because Gary Hardgrave put it forward on behalf of the people of Moreton $1 billion was put down on the table for this, but $1 billion was. This bill is about adding another $181 million to the task, to say to schools who have not taken full advantage of the Investing in Our Schools Program: you need to get onto this and do something about your school.

My big frustration and concern in all of this, though, and I put this on the record, is that, based on the performance of state governments—who fund the big bureaucracies first, the buildings, facilities and classroom needs of students last, with all the professional educators left till last, all of the good teachers told, ‘Leave the classroom if you want promotion; we don’t want to give you performance based pay, we don’t want to pay the better teachers more than the worse teachers; we want everyone paid the same’—with those sorts of approaches and their pattern of conduct, we will just see further cost shifting like we have already seen under the Investing in Our Schools Program.

I have had schools tell me that Department of Public Works officials and Education Queensland officials have ‘heavied’ them about ensuring that it was Queensland Public Works who did the work in the grounds, that they in fact have tried to undermine this program. This program was about saying, ‘We trust school P&Cs, we trust school principals, to hire people to do a job to fix something up, to build something in the school that makes a difference to the students.’ In fact, P&Cs all over my electorate have said that anything involving Queensland Public Works generally costs 40 per cent more than the going commercial rate. There is a lot of building activity going on in Queensland, so you can imagine the premium dollars Public Works Queensland are charging for things. We have had examples of Public Works officials saying, ‘We want a slice of that action,’ and then I have heard other people say that Education Queensland have said, ‘We want a management fee for anything that is done in the school.’ This is all about cost shifting.

I see the parliamentary secretary, Mr Farmer, who is responsible for this program, in the chamber. He has been to my electorate. He went to Robertson State School and he talked to people there. He understands what I am talking about. He knows all too well that the potential for more of this cost shifting, the potential for more theft of this program’s moneys by state governments, is going to be there. It is something that we all need to realise. We need to realise the priority must be resourcing the classrooms where the teachers, the professional educators, work with the students. That must be the priority.

Frankly, it would be easier to put a cost associated with each child’s education and pay the schools direct. There you go—that is my education policy: pay the schools direct on all fronts. Give the $9 billion plus we are giving to state governments this year directly to the schools. Let us trust the principals. Let us trust the P&Cs. Let us trust them to make their purchasing decisions. Let us put the power in their hands instead of in the hands of central office bureaucrats—Labor Party card-carrying bureaucrats, people with strong union affiliations who want to control things. I think that it is absolutely important that we should start to get resourcing of these issues right and invest in our schools. It has been so popularly received in my electorate because it is shown that the trust is justified.

I think of schools like Rocklea State School, a small school with about 70 or 80 students, with no capacity to raise great amounts of funds. But they have got $28,711 from Investing in Our Schools to date. It is not a large amount of money—I think they lose that in sugar allowance over in the Department of Defence—but a huge amount of money from an education point of view for a small school like Rocklea. They installed air conditioning. They were never going to get it under the Queensland government. They top dressed the school oval. They have a fantastic sports day each year and their two teams, Kaltee and Murri, that compete with each other are now competing on a far safer oval.

My old primary school, Runcorn State School, installed a sprinkler for their oval and rejuvenated it for some $38,000. All we need now is some rain so that they can use the sprinkler, I suppose. Salisbury State School got $19½ thousand for the improvement of one of the street entrances, and I opened it late last year with a group of year 1s. It made the access and the beautification of this great state school so much more appealing. There was Sunnybank Hills State School with ICT and air conditioning—almost $50,000—and Yeronga State School and ICT of some $50,000. Macgregor primary school, the largest state government primary school in the whole state of Queensland, the school my two kids went to, had refurbishment of senior toilets. We had to fix up toilets—$50,000! Where was the state government? They were too busy spending money on wood panelling and flash cars for Labor Party card-carrying bureaucrats in central office instead of doing something for the kids at Macgregor primary school. Nyanda State High School received $50,000 for outdoor learning spaces and shade structures. That was just from the first round. Calamvale Community College got $44½ thousand. There was almost $1 million from the first round alone.

In the second round we saw Graceville State School cover the walkways in this fantastic heritage school. They have now got safer, skin cancer protective walkways—a $136,000 project. Kuraby Special School, a fantastic school, received $41½ thousand to refurbish a classroom. Where is the state government? Missing in action. To upgrade the playground at Kuraby State School there was $72,000. Macgregor State High School gave up on trying to fix up the assembly hall. They finally got the manual arts building fixed because I made such an embarrassment of the state government over the whole matter. They spent $50,000 upgrading classrooms and about $56,000 on building shade structures. That was almost $107,000. Macgregor primary school got another $85,000 for their ICT. There is Milpera State High School—a school which is the first port of call for kids who have come as refugees to this country, where they are taught the basics of English so they can go on and learn other things in other schools like Yeronga and Sunnybank high schools—where for $109,000 we fixed up their canteen. It is a school with no capacity, because of its constituency, to raise anything like that. They now have a canteen they are proud of and they use it as a focal point for social engagement outside of school hours.

Runcorn Heights State School, another fantastic school that looks after non-English-speaking background kids, received $54,000 for playground equipment. Siganto and Stacey, a fantastic local air-conditioning company, provided additional resources on top of the $150,000 that went to Sherwood State School to air-condition their century-old library, and they did it in a very tasteful way, very much respecting the environment. I pay tribute to that company for their generosity in backing further what the Australian government has backed. Sunnybank Hills State School got $85,000 for musical instruments. It is a huge school whose great cultural diversity brings people together through music. There was $70,000 for that and $16,000 for shade structures. The ICT and library extension provided Sunnybank State High School with almost $144,000. Sunnybank State School, a smaller school with a poorer constituency, would never have the capacity to raise this money and they received $150,000 for shade structures and playground and sports courts.

There were three fires late last year in the area: at St Pius X Catholic School at Salisbury, at Moorooka primary school and at Wellers Hill State School. All had buildings destroyed in one night late last year and I spent a dreadful Saturday morning going around and talking to the principals of each of those schools. Wellers Hill had a hall built through the efforts of the P&Cs and we value added to that effort by P&Cs with $150,000 to further upgrade their hall. Then there is Yeronga State High School, a school which does an enormous amount of good in settling kids who have come from Milpera, the entry level for English education in particular, a culturally diverse school which has African faces as the school captains. We backed that school with $135,000 for an air-conditioning and ICT upgrade. The list goes on and on.

Coopers Plains State School got $136,000 to improve their school grounds. None of this money had ever been put forward by a previous Labor federal government. None of this money had ever been made available for so many of these basic things like upgrading toilets. These are failures of a state Labor government that says: ‘Pay the bureaucrats first. Pay them big dollars because they are card-carrying members of the Labor Party. Don’t resource in the classroom equation.’ Instead, this government has shown a sense of trust in the local communities that are built around our local schools. I am proud of the Investing in Our Schools Program and I am pleased that the Prime Minister is resourcing further and giving other schools in my electorate a chance to also get access to these important funds. (Time expired)

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As previous speakers have indicated, the opposition will support the passage of the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007. However, the opposition has moved a second reading amendment which is critical of the government for making a sneaky change to the 2007 guidelines of the Investing in Our Schools Program. Before I commence with my comments on my own area, I would like to take up some of the issues the member for Moreton raised. I am very pleased to see that the member for Moreton is endorsing the decrease in the federal education bureaucrats’ pay. I look forward to the cost-cutting measures announced. Those federal bureaucrats will obviously not be having cars—

Honourable Member:

Honourable member interjecting—

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Or sugar, indeed. I am looking forward to seeing their new pay packets; obviously the member is keen to ensure that bureaucrats are not overpaid in the system. I suggest from that that he is approaching the minister about reviewing the pay of the federal bureaucrats—a worthwhile project, according to the member for Moreton. He might also want to impose his Stalinist review of whether they are card-carrying members of any particular party, since that is obviously also an issue he feels decreases their ability to do their job. I am sure that, in the great spirit of the bipartisan, non-political approach that he always brings to every contribution he makes in a debate, he will not mind checking whether they are Labor or Liberal card-carrying members and ensuring that they correct that membership.

I want to make the point that schools exist in all of our electorates. Delivering education is one of the biggest service delivery programs that state and federal governments run. As a result, there always is a huge capital works program, there is always an unending list of demands for renewal of buildings and facilities, not to mention the needs for modernising as new technologies and programs come into place. In particular, for example, around vocational education and training there is the need for schools to provide labs, kitchens, workshops and so forth. The demands on capital works programs are something that all governments struggle to meet. It is quite clear that it is the sort of thing where you never actually reach the bottom of the list—it is never going to end.

I welcomed the federal government’s Investing in Our Schools Program as I understood it to be an opportunity for schools across the country to look at particular smaller scale capital projects that they might be able to implement outside their normal capital works program. I thought it was a good idea and a worthwhile thing to do. I say to the member for Moreton—and I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training, who is at the table, would not do this; in fact, I have never heard him do it, to be honest—that to devalue a good and worthwhile program by simply using it to attack other levels of government does not particularly help anybody. Certainly, on this side of the House we have had some concerns about that sort of behaviour. Many of us have had experience with schools telling us that we are not allowed to open things even though we have supported their application to the government, particularly if we have an aggressive government member in our area. In fact, I do have a particularly aggressive government Senate member in my area, and some schools are being told that they are not even to invite me to these sorts of openings. I think that is a foolish and counterproductive approach to take. The program is good, and it does do worthwhile things, and we do support the applications that our schools put in. I think when oppositions do that it is incumbent upon governments to treat with respect the elected member for the electorate. I would encourage particularly the parliamentary secretary at the table to continue to give a strong message to his own members—I am convinced that he does not do this himself—that that is not an appropriate way to behave and it is counterproductive to the program.

Having said that, I am going to criticise the parliamentary secretary at the table. This program has been popular and many local public schools in my electorate have taken advantage of the funding available to develop many projects. ICT projects in particular have been very popular. These all enhance the learning environment of schools. Most local public schools in my electorate have received some funding under the 2005 and 2006 rounds of the Investing in Our Schools Program.

When the funding rounds were opened and applications invited, I, like many colleagues in this place, wrote to each of the local schools informing them of this program and the closing date, and enclosing a copy of the guidelines of the program for their information. Many of them invited me on site to show me what they were proposing. I provided what advice I could to them and encouraged them to get their applications in, and indeed offered to put in letters of support for those applications. Local school principals and parents and citizens associations started to complete the documentation for applying for funds and collating the quotes. To be honest, that was a bit of a challenge for many schools. It was not something they were familiar with doing. But most of them got those processes in place. Then they crossed their fingers and hoped that the particular important capital works program in their local school did get funding.

When the Prime Minister announced the new allocation of $181 million to the program late in February, I again welcomed the extra funds. Again I wrote to all local schools making them aware that the final funding round of the program was now open. I knew as I read the guidelines for the final funding round that there would be some controversy. Buried in the guidelines is a sad and sneaky change to the amount of funding local schools had been expecting from the government in this program.

Local school principals and P&C presidents in my electorate knew instantly what the sneaky change in the guidelines meant for their school. Instantly my phone started ringing, the emails started flowing and handwritten letters from P&C members started arriving. The main thrust of the complaints stems from the government shifting the goalposts. I have received numerous letters from school principals and local P&Cs, but none better sums up the sneaky way the government has shifted the goalposts than one I received from a local public school. The letter from the principal, which I received on February 23, said:

We are incensed by the changes to the original guidelines ... Imagine our shock ... Since the beginning of the programme, DEST had been stating and reaffirming that government schools had access to $150,000. However, without notice, this amount has been reduced by a third but only to those schools that had not expended the entire $150,000 prior to this year ... What has annoyed my community and I is that the ‘playing field’ is no longer even, that groups that have complied fully to the goals and aims of the programme now find themselves disadvantaged for doing just that.

This particular school had a couple of very worthwhile projects planned. During the last round of funding, the school received a grant to install air conditioning. But with the climate change debate, some of the students realised that air conditioning contributed to emissions. The students thought that this year’s project should try to be carbon neutral. So they suggested that solar panels should be investigated. I think that is a great initiative of the school. Not only were the parents consulted but so was the student body. They were excited that they had come up with what they thought was a great idea that would contribute to a decrease in carbon emissions and the global warming issue.

Regrettably, this project is now impossible because the new funding limit imposed in this round by the government means the school is ineligible to apply under the 2007 funding round. This is despite the school having been informed by the department that its balance in the final year of funding was nearly $33,000. A local P&C president sent me a letter on 12 March. It said:

Why did the programme’s rules alter so drastically? Who would have expected the total grant would be reduced and the rules would change ... we have been extremely disadvantaged by the changes and this has put a disappointing end to our plans to showcase what public schools can achieve.

I made a representation on 23 February to the parliamentary secretary, who is at the table. I both faxed and mailed the letter. This was at the point at which I had become aware of it, because of the email from the principal. I immediately faxed it to the parliamentary secretary to get his response and find out what had happened. To date I have not received an acknowledgement, and certainly no response. The 2007 guidelines state on page 3:

Under the 2007 guidelines a school community may be funded for projects that will take their total approved grants from all rounds of the IOSP up to a maximum of $100,000 over the life of the programme.

The 2005 guidelines—that is, the first round of the program—said, also on page 3:

The limit for funding in respect of any one school is $150,000 over 2005-2008.

Not surprisingly, many of those schools on getting those guidelines and seeing that they would be looking at $150,000 up until 2008 decided that the best way to manage it—many of them are small schools—was to stage it over the years of the program. That is a logical thing to do, one would think, as with the school that put the air conditioning in last year and wanted to proceed with the kids’ initiative to put solar panels in under this year’s application.

As we on this side constantly warn, the government has a tendency to be tricky and sneaky. I am very disappointed that has occurred with this program. To add insult to injury the government has now started to run a line in the media to justify this sneaky change in the 2007 guidelines. The so-called Wollongong based Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, as ABC Illawarra reported last Friday, suggested:

... the misunderstanding lies in the fact that the original program has ended.

The ABC Illawarra report continued:

The Senator says a new program then started with a different funding level.

Where in the Prime Minister’s media statement announcing the extra allocation of funds for the Investing in Our Schools Program does he state that the original IOSP had ended? In fact, it is very clear that the original Investing in Our Schools Program is still continuing because it has been made clear that the 2007 round is the last funding round in the program.

The government seeks to suggest that local principals and P&Cs have simply misunderstood the original intention of the Investing in Our Schools Program and the funding that would be available. Local schools and their P&Cs have misunderstood nothing. They were clearly led to believe one thing in 2005 and had it repeated in 2006. Further, the department advised them, before the release of the 2007 guidelines, what their balance was on the account that they could claim. They clearly believed that the funding for any one school was $150,000 for the period 2005 to 2008.

Now the 2007 guidelines for the final funding round have inexplicably changed, and when asked why by local schools and local P&Cs the claim made is that the original Investing in Our Schools Program has ended. If the senator is wrong then I would suggest that the parliamentary secretary at the table should contact the local ABC and confirm that that advice is wrong and let the senator know that it is wrong. No other member of the government that I have heard has been using the justification of Senator Fierravanti-Wells to explain why the 2007 guidelines renege in such a sneaky way on the previous commitments of funding.

I suspect the minister and the parliamentary secretary still do not have any firm justification or explanation for the guideline change—I am a bit bemused as to what it could be myself—and that is why I have not yet received a response to my representation on behalf of local schools and P&Cs in my electorate. The government should reaffirm its original commitment to the funding limit available to any one school as was stated very clearly in the 2005 guidelines of the Investing in Our Schools Program.

Local schools have planned projects on the basis of those particular guidelines. Local members such as me have endorsed the program and supported and encouraged schools to participate. In fact, I have taken a pretty hard line with schools in my area which did not take up the federal government’s offer and put applications in. I have asked them why and looked at what they could do to progress that. This government should not be sneaky with this program. It is a program that is valued, as members on both sides of the House have said.

People are very confused as to why the goalposts changed at the very end of the program. In the case of the particular school I referred to, you have a group of kids who, in all good conscience, participated in putting forward suggestions—really worthwhile suggestions—into the program and who are now very disappointed at the waste of time, because when the new guidelines came out they found out that the $33,000 they had been told by the department was theirs was not there. It is a foolish decision, I would suggest, that has no real benefit.

The worst thing that could come of this is that the government finds that the full moneys are not expended at the end of the program because schools that were participating, were active in supporting the program and were staging their projects now cannot put applications in. I would hate to see that happen. I would suggest that the government review that decision, particularly given that it has allocated extra money to the program, and look at reopening it to those schools who had good, planned programs in place and are now very disappointed that such a change has denied them the opportunity to participate in that final stage of the program.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am particularly pleased to be able to rise in the House today to support in this public arena the Investing in Our Schools Program. As honourable members on both sides of the House have conceded, this has been an extraordinarily popular program. It has become necessary because of the failure of state Labor governments to use the proceeds of the GST to adequately invest in schools, particularly government schools, and to adequately make sure that the infrastructure of those schools is up to date so that students in 2007 are able to obtain the best possible education through excellent educational facilities.

The Investing in Our Schools Program has a number of great virtues, particularly with respect to government schools. It has enabled government schools, their principals and P&Cs to reach over the heads of the state educational bureaucracy and deal directly with the Australian government in applying for funds for much-needed infrastructure. It is a most incredible program, and I have seen so many benefits flow to schools in my electorate as a result of this particular program. When I say ‘schools in my electorate’, I refer to both government and non-government schools.

It is a hands-on program that helps the Australian government to identify individual needs. These have in fact been identified initially by the individual schools. The funding brings a sense of relief to school communities because it lifts a very heavy fundraising burden from their shoulders. I suppose what really happens is that the fundraising burden continues but they are able to achieve many more positive outcomes because of the infusion of Australian government money. Most of us who are parents know that it takes a lot of pie and lamington drives, spellathons and school fetes to generate the money needed to complete many worthwhile school projects. The Australian government is certainly not suggesting that school communities ought not raise what they can as they can. This program is intended to be a top-up to assist local school communities to overcome the disadvantages of a lack of investment in the infrastructure and the repair of their schools by state Labor governments.

I think all of the honourable members of this House would be able to tell good news stories of the benefits to local schools from the Investing in Our Schools Program. One of the more memorable launches of infrastructure through this program in my electorate was the official opening of some new practice cricket nets at Talara Primary College, at Currimundi in the city of Caloundra. This school has an excellent reputation. It is a newish government school that has been going for less than 10 years. Talara Primary College has become so popular that it has had to draw boundaries around it and say that only families who live within those boundaries are able to access education for their children at the college. This school is in a region which has experienced significant and continuing population growth. The population of the Sunshine Coast region over the next 10 to 15 years could go close to being doubled, which presents enormous challenges as far as infrastructure is concerned, not only in the area of education but also in respect of roads and so on.

Through the Investing in Our Schools Program, the government was able to support this school project to the tune of $21,000. I suspect that a number of the students, teachers and parents at the official opening probably got some sense of satisfaction out of watching me after I was given the honour of being the first batsman to participate in this facility. I did manage to hit some of the deliveries but I do not suspect that I am at risk of being chosen for any Australian test team. As these cricket nets are of particular benefit to Talara Primary College, I am quite certain that some of its students will be able to become much better cricketers and may well obtain selection to an Australian cricket team in the future. One onlooker even suggested that on that occasion I made some 19 runs before I was dismissed. If that was true then I have to confess that it is by far my highest score in the cricketing arena. I can tell you that those nine- and 10-year-olds were certainly generating some pace.

I was also able to represent the Minister for Education, Science and Training at the official opening of new resource facilities at the Sunshine Coast Grammar School, which had been funded under this program. Its headmaster, Mr Nigel Fairbairn, must be congratulated for such a wonderful educational facility. I was thankful that this funding program was able to offer support to the student and teacher community through a new computer and library centre. This facility, complete with new computers, received $60,000 in Australian government funding through the Investing in Our Schools Program. The total value of the project was $118,454. The Australian government put forward part of the money, which effectively amounted to seed funding, and then the school community was able to raise the rest. This means that the Sunshine Coast Grammar School will continue to be able to deliver quality educational services to its 1,200 students.

Having seen first-hand the satisfaction brought to so many of the schools in Fisher through this program, I was particularly pleased to hear the announcement that it would be extended and increased. The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007 will facilitate an increase of $181 million to the Investing in Our School Program. This breaks down to an additional $127 million for state government schools in 2007 and an additional $54 million for non-government schools through 2007 and 2008. The additional injection of funds will lift total funding for the program to $1.818 billion over 2005 to 2008. Of that figure, government schools will receive some $827 million and non-government schools will receive some $354 million. In addition to these extra funds, the bill will also provide a funding guarantee for the capital grants program. It will provide for some $11.7 million for non-government schools for 2008, which effectively guarantees the funding level until the end of that year.

The improvements to school facilities brought about by the Investing in Our Schools Program and the capital grants program will help to create a more comfortable and, for that matter, more enjoyable environment for students, which can only help to support their educational goals. Of course, Australia’s children are Australia’s future, and whatever we the Australian government can do to assist positive outcomes for Australian students is good not only for the students but also for the long-term prognosis for educational outcomes in our country and, more generally, for the country itself. To further enhance the learning abilities of Australian students, this bill will allocate some $9.445 million for national projects in the Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs Program for 2008.

I listened carefully to what Labor members have said and I have read the second reading amendment. In particular, I observed the contribution made by the honourable member for Cunningham. I want to place on record my regret that it has been necessary to drop from $150,000 down to $100,000 the maximum amount that government schools can apply for. A number of schools in my electorate have gained the $150,000. I think it should be recognised, though, that it was never a pledge that every school would get $150,000. But there is no doubt that some schools that had planned, in this part of the program, to submit an application for $150,000 will now not be able to do so, and I personally find that a matter of regret. I have expressed my views to the minister and I understand that this is necessary for responsible economic management.

The program has been inordinately successful and very popular. A certain amount of money has been allocated for the program, which is being extended by virtue of this bill. However desirable it might have been to continue the maximum cap of $150,000, I understand that it would simply not have been economically responsible to do so. In the interests of giving as many benefits to as many schools as possible, this has been an on-balance decision—a decision which I regret. Since I respect the minister immensely—I think she is one of the best ministers in this area, along with Dr Nelson and Dr Kemp—I have to accept that her judgement in this matter is appropriate in the circumstances.

I think most Australians regret that state governments have been running away from their funding responsibilities for government schools in particular. That is one of the reasons why this government has had to pick up the slack and meet the needs which have been left unmet by Labor governments around Australia. This government is acutely interested in both government and non-government education. We believe that children ought to be given choice and that parents ought to have not merely a legal choice to choose non-government or government education but, rather, an economic choice. I believe that, when history is written about the education policies of this government, what will be recorded very positively is that we have given an economic choice to so many more parents to choose independent, Catholic or other Christian education in a way which was not previously available to parents and families under previous governments.

These funding initiatives will help to enhance the school environment and give educational support to students across Australia. I am very proud to be a member supporting a government which has brought in the Investing in Our Schools Program. It seems to be one of the most popular education programs, with both government and non-government schools, that I have ever seen. What I like about the program is that it is not just being done for the political benefit of the government of the day; it is a program that is getting real infrastructure on the ground in government and non-government schools.

Even the opposition, which so often these days is carping and negative, cannot find within its heart—if it has a heart—the ability to criticise the good that flows from this program. The only criticism that has come is that the cap—that is, the maximum available—has been reduced from $150,000 to $100,000. These initiatives are absolutely vital and they are very positive. They are part of the ongoing benefits that this government is making sure flow through to government and non-government schools. I am very pleased to support the bill before the House, which I commend to the chamber.

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Service Economy, Small Business and Independent Contractors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007 will increase funding for the Investing in Our Schools Program by $181 million over the four-year period from 2005 to 2008. I certainly welcome that increase in funding, as I welcomed the Investing in Our Schools Program.

In the area of Logan City, most of which falls within my seat of Rankin, we have been very successful in applying for grants under the Investing in Our Schools Program. Most of the grants that have been sought have been successful. I have been delighted to provide letters of support in most cases, and we have therefore enjoyed a lot of success in improving the infrastructure of our schools. For those who do not know Logan City, in large part it is not a wealthy part of Australia. Unemployment in Logan Central is around 16 per cent. In fact, in that part of Logan City which is highly welfare dependent, the unemployment rate has risen in the last couple of years whereas in other parts of Australia it has fallen. While I welcome the fall in the unemployment rate in other parts of Australia, it is a matter of great concern that unemployment in Logan Central and suburbs such as Woodridge and Kingston is around 16 per cent and has been rising.

The only way of dealing with that problem of unemployment is to reform our education system. Mr Deputy Speaker, you will have heard me speaking on many occasions about the imperative to improve our education system, to break that cycle of dependency and despair by giving all young people, especially those from disadvantaged communities, a decent opportunity in life. Education is a key that opens two doors—one leading to prosperity and a strong economy and the other leading to opportunity for all in a fairer society. We can as a parliament do no greater service to our community than to improve the education opportunities for young people.

I acknowledge that the Investing in Our Schools Program makes a contribution to improving education opportunities. It does so by improving the physical environment, the facilities that are available to students, which makes their study and their concentration at school that much easier. The sorts of projects that have been undertaken include reading spaces outdoors at Rochedale South State School, for example. That sends a message to the young children there that reading for pleasure is a really good thing to do, and it makes it just a little bit easier. Other programs include air conditioning. In the middle of summer in all parts of Queensland it gets pretty hot, and that affects the ability of children to concentrate. Therefore, providing some funding for air conditioning in at least one or two rooms, whether it be the library or some other refuge to which the children are able to go during the hot hours, is a very good idea. I commend the government again for providing support for those sorts of projects. Shadecloths are another example of a response to the long hot summers that can occur in Queensland.

So without hesitation I support the Investing in Our Schools Program and support the extra funding that is associated with this legislation. It is a pity, as Labor has pointed out, that the maximum funding for particular schools is now going down from $150,000 to $100,000, but I am not going to be miserable and churlish about that—$100,000 sure beats nothing. Those extra funds are most welcome.

I reject the government’s criticism of state governments, especially the suggestion that the government of Queensland is not playing its part in improving the education opportunities of young people in the Sunshine State. It certainly is doing so. It has improved early childhood education opportunities and it has a ‘learn or earn’ program that is being implemented to ensure that as many young people as possible are able to stay on and finish year 12 or its equivalent through vocational education. All of that is very worthy. It is essential to lifting productivity growth and therefore prosperity in the future and to ensuring that we have a much fairer society.

I want to draw attention to the contrast, however, between the position that successive Labor governments have taken on the broader issue of providing education opportunities and encouraging younger people to go on and finish high school or its equivalent in vocational education and the government’s attitude towards these matters. The Prime Minister has said on a number of occasions now, including most recently in an AAP report, that Labor governments made a tragic mistake during the 1970s and 1980s in encouraging young people to stay on and finish year 12 and then go to university. It was not a tragic mistake at all; it was essential to the fairness and prosperity of this country that those changes were made. When the Prime Minister was Treasurer in the Fraser government, only 36 per cent of young people went on to year 12. That is around one in three. The Prime Minister seemed to think it was a pretty good ratio that one in three young people would go on to the final year of high school.

Successive Labor governments in Canberra—the Hawke and Keating governments—worked to offer income support for parents in disadvantaged communities so that they could afford to keep their children in school, and they also worked to improve the attraction of education to those young people. The consequence of that was that the proportion of young people who went on to year 12 more than doubled, from 36 per cent to around 75 per cent, under Labor. Sadly, under this government, reflecting the attitude of the Prime Minister that it is unimportant that young people should go on to the final year of high school, year 12 completion rates have actually fallen over the last two years. The Prime Minister thinks this is a good thing. He thinks that it is great that young people leave early and then go and do a trade.

Labor strongly support vocational education. We support trades as a career. We recognise that there are young people who feel that they are not cut out for the academic pursuits of going to university, and that is why we support vocational education. This support has always been forthcoming from Labor but has not been forthcoming, I must say, from the Howard government. The previous Minister for Education, Science and Training, now the Minister for Defence, spent his entire period as education minister fighting with the states over vocational education and never wishing to complete a new agreement with the states. So no such agreement was ever reached.

I am sure that the then education minister was trying to impress the Prime Minister that he was really a true-blue Liberal, because true-blue Liberals like to have fights with state Labor governments. The consequence was no agreement and, ultimately, the dismantling of ANTA, the Australian National Training Authority. The state Labor governments and the federal Labor opposition wanted to see the completion of a new funding agreement between the Commonwealth and states, but the Commonwealth, under the then education minister, now the defence minister, played the blame game for all it was worth, saying to the states, ‘It’s all your fault.’ As a consequence, the Commonwealth never completed a new agreement for vocational education.

If you really want to be confused, listen to the government on vocational education. During a debate at the dispatch box here a couple of weeks ago the Minister for Workforce Participation said to me: ‘I don’t know why Labor is so obsessed with training. We should have young people leaving school without any training.’ So we have the Minister for Vocational and Further Education and the Prime Minister saying that Labor is obsessed with having kids going on to university and they should actually be obsessed with training and then the Minister for Workforce Participation saying, ‘I don’t know why Labor is obsessed with training.’ The government, as we have seen in the last couple of weeks, is in disarray. It does not have a view on the value of vocational education when one of its ministers is actually arguing that Labor is obsessed with training and that what should happen is that young people should leave school early and not engage in training.

Kerry Bartlett (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What rubbish!

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Service Economy, Small Business and Independent Contractors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It would be worth while for the next speaker, the member for Macquarie, who has just interjected, to have a good look at the Hansard of the minister alleging that Labor is obsessed with training and that young people should just go straight into the workforce. This was the debate over withdrawing the pensioner education supplement for a selected category of disability support pensioners. Why on earth would you withdraw the pensioner education supplement for disability support pensioners? I thought the government was arguing that more disability support pensioners should go back into or participate in the workforce. Okay, if that is the argument, fine, give them the capacity to do so by giving them a little bit of support—and remember the pensioner education supplement is a small amount of money—to allow them to get the skills to re-enter the workforce or enter it for the first time. But we have had the Minister for Workforce Participation saying that the pensioner education supplement should be denied to such people and Labor should be supporting disability support pensioners going into the workforce but not acquiring the necessary skills to make them attractive and competitive in the workforce. The member for Macquarie would do very well to have a look at that particular exchange.

The fact is that education is the greatest investment that we can possibly make. I note here again in relation to another part of this legislation that there is an amendment to provide around $9½ million for the Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs Program to continue funding for the program in 2008. Previously no funds were allocated for 2008. Of course, Labor supports that. We have said so many times that the key to dealing with disadvantage in this country is to improve the literacy and numeracy of young people—disadvantaged young people whose parents perhaps may not have had the same literacy and numeracy training that others have had and so you get this cycle. As a result of that the child may not get the tuition at home and therefore needs early childhood development and early intervention to help them with literacy and numeracy.

Labor fully supports that and that is why Labor Leader Kevin Rudd announced in January a range of initiatives under the heading of ‘the education revolution’. Kevin Rudd understands the importance of these measures in breaking that cycle of dependency. Labor fully supports any measures to improve literacy and numeracy in this country. In fact, I can indicate that the Reading Recovery program was implemented in Queensland. People ask, ‘What happened under Kevin Rudd when he was in the cabinet office in Queensland?’ I can tell you something very good that happened under Kevin Rudd when he was in the cabinet office in Queensland: the Goss Labor government implemented the Reading Recovery program, which has proved very effective in identifying young people, through the year 2 and then the year 5 diagnostic net, at a very early age who are experiencing difficulty with literacy and numeracy. Those children who are caught in the net are identified and then given extra remedial support.

So we do not need any lectures from this government about the value of literacy and numeracy support. What we do need, however, is to ensure that our teachers are fully capable of providing the best education possible to our young people. I pay tribute to the teaching profession, because it is a profession that overwhelmingly is full of dedicated people—dedicated to improving education opportunities for young people.

There is a debate going on at the moment about merit based pay arrangements for teachers. It has long been our contention that we should be trying to locate the best teachers in the most disadvantaged schools, because that is where they can do the most good. The education minister, of course, has been saying that there should be a performance based pay system and that that system should be partially funded by the Commonwealth. That is something that in principle we can find some comfort in, but the Treasurer of this country finds no comfort in it at all, because he has rebuffed the education minister, saying that the states can handle all that. So it is back onto the blame game: if we do not have the best teachers in the most disadvantaged schools, it is all the fault of the states.

The education minister and the Treasurer are going to have to sort this out. I fear that the Treasurer is going to prevail, because he controls the purse strings, but it is a very good idea that we do everything we can to ensure that the most disadvantaged in our community benefit from having the best teachers. If that involves some sort of merit based pay system, then I am all for it. There is no perfect system of merit based pay; that is generally acknowledged. If you base it, for example, on the marks that kids get at school, intuitively that seems a bit appealing, but then of course you can find a situation where a teacher teaches the test in order to get the kids’ marks up in order to get the merit based pay. Another proposal is for the principal to decide the merit based pay of various teachers within a particular school. Again, at first glance, that seems to be a pretty good idea. It does, however, raise issues of tensions within the school as some get merit based pay and others do not. It is not a perfect system either. Another possibility that has been mooted is that parents and students decide which teachers should get extra remuneration for their performance. You can see again that there would be some appeal to that but also some pitfalls.

The point I am making is that there is no perfect system of merit based pay, but it is an argument that we should have. It is a debate that we should have in this country, because otherwise we have a system of teaching where the only basis of getting extra pay is years of experience rather than actual performance or merit. I think that that is a debate whose time has come, but it is a debate which has been stifled on the government side by the Treasurer’s proclamation that there will be no federal support—no Commonwealth support at all—for a merit based pay system of teaching in this country. That is a great pity.

I will finish where I began in terms of support for the Investing in Our Schools Program, but I also want to point to the dramatic differences between the attitudes of the coalition government and the Labor opposition toward education and completing year 12. The OECD released a major report last year, as it does every year, called Education at a glance. It is a very large document that compares the performance of various OECD member countries, but it had a special section, as these reports tend to do. The special section in the 2006 edition is about the importance of finishing high school. That OECD report said that the completion of high school is now the minimum education requirement for young people to participate in the workforce through their working lives. What the OECD is really telling us is that everyone is moving forward at different paces, but the problem is that a lot of countries that were behind us are moving forward at a much faster pace than Australia and the consequence will be that, while this government is sitting around playing the blame game in the federal parliament, other countries are going to whiz by us. There are already about eight countries that have high school completion rates above 90 per cent. Australia’s high school completion rate is around 70 per cent—maybe 75 per cent, depending on which measures you use—but the problem is it is falling. The Prime Minister thinks that is good. Let us understand this: the Prime Minister thinks it is good that young people drop out of school early because he says, ‘They’ll get a trade.’

I released some statistics from the ABS which confirmed that young people who go to university get paid much more through their lifetime than young people who do not finish year 12 and drop out early. Their lifetime prospects are so much better. This is the great divide between us and the coalition, which does not have its heart in investing in education. I acknowledge the value of this particular program, but only through the election of a Labor government will we truly have an education revolution in this country.

Kerry Bartlett (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before addressing the key features of the bill, I would like to remind the member for Rankin of one fact—that is, the reason that the high school retention rates were unreasonably high under Labor was that kids stayed at school because they had no chance of getting a job. When one million people were unemployed in the greatest recession since the Great Depression and unemployment was over 10 per cent, kids stayed at school because they had no chance of getting a job. Apprenticeships under Labor fell to a 30-year low. The reason some young people now do not aspire to go to university and are happy to leave at the end of year 10 is that they can get an apprenticeship, they can get valuable skills training that will lead them to rewarding and fulfilling careers in the trades. Apprenticeship numbers are now some 2½ times greater than they were when we came into office in 1996. The member for Rankin only tells part of the story.

The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007 does three important things: it adds funding significantly to the very popular and very valuable Investing in Our Schools Program, it provides additional funding for some major capital works in non-government schools and it provides extra funding for some national programs in literacy, numeracy and special learning needs. The most significant component, however, is the extra $181 million for the Investing in Our Schools Program. That is a program for minor capital works that lead to improving the quality of what is going on in schools across the country. A total of $1 billion has already been committed. Prior to the last election this government made the commitment that we would allocate $1 billion to funding these capital works. We have done that. Under this legislation, we are now adding an extra $181 million to this program.

Already over the last three years schools in my electorate have received a total of $5.6 million under this very worthwhile Investing in Our Schools Program. I would like to read into Hansard the schools that received funding in the last round of the program: Blackheath Public School; Blaxland Public School; Hazelbrook Public School; Katoomba North Public School; Megalong Public School; Mount Riverview Public School; Mount Victoria Public School; Springwood Public School; Wentworth Falls Public School; Winmalee Public School; Blue Mountains Steiner School; Blue Mountains Christian School; Blue Mountains Grammar School; Wycliffe Christian School; Our Lady of the Nativity, Lawson; St Columbus High School, Springwood; St Thomas Aquinas School, Springwood; Bilpin Public School; Cattai Public School; Colo Heights Public School; Freemans Reach Public School; Grose Vale Public School; Hobartville public; Kurmond Public School; Kurrajong East Public School; Kurrajong North Public School; Maraylya Public School; Pitt Town Public School; Richmond High School; Richmond North Public School; Wilberforce Public School; Windsor High; and Windsor Park Public School. All these are beneficiaries of this excellent Investing in Our Schools program.

In this recent round of funding, a number of schools in the new part of my electorate—the part of the electorate added under the last redistribution—will also benefit to the tune of $1.57 million. These schools are: Bathurst High School, Bathurst West Public School, Capertee Public School, Cullen Bullen Public School, Kelso Public School, Lithgow Public School, Meadow Flat Public School, O’Connell Public School, Oberon High School, Oberon Public School, Perthville Public School, Portland Central School, Rockley Public School, Laguna Public School, Trunkey Public School, Wallerawang Public School and Wattle Flat Public School. As well, the non-government schools to benefit are: La Salle Academy, Lithgow; McKillop College, Bathurst; St Joseph’s Central School, Oberon; St Joseph’s School, Portland; and the Assumption School, Bathurst West. In the new part of my electorate, $1.57 million has been provided under the Investing in Our Schools Program. This is a quality program that is delivering genuine improvements across a whole range of areas: air conditioning, new computer labs, shade cloth, sporting equipment and musical instruments. It is providing a whole range of improvements to our schools, both government and non-government.

It is worth pointing out the comparison between what this government is doing and what state governments are not doing for their schools. There was an alarming article today on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. The members opposite might have seen it. It is captioned ‘school maintenance fiasco’ and entitled ‘Ten years of stinking toilets’. This is referring to New South Wales public schools—the miserable, abject failure of the New South Wales government to adequately fund the basic maintenance needs of its public schools. It is an absolute disgrace. The article says:

Public schools have been forced to put up with 10 years of stinking, blocked toilets and threadbare carpets and four years of termite infestation and raised asphalt in playgrounds, the survey by the Public Schools Principals Forum has found.

What is worse is that the state government tried to hide this:

The State Government is refusing to release a document which reveals how school maintenance programs were suspended at a time it was pouring $1.6 billion into the Olympic Games.

There is nothing wrong with the Olympic Games, but they had to be managed and the state budget had to be managed properly—something the New South Wales government has obviously failed to do. The article also says:

In a document called the Asset Maintenance Plan, written in 1998, the Education Department estimated the cost of repairs needed in schools around the state and rated them in order of priority.

But it did nothing to fund things like leaking toilets and termite infestation. The article goes on to mention a school in the Blue Mountains in my electorate:

According to the survey of principals, Blaxland Primary School in the Blue Mountains has put up with leaking roofs since 2004.

How in the world do we expect our students to get on at school—to be able to focus on learning and skill development—when the roofs are leaking, the toilets are leaking and stinking, and there are termite infestations and other unsafe aspects? These are things that should have been covered under the basic maintenance program of the state education department, but it failed miserably. Despite massive GST revenues, record windfalls from stamp duty in the property boom in 2002-2003 and steadily increasing funding from the Commonwealth government, we have had 10 years of stinking toilets from a state government that is also badly on the nose.

What do we hear from the Labor counterparts opposite? Deafening silence. Where is the criticism from federal Labor of the failure of their state Labor counterparts? Where is their condemnation of state Labor? When will they stand up for the students, the families and, indeed, the teachers in New South Wales schools? They stand condemned as well for their silence.

This legislation provides additional funding for these very worthwhile programs, but it also demonstrates three or four things that are worth referring to. This legislation demonstrates the Howard government’s commitment to school education. We have a proud record of solid, substantial increases in funding—increases of 160 per cent over the 10 years of this government. Funding for school education has risen from $3.5 billion 10 years ago to $9.3 billion this year—2.6 times what it was just 10 years ago, a massive increase in funding for schools across the country under this government.

We all know that the school years are crucial to young people in gaining knowledge, in building their skills, in developing their creative abilities and in learning the values that are so important for making them productive and positive members of our community. The Howard government’s strong commitment is demonstrated by this funding. This government is putting its money where its mouth is and doing it far more effectively and far more substantially than the state governments have been doing.

The second thing this legislation demonstrates is this government’s commitment to choice. We respect the right of parents to choose the type of school education that they consider appropriate for their children. Whether they choose the local public school, whether they choose an independent school or whether they choose a Catholic school, we on this side believe that parents have the right to make that choice and that that choice should be supported with appropriate levels of funding. We do fund appropriately according to need. The formula assists parents who choose to send their children to non-government schools according to their resources and affluence and their ability to meet the fees. The wealthier non-government schools receive funding at a level of less than 14 per cent of state government schools and the poorer schools receive funding up to 70 per cent of the funding level that public schools receive—from 14 per cent to 70 per cent, a perfectly fair rate of funding. Parents who choose to send their children to non-government schools often make significant sacrifices to do so, and we believe that they deserve some level of support from government in those choices that they make.

This is unlike Labor, which for years have had a hit list of non-government schools from which they would remove funding. We are hearing suddenly from the new opposition that that is not going to happen and that they will promise to fund according to need. But there is no commitment to indexing that funding or to ensuring that that funding grows, so we will see a steady erosion of funding to some non-government schools driven by the politics of envy and the ideology of some of the teachers unions—an erosion by stealth. We saw from the other side, the last time they were in government, the new schools policy that prevented new non-government schools being established. If they ever get into government we will see—as we are seeing already—the Australian Education Union and the Teachers Federation once again dictating education policies to the Labor Party.

We see clearly in this legislation the commitment of this government to public schools. We hear a lot of nonsense from the other side about the so-called neglect of public schools by the Howard government. That could not be further from the truth. Since the Howard government has been in office we have increased direct funding for state public schools by 118 per cent. That is an increase from $1.5 billion a year to $3.4 billion—an increase of 118 per cent when the enrolments in public schools have only risen by 1.1 per cent.

We have substantially increased funding for state schools and done so more rapidly than the state governments have done for their own schools. Look at New South Wales for example. Last year, we increased funding for New South Wales government schools by 10.7 per cent. Did the New South Wales government match that? Did the New South Wales government come close to matching that? No. Their increase was 3.9 per cent, compared to our 10.7 per cent.

Yet we have the continued claim by teachers unions that somehow we are cutting funding for state schools. Last month, we had Pat Byrne, the Federal President of the Australian Education Union, in an article in the Daily Telegraph, saying that the Howard government is cutting funding for public schools. This is blatant, deliberate dishonesty. It is what we get time and time again from the teachers unions. How can they, in all seriousness, say that we have cut funding when we have increased funding by 118 per cent? This is deliberate dishonesty by the teachers unions. Sadly, it is deliberate dishonesty that is supported by the silence of the Labor opposition—their silent subservience to their union masters. This is appalling, and Labor’s quiet acceptance of this dishonesty, this deceit, does it no credit at all.

The fourth thing this legislation shows is this government’s commitment to quality in school education. It is not just that we are putting more money in—and we are putting substantially more money in—but it also shows a couple of those excellent initiatives that are being undertaken to lift standards to help ensure our schools are delivering the quality of education that their parents expect for their children.

These initiatives have included, for instance, national benchmarking for literacy and numeracy. Sadly, in 1996, national testing showed that 27 per cent of year 3 students and 29 per cent of year 5 students failed to reach minimum literacy and numeracy standards. So, as well as a whole range of initiatives to improve literacy and numeracy standards, we have extended the benchmarking and the testing up to year 7. Indeed, this year benchmarking and testing will start in year 9.

We have introduced the transparent plain English report card, so parents know exactly how their children are progressing, free of some of the educational jargon that often confuses the issues. We have introduced measures for improved school accountability, so parents know how their local school is performing compared to other schools in their wider region.

We have introduced measures to lift the progress of boys. I was pleased to chair the report on boys’ education some years ago, and a number of those recommendations have been taken up to lift the educational performance of boys who had been falling behind—programs such as the Boys’ Education Lighthouse Schools project.

We have a commitment to improving the quality of training—preservice and in-service training—for our teachers. It needs to be said—and let me say it very clearly—that the vast majority of the teachers in our state schools and in our non-government schools are committed, dedicated professionals who studied hard, who work hard and who desire only the best for the children in their care. But we are trying to support them in a way that perhaps their state education departments are not supporting them and in a way that is being frustrated by the teachers unions.

We have a commitment to vocational education and training—for instance, the introduction of school based apprenticeships. They have flourished under this government—except in New South Wales where, until the light dawned just before the run-up to the state election, school based New Apprenticeships were opposed by that state’s government. We have introduced school based apprenticeships to give kids in school a chance to get on-the-job training that will lead them into worthwhile careers immediately after school, to bridge that gap, importantly, between school and work.

There have been so many of these initiatives—yet, sadly, many of these initiatives and reforms were opposed by the teachers unions. They were opposed by the Australian Education Union and its New South Wales affiliate, the New South Wales Teachers Federation. Their opposition is at odds with the professionalism of the bulk of classroom teachers around this country. Their objections are at odds with the desires of parents and at odds, I would say, with public opinion. Yet the influence of the teachers unions is still holding sway with Labor governments at the state level and still dominating the thinking of the Labor opposition federally.

A very interesting report last month by the Centre for Independent Studies put it very simply:

If public schools are to thrive and flourish into the future, the power nexus between teacher unions and state governments must be broken.

This is not me speaking; this is not the federal government’s education minister speaking—this is the Centre for Independent Studies. ‘If public schools are to thrive and flourish into the future, the power nexus between teacher unions and state governments must be broken’—the power nexus that has hobbled the New South Wales government and prevented it from doing what needs to be done to improve standards in state government schools. The article in today’s Sydney Morning Herald to which I referred is indicative of that. Even the power nexus between teacher unions and the federal Labor opposition needs to be broken.

My time has virtually gone, so I will conclude by saying that this legislation is just a further demonstration of the Howard government’s commitment to quality school education, to supporting the choice of parents, to supporting our public schools and our non-government and independent and Catholic schools with record levels of funding, with increases in funding far beyond what state governments have managed to do. It demonstrates our commitment not just to increasing funding levels but also to improving the quality of education in our schools, to providing the support that our committed teachers need and the support that our children need to maximise their skills and potential so they can become productive, positive members of our community. This bill delivers, and it is a sharp contrast to the rhetoric and the failure of the state Labor governments and the empty posturing from the federal Labor opposition.

Peter Andren (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007 is very timely, coming as it does at a time when I am fielding more and more concerns from public schools in the Calare electorate about a perceived shift of the goalposts as far as this Investing in Our Schools Program is concerned. Let us put this $1 billion scheme into perspective. It is very welcome to school communities because it does fill an urgent need and a rapidly deepening hole in the provision of basic infrastructure and facilities in schools right across the country.

Last week I visited Yeoval Central School, between Orange and Dubbo, where a new agriculture shed and garden, fencing and stockyards, as well as paving and computers, have been provided under this program—and very welcome they are. These are facilities that that community could in no way have afforded inside the next decade, probably ever, without this program. Yeoval was one of the luckier schools: it received what it needed under its application. But not so a school like South Bathurst Public School. In 2006 this school received $5,000 to engage an architect to design building modifications to the main teaching block so that practical lessons such as craft and art could be undertaken. This had to be modified into a stand-alone structure that would require the maximum $150,000 or thereabouts on offer under the Investing in Our Schools Program. This school and many others are now dismayed to see the maximum amount available to schools reduced to $100,000. The guidelines on construction projects state:

Funding recipients are responsible for following state-specific building or construction requirements and for obtaining necessary approvals before applying.

That is what South Bathurst Public School had done, and it was waiting for the final round of submissions before applying for around $130,000 to complete the work, having received two smaller grants totalling around $22,000. It will either have to drastically modify the project, which it had followed the correct procedures to design and put in place, or look for some other work, which no doubt will be of benefit. But the fact is it proceeded along a path and believed it was fulfilling the guidelines and now finds that it has been pulled up short, at least on its expectations if not on the funding required.

The Carenne Special School in Bathurst is another example. It is a school for children with moderate to severe intellectual disability and, in the case of 15 students, significant physical disability. The school has developed a project with the expectation of Investing in Our Schools funding for a mini gymnasium to improve the physical therapy, gross motor and physical education programs so vital to the school’s 60 students. In round 2 of applications, the school applied for and was granted $137,000 to build the gymnasium. The school had planned to apply for the balance from the maximum allowable $150,000 to provide the necessary equipment. The guidelines for the program stipulated the need for separate applications to cover different parts of the program. However, with the maximum allowable grant reduced to $100,000, Carenne has run out of opportunities under this program. It has a brand-new gym, which it is certainly grateful for—it is a wonderful building; I saw it the other day on a visit to the school—but it has no equipment. It will have to try to raise the money from an already financially stretched school community, or maybe some white knight may travel into town—

Ken Ticehurst (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about the state government?

Peter Andren (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Exactly. I am going to get onto the state government in a minute. The $137,000 for the gym was very welcome. They are ecstatic about it. It is a vital piece of infrastructure for the school, and it is to be hoped that the state government steps in to make up what is a rather modest shortfall.

Elsewhere, Manildra Public School feels cheated because it will no longer be able to find sufficient funds for a rebuilding of the computer infrastructure in the school. Mandurama Public School is another school that welcomes the funding it has received, but it had expected to be able to apply for further grants up to the original maximum of $150,000.

In introducing this scheme, the federal government quite rightly severely criticised the last decade of Labor government neglect of schools in New South Wales—and I would suggest that neglect goes back probably 20 years, as with most of our infrastructure around the country. It is one thing to hold the state government to account for its shortfall in the funding of these essential projects; it is one thing to promise this scheme to make a political point—the correct point—that there has been neglect in this area; but, having promised the scheme, it is a bit rich to wind it up by 2008 or thereabouts and cut back the maximum amount for which a school can apply when there is and has been an expectation that, properly staged, many of these projects could receive funding under this program, leaving aside the fact that such infrastructure perhaps should always have been funded by the state.

The government might say there was never an expectation that each and every school would receive $150,000. That is probably correct, but, rightly or wrongly, that was the perception created in the school communities, and there is a definite feeling that schools have been let down. They were let down in the first place by the state government, which has recklessly ignored school infrastructure needs over those many years, but they have also been let down by this federal scheme that promised and delivered plenty to some but has left others, who wanted to stage their improvements, well short of the funding they could reasonably have expected.

Right around the Calare electorate there are examples of improvements to school amenities that would not have been possible without these targeted grants from the Commonwealth. The so-called COLA, covered outside learning area, has popped up on quite a few school playgrounds, and there is hope that down the track the resources may be found by donation or otherwise to fill them in and make an enclosed gymnasium in places such as Meadow Flat, which has a pretty unforgiving winter. As welcome as that framework is, they see that they will have to look down the track for some other program that may deliver the cladding to provide a fully covered small gymnasium—a facility that these primary schools could perhaps never have dreamt of until this scheme came along. Soft-fall areas and sun shades have been improvements of choice for other school communities. The Investing in Our Schools Program has been very welcome, but most communities feel it should just be the start of a recurrent program that helps schools catch up on years of neglect by governments of all persuasions—state and federal.

Today’s Sydney Morning Herald reveals that a survey of 300 schools has uncovered a 10-year backlog of maintenance problems that the New South Wales department of education has allegedly been ‘fighting to hide’. The Public Schools Principals Forum survey has found that many schools have been forced to put up with a decade of ‘stinking, blocked toilets’, threadbare carpets, termite infestation and uneven, unsafe playgrounds. The state minister admits it is ‘a backlog we haven’t managed to get on top of’. The federal government accuses the states, especially New South Wales, of failing to use their GST revenue to upgrade schools and hospitals. The New South Wales government blames the feds and other states for taking more than a fair share of GST. Meanwhile, these schools, the children and their communities continue to suffer poor conditions while others, public and private, enjoy facilities that a Cullen Bullen Public School or a Canowindra Public School—which I have seen recently, and their lack of facilities—could only dream of.

The New South Wales government has been culpable in ignoring the needs of many schools for a decade or more, while the Commonwealth has been allocating much needed education funding, including that in this bill, on a flawed principle that guarantees a widening of the gap between the haves and have-nots of education.

Take the socioeconomic status, or SES, formula used to determine non-government school grants. It is based on postcodes, meaning, for example, that any Sydney independent school could be funded according to the socioeconomic status of a country postcode in a low socioeconomic part of the state; however, a child at that school could come from an income base far in excess of the postcode average. Yet the school is funded according to the economic status of the whole postcode area. Similarly, this could apply to students from otherwise low socioeconomic metropolitan areas. I would suggest that such a test is inherently flawed. So too is the Investing in Our Schools Program, by providing access to schools regardless of their neighbourhood or district’s relative economic status—even down to providing the wherewithal to prepare submissions. For example, a large public school in Orange might have a submission prepared by the professional parent body that those schools have—accountants and so on. A two-teacher school, with the limited facilities and expertise and time they have to prepare submissions, is more likely to stage these things and ask for smaller amounts, whereas the bigger school will go for the big bang and as much of that initial $150,000 as they can. And that is indeed what has happened in many of these areas, which further extends the discrepancies between the facilities that are provided under the program.

I noticed the opposition were talking about a fairer funding formula for education, or something along those lines. How about both the government and opposition adopting something like an education needs index? Such a measurement would be like a bar code system and would include a list of the most basic of school needs, such as playground, toilets, shelter, heating and cooling, computer resources et cetera. Unless and until all boxes were ticked for all schools on this basic index of requirements—and it has to be a transparent process that every parent and every school understands—there should be no further Investing in Our Schools funding or indeed school grants available from federal or state sources until all schools catch up. If the red light glows as the bar code scanner is run across a school, its glaring need should be met as a priority before funds go to any school, public or independent, that has passed the test of need. While we are at it, why install air conditioning in schools without adding solar panels to power those units? How better to show kids we mean business on global warming—I wonder if we really do—than to offset the power we use with genuine clean, green, alternative power?

Last week, with the principal, Paul Stirling, I inspected the new Kelso High School, rebuilt after it was so tragically lost in a fire. It will have wonderful facilities. But how crazy is it that no provision has been made for harvesting stormwater from the acre or more of its rooftops to water its oval and gardens? It has apparently missed out on a submission under the federal community water grants scheme. Surely such harvesting and storage should be obligatory in all new schools and, indeed, all new public buildings funded either by the state or the federal governments. We can argue the toss: perhaps it should be the federal government, because it must be part of a national water initiative. Such programs must be part of the whole catchment management process, right down to the tank at the back of the house in Millthorpe, where I happen to live, or wherever it might be.

To date, under the Investing in Our Schools Program, 6,166 government and 1,603 non-government schools have benefited. This represents 89 per cent of government and 59 per cent of all non-government schools. The scheme was due to run until 2008, but the demand was such that funds for 2007-08 were used earlier than expected. It seems now that, despite the extra $181 million provided in this bill, the maximum amount available has been cut to $100,000 to meet, I presume, the budgeted amount over the life of the program.

I would suggest that, with a scheme that has been so successful and met such demand, any government or opposition would be very unwise to wind it up—like the dental program you brought to a halt in 1997. You cannot just shut a program down and ignore the fact that demand will continue for many years to come—indefinitely, in the case of dental services—to upgrade much of our ageing education infrastructure. Perhaps the index of need should be implemented so those schools in dire need, including those who believe they have been short-changed under this program, may at least catch up.

I note that the department will be providing support to targeted schools, including case managers for those that have not received grants to help with the application process. This is important because the grants process and submissions are a big task for smaller schools while larger, more resourced schools, some employing consultants who skim off part of the grants office fees—and that is a fairly questionable process, I would say, given the scarcity of this money—find it easier to access the program, as I illustrated earlier. While it is a given that many independent schools are as short on facilities as government schools, one must ask how some non-government schools have received Investing in Our Schools grants in excess of $1 million, notwithstanding the greater role of federal funding in the non-government schools system.

This bill also contains additional capital grants for non-government schools in line with the annual augmentation process adopted in 1996. It also provides almost $10 million for the Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs Program. I will not comment on those. I complete these remarks by asking that the expectations of schools under the Investing in Our Schools Program, announced with such fanfare and greeted with such enthusiasm by school communities, be addressed with a review of funding applications to meet the projects set in train on the expectation of funding of up to $150,000. I also suggest that the non-government school funding formula is flawed and risks the widening of the resources gap within the non-government schools sector and between the non-government and state systems. A measure of index of school needs applied to each and every school would seem the most basic of measures to achieve a fair go for all our children.

Ken Ticehurst (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The purpose of the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007 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 always fighting for extra support for our kids in Dobell. Our children are the future of Australia. This bill therefore represents a major investment in the future of our society.

By increasing financial assistance to schools, the Australian government seeks high-quality outcomes for all students. The Howard government is committed to supporting parental choice in education and to ensuring that all schoolchildren have access to a quality learning environment. The Howard government has no interest in competition between different school sectors for the available government dollars.

The Labor Party believe that parents of students in independent and Catholic schools should receive no public funding. They think that all families who send their children to private schools are wealthy, but that is simply not the case. I know families in my electorate juggling three jobs to keep their children in the Catholic school system. The truth is that every time parents on the Central Coast decide to send their children to private schools they are effectively saving the Australian taxpayer around $10,000 annually.

The Howard government believes that every parent, having paid their taxes, deserves some level of public assistance to support the education of their child regardless of which school their child attends. The Australian government will provide a record estimated $33 billion in funding for Australian schools over the four years from 2005 to 2008. This is the largest ever commitment by an Australian government to schooling in Australia. Funding to Australian schools has increased by close to 160 per cent, from $3.5 billion in 1996 to $9.3 billion in 2006-07. That is an amazing commitment when you consider that education is the realm of state governments, and at this stage they are all Labor governments.

In 2006-07 the Australian government increased its funding to state government schools by an average of 11 per cent. It is disappointing that state and territory governments, which are responsible for adequately managing the schools they own, increased their funding by only 4.9 per cent. Should state and territory governments have matched the Howard government’s increased rate of funding, there would have been an extra $1.4 billion for Australian state government schools. Once again state government schools have been let down by state and territory Labor governments.

The additional funding provided in this bill demonstrates the Howard government’s commitment to ensuring that students receive a high-quality education no matter what school they attend, government or non-government. The bill provides increased funding to the extremely successful $1 billion Investing in Our Schools Program. There has been an overwhelming response from school communities in my electorate for funding under this program introduced by the Howard government. Through this program, the Australian government is providing local communities with a voice to determine what they think is important for their school that is not being funded by the state governments. Almost 90 per cent of state government schools across Australia have received funding through the Howard government’s Investing in Our Schools Program. Due to the overwhelming demand by schools, the Prime Minister recently announced additional funding for the program. This bill will provide an additional $181 million to invest in our schools through this program. The additional funding will provide an extra $127 million for state government schools and an extra $54 million for non-government schools. When this fourth round is complete, total funding provided to Australian schools under the program will be almost $1.2 billion. The additional IOSP funding will be targeted towards schools that have received little or no funding to date under the program. Sixteen state government schools in my electorate of Dobell have the opportunity to apply for funding in round 4 due to receiving an IOSP funding total below the national average of $100,000 or having not yet applied.

This successful program is delivering on a range of often overlooked but still important educational items and infrastructure projects. These do not make it onto the priority list of state and territory education bureaucracies. This funding has given schools safer, healthier and more positive areas for learning as well as alternative education spaces that will significantly enhance the students’ quality of life. From visiting the many schools in my electorate, I have witnessed the fantastic projects school communities have been able to complete with the help of the IOSP funding. Last week I visited Erina Heights Public School to celebrate the completion of the school’s new carpeting in hallways, a P&C uniform shop and storage unit, and craft room refurbishment—projects which were funded by the successful program.

In addition to this program, funding is provided to state government and non-government schools through the capital grants program to improve school infrastructure. Under the capital grants program an estimated $1.7 billion is being provided by the Howard government over 2005 to 2008 to assist with the building, maintenance and updating of schools throughout Australia.

I recently visited Lakes Grammar Anglican School for the opening of stage 1 of the senior school for years 9 to 12. The Australian government contributed $435,000 towards the $7.5 million capital works project, which includes a design and technology room, science lab, five general classrooms, computer lab, library, PE store room, two multipurpose courts, car park and link road from the junior school. These outstanding facilities will help ensure all students are encouraged to realise their potential and attain their goals. This project is a good example of what can be achieved when the government works together with local school communities.

The bill will appropriate $11.7 million for capital funding for non-government schools for 2008 to maintain the existing funding level. The final measure in the bill is to provide $9.445 million for the national projects element of the Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs Program for 2008. This is to ensure continued funding to the end of the quadrennium. Literacy and numeracy are the most important skills a child needs to succeed in their education. These national projects emphasise the Howard government’s efforts in raising the literacy and numeracy of disadvantaged students.

Over my time as the federal member for Dobell, I have enjoyed my interactions with the principals, teachers and students from many fine local Catholic, independent and state schools. They are rich in variety and are all committed to working for a bright future for their students. I have seen with my own eyes the high standard of teaching at many schools in each of these sectors and the excellent partnerships between teachers, students and parents.

Last week I visited Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic School at Long Jetty and saw great strides in achievement in numeracy and literacy levels. In fact, they are achieving level 12 in kinder, and by the end of year 1 they are achieving level 18. This has been a fantastic turnaround in the last four years for this particular school. As a parent and grandparent I know how important these partnerships are to a quality education. I also know how important it is for parents to have the right to choose where they send their children to school. The Howard government strongly support the principle of choice. Importantly, whether parents choose to send their children to a state, Catholic or independent school, we want to be able to support them in making the choice that they believe to be best for their children.

Today I was amazed to read in the Sydney Morning Herald an article titled ‘Ten years of stinking toilets’. When the Minister for Defence, who is at the table, was Minister for Education, Science and Training—

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tuggerawong Public School!

Ken Ticehurst (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

we witnessed this exactly at Tuggerawong Public School. They were going to use the Investing in Our Schools Program to fix the toilets. However, we convinced them that that was the responsibility of the state government. The minister will recall that the toilets were in a shocking state when we visited them.

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You could smell them from the road.

Ken Ticehurst (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You could smell them from Wyong! Fortunately, there is partly a fix on that problem. They were able to spend their Investing in Our Schools Program money on a more useful project. It is a shame to see that, even after all these years, schools are still having this problem and the states are ignoring it. We have a state Labor candidate who was the principal of a school, Mr David Harris. I have heard him saying nothing whatsoever about the poor state of schools and what he proposes to do. All we have heard is Premier Morris Iemma talking about the last 18 months. It is an absolute disgrace.

This bill reflects the Howard government’s continued commitment to a strong and effective school system, maximising opportunities for young Australians. By assisting all schools with funding for important educational items, necessary building projects and improvements in literacy and numeracy standards, the result is improved educational outcomes for all Australian students. I commend this bill to the House.

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

What a pleasure it is to rise in the House to celebrate the awarding of an enormous amount of money into my electorate of Riverina from this government—money that would not normally have gone to these very worthwhile and deserving projects in public and private schools. I am delighted to speak in support of the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007, which will mean a further opportunity for schools in my electorate to implement projects to enhance the education of their students and certainly to relieve the burden on many parents. As has become very obvious over the years, many parents and friends associations and parents and citizens associations are raising extraordinary amounts of money to assist in their children’s education and to benefit communities at large.

Since the Investing in Our Schools Program started, the Riverina has received a sensational amount of just under $10 million, with state schools receiving $7.8 million and the many Catholic and independent schools in the electorate being allocated a total of $2.1 million. In this round of the Investing in Our Schools Program the Riverina community’s parents, teachers, headmasters and, most of all, students have been the recipients of extreme value.

This program that has been delivered across the Riverina has been vital in securing a number of smaller projects that schools desperately need but which the state government has certainly not seen as a priority. In 2006-07 the Australian government increased its funding of state government schools by an average of 11 per cent while at the same time state Labor governments increased their funding by just 4.9 per cent. Had they matched the federal government’s increased rate of funding there would be an extra $1.4 billion for Australian state government schools. This demonstrates a concerning trend of neglect of state government schools by state and territory Labor governments.

I know that there was much concern, when we were putting money into the public school system—and I congratulate the government for having done so—that the more money we put in, the more money the states will take out of the system. That is generally their form. However, it is worth while to see the look on the faces of the mums and dads who continually and consistently work in the best interests of their schools and their communities when there is an amount of money put into their school that they have not actually had to raise themselves.

Many of the successful projects in my electorate have included simple things such as shade structures and all-important air conditioning. We have seen masses of computers made available to our country students, classroom improvements and a huge increase in library resources. From December through to March, almost into April, the temperatures in the Riverina can reach up past 45 degrees on many days. Some of the schools that I have in my electorate still have no air conditioning or appropriate shaded areas. The children do not have access to pleasant environments in which to learn and play. In our significant drought, we have bare dirt and dusty playgrounds. We have no ability to apply water—if there were any—or to be environmentally efficient in the way in which we use water.

The projects that we were able to fund from the Investing in Our Schools Program included things such as playground equipment, sporting infrastructure and water infrastructure for our ovals so that our children can compete in sports and have a physical and cultural environment within their school. One of the little schools, Nangus Public School, in my electorate was just thrilled that they had received a grant of $33,000 for playground equipment because in the 80-year history of the school there had not been any climbing and fitness equipment. Now they cannot keep the kids off the equipment. It has been a fabulous addition to the school.

Their children’s wellbeing is very important to parents and many of them commit much time and energy to assisting with their P&Cs, parents and citizens associations, or their P&Fs. They run the tuckshops and they prepare for school fetes and other fundraisers. They sew and cook and they spend time helping the classroom teacher with classroom maintenance and working bees across the school. We should ensure that we have the best facilities for children to learn in because this is important for their future. Small communities generally are so committed.

The drought has been a heavy burden on the people whom I represent, but they are still prepared to do what they can to ensure that their local school has vital equipment and maintenance applied to it. The schools in the bush in my electorate are often the heart of the town or the village that they are in and it is important to keep these partnerships between the government and our communities in order to build relationships and achieve the aims and objectives for the schools and their students. It is difficult, as I said, for smaller areas to raise an amount of money in these drought stricken times and that is why this government should be applauded for recognising and rewarding the P&Cs and P&Fs for their dedication to education in their communities. The smaller schools simply do not have a critical mass to draw on for fundraisers, and the continuing drought has a huge impact financially on many of the families in my electorate. They do all that they can. Sometimes they simply cannot spare the extra money to give to the school, but they certainly will always give of their time and labour.

The purpose of this bill is to provide increased funding for the Investing in Our Schools Program for government schools for 2007 and non-government schools for 2007-08 and to provide additional funding of $127 million for state government schools and an extra $54 million for our non-government schools. When the fourth round is complete, the total funding provided to Australian schools under the program will be almost $1.2 billion. Everyone was excited about the first $1 billion; it was so popular and it rolled out very quickly. This additional funding will be as welcome across my electorate as the previous Investing in Our Schools Program has been. It has received an overwhelming response from our school communities Australia-wide, with over 18,000 applications having been received over the first three rounds from the state government schools alone.

Recently I have been spending a lot of time in schools through the electorate of Riverina and we have celebrated as a community, as children, as teachers and as friends of the schools, the completion of many of these projects that have been very simple but so very effective. I have seen fantastic results. It is clear that these schools are very proud of their achievements and very proud of the ways in which their schools are operational and the ways in which they have been able to play a part in offering new facilities for both students and staff.

At Parkview Public School I recently attended a playground refurbishment. It was completed with $48,257 provided under the Investing in Our Schools Program. To see the enjoyment of the children was an absolute pleasure. Parkview is a wonderful school and I was very proud of the way they maintain their school and make it an extremely comfortable environment. Over the years the playground had eroded and become a dusty and sparsely grassed area. Health and safety issues were a concern for the students due to the fact that there was no real place to play and to enjoy outdoor activity. There is now a safer playground. The project included digging a trench around the edge of the playground to eliminate the effect caused by the roots of existing trees. The playground was levelled and loam was spread on the infants’ playground to cover the poor-quality soil. We laid turf over the infants’ playground to replace the existing bare or poorly grassed areas. We removed the existing woodchip soft-fall material from beneath the playground equipment and provided the most amazing rubber based soft-fall material with play designs underneath all of that play equipment to ensure that the one broken arm evident in the school on that day was something from the past and would certainly not happen in the future.

I still have around nine schools in the Riverina which have either not applied for funding or not been successful in securing funding. I welcome this additional funding for the program, because it will be targeted at these schools to ensure that they will have an opportunity to participate in this very competitively based scheme. It gives them an opportunity to participate by putting in their application for a maximum of $100,000.

I say this to the Hon. Brendan Nelson, the former Minister for Education, Science and Training, who is sitting at the table, who started this magnificent program: thank you very much, Minister, for having seen the need and the desire of members of this House to play a very important role in ensuring that the school parents, friends and children in our communities have been able to achieve equity and balance in the way in which their school facilities have been prepared. We thank you for that. I also thank the current Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon. Julie Bishop, for taking this up with a vengeance. I say to this government: congratulations for something that has been so successful; the joy among the people of my electorate that I have witnessed has been undeniable. We continue to look forward to the rolling-out of further projects in the region covered by the electorate of Riverina.

Another school that I attended recently is Yanco Agricultural High School. It was a fabulous visit. It is a boarding school, and its young students had not previously had an air-conditioned canteen area. When I was there I was so taken by all of the students, everybody in their very heavy serge blazers and their uniforms with ties done up to the neck, sitting in the canteen for their joint meal. I wondered how they could have possibly managed to enjoy their meal and to prosper from it when they had had no air conditioning in this canteen area for all of those years. But they now have air conditioning as a result of the Investing in Our Schools Program, and they were thoroughly enjoying their meal that evening in air-conditioned comfort.

There are a number of schools in a similar situation. Recently I visited Forest Hill Public School and had a fabulous morning with P&C members, enjoying the morning’s activities. We congratulated each other and celebrated the greening of their playing field. They have not been able to use their oval for a number of years but now, through the Investing in Our Schools Program, they are able to enjoy their playground. They are even putting in place a softball diamond, and they will soon be having a skipathon to raise money under the Jump Rope for Heart initiative. That was a terrific morning. I commend the bill to the House.

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join the member for Riverina in strongly supporting this legislation, the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007. I also thank her for her acknowledgement of the current Minister for Education, Science and Training and of me, having formerly been in that capacity. I do very much recall the day that the idea came to me. I was driving past a school in my electorate, Roseville Public School, and, as is often the case, there was a very large sign out the front of the school—‘Trivia Night on Friday night for the P&C’—and adjacent to it was a fundraising thermometer. For some time we in the federal government had been very angry about the way in which state governments had been neglecting and underfunding their own state schools—which is why of course they are called ‘state schools’. In fact, in the 2005-06 budget for the state of New South Wales, the New South Wales government actually cut its education capital works funding by $20 million and froze its maintenance budget. That compounded a long period of underfunding of its government schools.

It seemed to me that when parents were not absolutely flat out trying to look after their families, feed their children and meet their mortgages they were frequently required, through government school P&Cs, to be fundraising for a variety of very necessary and worthy things. The proposal which was developed, which has obviously been supported by and now implemented by the government, was that we would provide additional funding, not funding taken from any other Commonwealth government education program, to schools directly to parent bodies so that a school’s parent body would determine itself which projects were a priority for them while the principal of the school would need to sign off the proposal. In other words, we were bypassing the clipboard mentality of the states’ centralised education bureaucracies and going directly to parents.

The Investing in Our Schools Program has revealed a number of things. It has revealed not only that parents know exactly what is important to support the education of their children but also the exorbitant fees that are being charged at the state government level for the management of projects and building. One of the key things which need to be examined very closely is the extent to which the Australian taxpayer, at a state and federal level—for the money that goes into capital works for state schools—is being gouged for excessive fees. Parents have found that they are able to get projects funded much more efficiently and have the work completed much more on schedule and for a much more appropriate price than by going through centralised education bureaucracies. On that note, I strongly support the legislation and I look forward very much to hearing from the member for Bass.

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

I take great delight in speaking in support of the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007. What an extraordinary situation it is when the Labor Party fails to have speakers on this bill. I do not mind running down the corridors to deliver my contribution a little earlier than I was advised by the agreed speakers list—agreed, that is, between the whips—but I wonder why the Labor Party does not wish to speak on this bill. How embarrassing! Equally, what an extraordinary situation it is that speakers opposite would have stood to oppose an additional funding increase—very valuable funding—to deserving schools in every state and territory in our great country.

The amendment we are debating today will provide further funding in 2007 for state government schools under the highly regarded Investing in Our Schools Program. We have just heard from the Minister for Defence. It is really exciting to hear the Minister for Defence speak to this bill and it is quite an unusual situation. I think it is worth placing on record my appreciation for the Minister for Defence who, at the time of the 2004 election, was the Minister for Education, Science and Training—and a very good one. He began what needed to be the next wave of education reform in this country. I will never forget driving on the roads in north-east Tasmania—

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Scottsdale?

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

Yes, just past Scottsdale. I was listening to the radio broadcast of the Prime Minister’s election campaign launch speech, in which he proposed a range of initiatives to boost and further strengthen education and vocational training in this country. I will never forget the excitement of hearing the announcement of, at that time, 24 new technical colleges for Australia, one of which was going to be based in Northern Tasmania, to address a shortage in the number of people available to the workforce in the skilled trades. We also heard on the broadcast news at that time of the new commitment—not a political promise, but a bankrolled commitment—for an extra $1 billion for schools. Any school teachers, school principals or, indeed, parents of children in schools in Northern Tasmania who were watching that broadcast on television or listening to it on the radio would have shared my excitement at hearing of all the extra resources that were going to be made available.

It is important to add that this bill also appropriates additional funding for non-government schools for 2007 and 2008. The amendment provides for additional funding for non-government schools under the capital grants program for 2008 and funding for national projects under the Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs Program for the same year. But I want to dwell on the Investing in Our Schools Program. I am really excited about this and I am genuinely pleased to see additional resources going to our schools.

As you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker Wilkie, I was a schoolteacher in secondary schools in Northern Tasmania. I will never forget having to teach in classrooms that were not heated. It was as ridiculous as this: I would go from my maths classroom to my science classroom to my IT lab carrying a 1,500-watt heater with me—along with my whiteboard markers, my chalk and my scientific calculator—which I had to put on in the classroom for me and the children. All the while, I wondered how long this ridiculous situation would last. I always took the view that it was not just my workplace environment that was inadequate and of an unacceptable standard but that, equally, it was the workplace of the students. While they may not have been in paid employment, during the hours of nine to three that was their workplace and they had a right and a reasonable expectation to have a decent standard of environment in which to learn and work.

The Investing in Our Schools Program has been a monumental success. Since the program began in this term of the Howard government, more than 6,000 state government schools have submitted close to 19,000 applications. In my electorate of Bass in Northern Tasmania alone, the interest in the take-up has been absolutely fantastic. But we do not need to exaggerate about these things; the facts bear them out. In round 1 alone, 17 government school projects were approved; in round 2, 18 projects; and in round 3, announced late last year, 26 projects were approved in Northern Tasmania.

Over the three rounds of Investing in Our Schools funding, 61 government schools in Northern Tasmania have received total funding approvals of $3.3 million. The program has also supported 10 non-government schools to the tune of half a million dollars, approved in a different method through the independent schools block grant authority. So 71 schools in Northern Tasmania are benefiting thousands—probably countless numbers—of students and parents and, indeed, the wider community. I think it is worth saying that these are, in the main, state government schools which have been neglected by state governments. It certainly is the case and, while it may sound like an easy call or a cheap shot, the fact remains that we are talking about state government schools, which are well and truly within the jurisdiction and responsibility of the state governments.

Unfortunately we tend increasingly now to be living in an age in which, when state government policy failures eventuate, those self-same state governments begin to point the finger at other levels of government. They look up; they look towards Canberra. If the state governments were to ask Canberra to take over responsibility for their schools, that would be an interesting discussion and a debate that I would be very willing to enter into. But we do not live in that environment. We live in an environment where the state governments want to retain control of those schools—to manage them and to fund them—but they do not want to fund them appropriately. They do not want to resource them in the way that they know they should. Rather than dealing with the problem and getting their own state budget priorities right, state Labor governments—certainly in the case of Tasmania but also around the country—are pointing the finger rather than taking responsibility.

Time today does not permit me to detail all of the worthy projects of which I have been speaking, but I want to mention a few that have been funded through the program, because I have had the great fortune of being closely related to very many of them. In particular I am delighted with Mowbray Heights Primary School. It is a school that I have a close affinity with. I often call it ‘the gold nugget’. That little school has benefited from more than $45,000 in direct funding—no middleman needed here—to improve its outside facilities and make shade structure improvements. Most recently I had the pleasure of going to that school with the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, and we were able to inspect an additional improvement there: the new playground.

Also the fund has provided support to Summerdale Primary School for air conditioning and heating, some of the basics of life. Trevallyn Primary School has received $50,000 for a heating upgrade. Waverley Primary School, which is another terrific school, up on the hill east of Launceston, received a shade structure upgrade for $50,000, in addition to improvements for its general quadrangle. It was a delight for me to be able to visit there and launch that. We were also able to see improvements that have been undertaken at Flinders Island District High School. There was support there of $50,000, which they have used for general classroom refurbishments, including a brand-new carpet. One of the children when I visited there—just a small child—said to me how nice it was to be able to sit on the floor in more comfort.

It was also very exciting last year to be part of the improvements that are going on at Invermay Primary School. It was a very exciting initiative which we saw at that school. The local church community joined together with the business community in totally renovating that small local primary school at Invermay. Invermay is not a well-off area in comparison to others, and it was absolutely astonishing and very humbling for me to be able to witness the involvement of local church people and the Christian community, who were able to raise something of the order of a quarter of a million dollars of financial and in-kind support from their own resources and through the business community and its networks there. Then over a two-day period there was an intense blitz and every aspect of the school was renovated and refurbished. I was able to be there and roughed it with the rest of them. I made a fair fist of painting some of the classrooms. Invermay Primary School has also received funding, as part of the Commonwealth’s commitment to that school, for heating upgrades and general classroom improvements.

South George Town Primary School has received funding, along with Glen Dhu Primary School. Prospect High School has received a very much appreciated boost of $150,000, which is basically being used to improve the home arts area, which will have the additional purpose of providing the students with their catering needs. I was able to visit there with the then Minister for Education, Science and Training, Dr Brendan Nelson. It was a great day and it was very well appreciated. I know that as recently as late last year the school community felt so grateful for that opportunity.

By the way, Mr Deputy Speaker, the schools do not believe that the Commonwealth carries responsibility for these issues, but they are mature enough to recognise the political environment we have today, where state governments are simply failing to invest in our schools, and they just appreciate the extra support that they are getting. It has also been wonderful to see schools in Scottsdale, St Leonards and Youngtown gaining the benefits of being a part of this program.

So, if the results are so positive, why is this amendment bill required? The answer to that is very simple: this program has been a victim of its own outstanding success. I think it is quite well known that, in the early days, the government intended to roll out this program over, I think, a four-year period, over either four or five funding rounds. Due to the astonishing uptake—the great enthusiasm with which schools took up this program—over time that has been changed and readjusted. We find ourselves today in a situation where that billion dollars—$1,000 million—has all been invested in our schools.

I feel so proud to be part of a government that has taken this policy initiative upon itself and in just two short years has been able to provide $1 billion in support to our schools. The money has all gone. Some schools had not yet had the opportunity to apply for this funding that they were so looking forward to, and now they find that the funding has all gone. You can imagine how they feel, Mr Deputy Speaker. We find ourselves again in a situation where the state government has failed to top up that fund or to make a contribution to it, and the Howard government has faithfully stepped in with the extra funding that is required to give schools that have not been funded to a significant degree, or schools that have not been funded at all, a new opportunity to apply, with a reasonable expectation that they will be able to provide improved facilities for their young people.

I can recall, when the last funding round for Tasmania was announced late last year, the shared disappointment I felt with those schools that had missed out. It was at that point that I was very anxious to deal with this problem. I spoke at that time to the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, about the need to extend this program beyond its three rounds. I also wrote to the minister. I also sent a copy of that letter, in good faith, to the schools who I felt had missed out and provided them with a hard copy of the representations that I had made on the matter.

Today in this public forum I say thank you to the minister for education for the role that she has played and I say thank you to the cabinet and indeed to the Prime Minister for showing the leadership that we needed to extend the life of this program, to assist more schools to gain a piece of the action—not so that they can have facilities which are out of this world or somehow a luxury; they are just getting their schools up to scratch. They are just providing a learning environment where young people can actually feel comfortable and not freeze.

My concern remains, though, that this fund will also run out and that there remains an enormous amount of need in many schools in Northern Tasmania which today have no real prospect of extra investment by Tasmania’s Lennon Labor government. It has refused all of my pleas to increase the capital works budget for schools. The Tasmanian government continues to place a very low priority on capital works—this is the built infrastructure of our schools. I strongly believe that we need to deliver on the needs and expectations of our school communities. That applies to all of us. I welcome the additional $181 million for this program, which consists of $127 million for state government schools and a smaller but fair pro rata amount of $54 million for non-government schools. I thank the government for that and I lay down the challenge today to my Labor colleagues who are in this place—somewhere; they do not really want to speak on this bill but I presume they are here somewhere—to pick up the phone to their Labor colleagues in the state governments around Australia to do one simple act: just match the increase. In their own schools in Tasmania and other states around Australia, just match what the Howard government is putting in.

Unfortunately, the flirtation between the Labor Party at the state level and the Australian Education Union has led to a very dishonest electoral campaign against the coalition government. It has been deliberately targeted to somehow create the impression in the community that our young people are missing out—it is because of the Howard government, they would have us believe. The facts are quite different. The reality is astonishingly different, because when one does the mathematics one finds that the Australian government’s 2006-07 budget increase to state government schools is 10.4 per cent. That is triple or four times inflation. The Tasmanian government’s present financial year budget increase for its own state government schools was a measly three per cent—3.2 per cent to be precise.

The mathematics of this are quite simple but they are nonetheless breathtaking. If the state government provided additional funding support to equal the Australian government’s increase—do not match the funds, just match the increase—it would mean an additional $46 million for Tasmanian schools. If it were to do that it would be commended, but until it does it stands condemned for its failure to act and its insistence on cheap, short-term politics—to point the finger at somebody else, to sheet the blame home to their political opponents, in this case, the Howard government. The government once again today stands on its fine record of supporting all of our schools, supporting parents in the choices they wish to make for their children and to provide facilities which provide the best opportunity for young people to learn and in the future to meet their potential in life. I stand today proud of this bill and what it represents. I call on all members to support it. I also challenge Labor members to clearly state their position on this matter rather than running away from debate. I thank the House.

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

I am delighted to be able to speak in the House of Representatives today on this very important bill. I support the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007 very strongly. I commend it very much to all members of the House, because this is a bill which will bring into the schools around the country some $181 million. Education is something that is very important to all Australians. It is particularly important to the mums, dads and grandparents of Ryan, because education really is so critical to the development of their children and their grandchildren. I am very pleased to speak on this very important bill.

I might draw to the attention of the House the fact that the Ryan electorate has the second highest concentration of educational institutions of all the 150 federal electoral divisions. That is something I am very pleased about. The Ryan electorate has 32 primary schools, eight secondary schools, including the Queensland Academy of Science, Mathematics and Technology, and of course, I would contend, Australia’s premier tertiary institution, the University of Queensland, of which I am very proud to be a graduate.

Education is one of the very significant priority issues for the Howard government. As a father of an eight-month-old son, I certainly now look at education with a different perspective, being someone who one day will be the parent of a young child at primary school, a child at secondary school and, indeed, I hope, perhaps one day, the father of a young man at university. So I am not only speaking as the federal member for Ryan but as a citizen and taxpayer of this country. This sort of bill is very close to my heart—and I know I speak for all parents in the Ryan electorate—because it delivers funding to key projects and key programs in the Ryan electorate.

I want to point out that the Ryan electorate has benefited to the tune of almost $4 million since this tremendous program, Investing in Our Schools, was brought into being. Almost $4 million has been provided across 43 projects, covering some 30 schools in the Ryan electorate. As the local federal member, it is something about which I am very proud. I also want to talk about the nature of school funding generally and the allocation of funds in Queensland, because I think it is important for Australians to know about it. Some $27 million will be allocated for state government schools and $54 million for non-government schools. When this fourth round is complete under the Investing in Our Schools Program, the total of funding for schools across the country will be $1.2 billion—such a huge amount of money really boggles the mind. The allocation represents a commitment by the Howard government to support those schools that rely on government funding while also respecting the right of parents to choose a non-government school for their children and their expectation that this should not preclude their children from receiving support from the government. Funding will also be targeted to ensure that those schools and those children who have not yet received the full benefit of this program will be prioritised. Government schools that have so far received less than $100,000 will be able to apply in this additional round, and non-government schools will only be allowed to apply for funding of up to $75,000.

It is important to note that state schools are currently under the same financial restraints as other schools and that all schools and all children receive as much of the slice of this funding pie as possible. Between 2005 and 2008, through the Investing in Our Schools Program, the government will provide the biggest investment ever in Australian schools by a federal government. Some $33 billion will be distributed across the schools of our country. Overall funding to Australian schools has increased by 160 per cent since the Howard government was elected in 1996—from $3.5 billion per year to $9.3 billion in 2006-07. All this talk we hear from the opposition that they are the party of education, that they somehow have a monopoly on education, that they are somehow the exclusive repository of wisdom, that they know the best way forward for our kids and that they know how to look after the educational priorities of our schoolchildren is sheer nonsense. The record of the government speaks for itself. The funding speaks for itself. The Howard government can be very proud of its contribution to educational development at all levels in this country. We know full well how important education is to the development of a young person at primary school, at high school and at university or other institutions.

In 2006-07, the Howard government increased its funding to state schools by an average of 11 per cent while, at the same time, Labor governments only increased their funding by 4.9 per cent. I think that the federal Minister for Education, Science and Training certainly deserves lots of bouquets for pointing out that the federal government has been doing the heavy lifting in this area and the state governments should really hang their heads in shame. Let us not forget about the GST—and I always like to note that the Queensland Labor Premier was the first to sign on the dotted line for the GST—and the fact that every single dollar of the GST goes to state and territory governments. Not one single dollar stays in consolidated revenue. It is high time the states spent this huge amount of money on the schools, particularly in Queensland.

I think it is an indictment of the Queensland government’s record in this area when you look at a school like Mount Crosby at Karana Downs, where I had the pleasure a few weeks ago of taking the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon. Pat Farmer. They were absolutely livid that their kids were sweltering in classrooms and demountables that did not have air conditioning. I think it is astonishing in this day and age that a Queensland government has failed to provide funding for air conditioning to a school like Mount Crosby at Karana Downs. As I have said previously, it is remarkable that the national government has to find funds to make up for the sheer neglect and disregard of the state governments and provide simple things like shade structures and air conditioning in schools. They are negligent in providing the basics such as toilet facilities and showers at swimming complexes in schools.

At the end of the day, the national government should focus on the absolute fundamentals of national security, defence, foreign affairs and immigration—key areas where one would expect a national government to focus. Such is the sheer neglect and incompetence of state and territory governments that the Howard government has had to step in to fill the void. Whilst we will always look after our schools, it is also incumbent upon members of the government to point out in no uncertain terms that the state governments ought to hang their heads in shame. I will continue to point that out because when parents of students such as those at Karana Downs and parents of students at schools such as Kenmore and Centenary say to me that they need extra funds for little projects, that they are not getting support from the state government, that says something very much about the state government and their priorities.

To return to the Mount Crosby school: the principal, Sue Phillips, said to me that in her time at the school neither the Queensland Premier nor any Queensland education minister had visited Mount Crosby primary school. No Queensland Labor government official had ever visited the school. That was a revelation to me. I think it is high time the Queensland education minister went out to Karana Downs and to Mount Crosby school, saw for himself the terrible state of the demountables—the terrible state of the classrooms there and the way the kids are packed in like sardines, sitting in sweltering heat—and provided the funds for much needed air conditioning.

As I said, the Ryan electorate has benefited to the tune of almost $4 million for 43 Ryan projects across 30 Ryan schools. I want to take the opportunity to speak in the parliament on some of those projects because it will reinforce even further the sentiments I have just touched on. Take, for example, Chapel Hill State School, which received $150,000 for shade structures, for its classrooms and for play equipment. I had the great pleasure of visiting that school to speak to the students and to provide Mr Ross Perry, the principal, with that federal funding, which was so much appreciated.

Let me give another example of a school in the Ryan electorate that has benefited to the tune of $150,000: the Indooroopilly State School, which received this money for a playground upgrade. The principal, Mrs Hilary Backus, was delighted that the federal government was able to step in and fill the void. I find it astonishing—and wonder if Australians around the country realise—that the national government of the day is providing funds for things like shade structures, library extensions and air conditioning. Moggill State School was the beneficiary of $51,000 and the principal, Mrs Helen King, was delighted to receive this money, but one would think this sort of thing would be within the remit of state governments—that a national government would focus on defence, foreign affairs, customs and immigration but would not be required to step in and fill the void where state governments should have their priorities.

The Payne Road State School, which I also had the pleasure of visiting, received $146,000 for library and ICT extensions. I will go back to one of my favourite projects—air conditioning: Mr Fred Hardman, the principal of Pullenvale State School in the Ryan electorate, was delighted to receive a cheque from the federal government for $105,000. And I enjoyed my visit to Rainworth State School in Bardon because the principal there received $45,000 for musical instruments and other resources for the school’s orchestra.

Here again we have a federal government stepping in to assist a primary school with musical instruments for the orchestra. I find that astonishing, and I think most Australians would share the view that our priorities should be at the national level looking after key areas relating to the country, not in providing funds for musical instruments for a school orchestra. I should take the opportunity in the parliament to thank Rainworth school at Bardon for their very warm welcome when I visited. The warm welcome of the kids and the sheer talent of their musical performance really struck me.

I want to turn the House’s attention to the Ironside primary school in the Ryan electorate. The Ironside State School had refurbishments to its pool and change rooms after it received some $44,000 under the Investing in Our Schools Program. I had the pleasure of going to Ironside State School and saying a few words about the federal government’s strong support for the school in circumstances where the state government over many years had had little interest in providing support. They told me that the change rooms had suffered from sheer neglect and had become unusable to the extent that the pool had become pretty much out of bounds. The kids were not able to utilise the facility because of the unhygienic change rooms. From my recollection, those change rooms had been neglected for a couple of decades, and I certainly have no hesitation in firing bullets off to both sides of politics in Queensland.

Whether you are a Labor state government or a coalition state government, the priority must be to do the right thing, to come up with ideas and bring in policies that make a difference to real issues and to the lives of Australians. Let us get past the nonsense of political buck-passing and political character assassination that seems to be creeping into Australian politics. Let us get down to the business of looking after the people of Australia and providing the necessary infrastructure to our schools. It is a disgrace that a school like Ironside State School was unable to access funds from Queensland state governments of both persuasions. Remember, though, that the Labor government has been in office since 1989 bar two years of coalition government led by Rob Borbidge. Queenslanders ought to remember that, aside from those two years, the Labor government has been in power in Queensland since 1989. It ought to get its act together and come to the table on things like health, education and roads—certainly on roads like Moggill Road in my electorate.

I want to turn my attention to Kenmore State High School, to which I took the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training a few weeks ago, to speak to the grade 12 students. I thank him for his kind visit, which was tremendously well received by the students of grade 12. In his own inimitable fashion, Pat Farmer won the hearts and minds of the students of grade 12 at Kenmore State High.

I was delighted to present to Kenmore State High School and Mr Wade Haynes, the principal, $150,000 in round 2 for air conditioning. Anybody who has been into the classrooms in a Queensland school will know that air conditioning is an absolute priority. I call again on the state Labor government, which is absolutely awash in GST, to start delivering on the ground, to start building the schools and the classrooms and to start installing air conditioning for the kids.

This financial year alone, the Queensland government has received some $8 billion in GST revenue from the federal government and, again, not one single dollar of those GST funds is retained by the federal government. So, with such a huge amount of cash in its coffers, the Queensland government should get on with delivering the key projects and programs for the children, not only in the Ryan electorate but throughout the state of Queensland.

In conclusion, I am delighted to speak on this bill. It delivers $181 million of additional funds to the billion-dollar-plus fund that the Howard government has already put on the table for the schools of Australia. I know that the parents of the electorate of Ryan will be delighted that they will be able to access these funds through their P&Cs and to prioritise them to where their schools can benefit most. Again, I commend all the wonderful parents and staff—the principals and the teachers—of the schools in Ryan for their dedicated service to education and for their commitment to the lives of young Australians.

Daryl Melham (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the second reading amendment to the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007 moved by the member for Perth. The second reading amendment is in the following terms:

Whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House welcomes the additional funding for the Investing in our Schools program, it notes that when making the announcement the Minister was silent on the change of criteria for Government schools halfway through the life of the program and condemns the Government for:

(1)

leaving many Government schools ineligible to apply for additional funds by reducing the funding cap from $150,000 to $100,000; and

(2)

failing to guarantee the future of the Investing in our Schools program beyond the current funding round.

The bill itself proposes an increase in funding for infrastructure grants in government and non-government schools, capital grants for non-government schools and strategic initiatives in the Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs program. The purpose of the second reading amendment is to draw attention to the fact that the government has revised down the available funding for individual schools. Each school is now capped at $100,000. Those schools which decided to implement a staged strategy in applying for funding have been badly let down by this government.

The explanatory memorandum outlines the maximum amounts that may be paid for capital and capital infrastructure grants under the Investing in Our Schools Program. It is this section of the bill which concerns me. It is here that the amounts that individual schools are able to apply for are reduced. Of itself, this may not seem catastrophic when it is viewed as moving the numbers around marginally on a national level. However, the decision is catastrophic for individual schools. While the quantum increases over the triennium funding period—and I congratulate the government for that—the line item amount by school has decreased.

We can add this to the plethora of broken promises from this government. While the trail of broken promises has included those at a national security level—the war in Iraq, for example—this broken promise has a direct and immediate impact on my constituents. I would hazard a guess that it has caused some grief to the members on the other side as well.

Let me refer to the government’s own Investing in Our Schools website. This information was downloaded by my staff when the IOSP was introduced in 2005. I felt it important that I had access to specific information to answer questions from the school community. I will quote from the information that was on the website in 2005. In the section ‘Frequently asked questions’, there were two questions I wish to draw to the attention of the House. The first question asked, ‘How much can I apply for?’ The response was:

A total of $150,000 over the life of the programme. The school community should decide whether to apply for a number of small projects or one or two large ones within that total cap.

The second question asked, ‘Will my school miss out if I don’t apply in 2005?’ The response was:

No. Funding is available throughout the four years of the programme (2005-2008). Further application rounds will be announced annually.

I am advised that the minister at the time, Dr Nelson, had written to schools about the IOSP. In those letters he is reported, in the Sydney Morning Herald on 15 March 2007 at page 11, to have said:

It is anticipated that the maximum amount an individual school community will receive is $150,000 over the next four years.

I note that some government MPs are reported as not being very pleased with the decision to reduce funding available for individual schools—and good on them for raising it within their party room. I quote from the Age of 28 February 2007 at page 6:

Meanwhile, several Coalition MPs, including former education minister Brendan Nelson, raised party room concerns that cash provided for a popular schools funding program for small-scale capital works, such as new playgrounds and toilet-block upgrades had been cut.

There does appear to be some confusion in government ranks, though. Senator Fierravanti-Wells is reported to have said to the Illawarra ABC that the misunderstanding lies in the fact that the original program has ended:

The Senator says a new program then started with a different funding limit.

I am aware of a number of schools in my electorate that decided to make out their applications consistent with the original advice provided by the Department of Education, Science and Training. Those schools are now being penalised simply because they acted on the government and minister’s advice at the time. On 7 March this year I was contacted by the principal of Condell Park Primary School. This school is currently in the electorate of Blaxland but will be in the redistributed Banks electorate after the next election. In her letter and in subsequent phone conversations, the principal outlined several issues of concern, and I have her permission to raise them in the House. I wish to particularise these as I have no doubt that the experience of Condell Park Primary School is indicative of that of many other public schools.

The first issue is that which I have already raised: the guarantees given at the time that the quantum funds would be available for the three-year duration of the Investing in Our Schools Program. This school, along with many others, understood that, if it did not apply for the full $150,000 in the first year of the program, it could apply in subsequent years. The second issue was that the principal was new to the school and wanted to consult broadly with the school community to determine the particular needs of her school. This approach was determined on the basis that access to the full amount of $150,000 would be available in successive years. Being proactive, the school did actually make two submissions totalling $40,000 in the short term but obviously wanted time and local input to ensure that any potential funding was correctly targeted to the specific needs of the school and its students. Technically, Condell Park Primary School should still have the right to apply for $110,000. Under the new arrangements announced by the minister and the parliamentary secretary, this school may now only apply for $60,000. In reality, this is shortfall of $50,000.

For a school like Condell Park, this is a significant figure and one which is unlikely to be available through the usual fundraising channels. This school is located in a low socioeconomic area in south-west Sydney. The principal informed me:

The composition of the school’s community is interesting and diverse with the majority of families having a language other than English (78%) ... While parents support where they can or feel comfortable, there is no way they could ever raise $50,000 in addition to their current targets.

The intention of the school community had been to apply for funding which would allow the school to build a secure school fence or, alternatively, if that were not possible, to apply for further ICT funding. As the principal said in her original communication to me:

We know from the plethora of research available how vital good technology is especially to disadvantaged school communities such as ours. Cutting edge technology will not only engage disengaged students but also give students access to tools critical to success in our information-driven society.

Like many other school principals, Alex Mandell at Condell Park Primary School said that, had the school been aware that there was a limited amount of money available within a predetermined time frame, they would have applied earlier.

Another school has contacted me raising a similar case:

Our school applied for and was granted $75,000 for a security fence in the second round.

Our school community had intended to apply for a much needed electrical upgrade and under the original guidelines we were entitled to apply for a further $75,000. Under the new guidelines we can now apply for a further $25,000 which will not cover the cost of the upgrade.

In this case internal decisions were made by the school community on the basis of the original program guidelines provided by the government.

Both the school principals who contacted me directly have used the word ‘inequitable’ in describing their outrage at the government’s change of heart. The President of the Secondary Principals Council described it as a ‘breach of trust’ in an article on page 11 of the Sydney Morning Herald on 15 March. The President of the New South Wales Primary Principals Association explained in the same article that many schools had ‘staged their applications and had planned to complete their school improvements this year’. He further stated that ‘schools have been led down the garden path’.

This is a classic situation of an uncaring government—a government which does not hesitate to move the goalposts. Fifty thousand dollars may not be much for some schools. To many others it makes a critical difference to the manner in which our children are taught and the quality of the educational outcomes.

I have written to Minister Bishop raising my concerns on behalf of the schools in my electorate. In all fairness, that letter was only sent last week, so I cannot reasonably expect a reply by now. I do, however, look forward to the response when it arrives, as it undoubtedly will. I want to be able to explain to the schools in my electorate why they have been betrayed by this government. I need hardly point out to the House the irony of the title of this bill, given its intent. ‘Achievement’ will be severely limited through lack of ‘choice’ and lack of ‘opportunity’. I condemn the government for moving the goalposts on this program and look forward to the minister’s considered response. I commend the amendment moved by the member for Perth to the House.

This is a worthwhile program that the government has been involved in. I only ask in this instance: deliver on your original promises, because schools made choices based on the material, the commitments and the views they were given about how the program would operate over its life. It is not a situation where the government is short of funds. It is awash with money. There are a lot of other programs, I think, that could be cut or pared back if the government was looking for money. This is not one of those programs. My plea to the minister and to members opposite is that they continue to agitate for their government to deliver on its promises in this instance. I think this is one of the very worthwhile programs. It reminds me of a number of programs that Labor had in its time in government—not the big picture programs; these were small programs that fed into local communities, which were also able to build on them, but made substantial differences to those local communities because they helped empower them. They helped them complete projects that they otherwise would not have been able to undertake.

So this is not an issue about the government or the opposition. As far as I am concerned, this is a program that deserves to have the support of both sides of the House, and it has delivered to school communities in electorates on both sides of the House. Really, my plea is: reinstate the original guidelines for the length of this program; just deliver what you said you would deliver. We have not been given a proper explanation, in my view, of why the goalposts were changed, and a lot of school communities have been left, in effect, hurt and disillusioned by this and grieving about the lack of opportunities that they now have compared to what they were offered originally.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007, a bill I wholly endorse. I cannot in any way give any credence to the amendment that has been put by the member for Perth. I would say to the member for Banks, the previous speaker, that if he had read the bill carefully he would see that we certainly have not betrayed anyone. These were things that were neglected, particularly in state schools around this country. This program, as I will outline in my speech, is being fully expended. Not only is it being fully expended but there is another $180 million on top. How in heaven’s name is that betrayal?

The bill provides the funding amounts for capital infrastructure grants for government schools for 2007 and for non-government schools for the years 2007 and 2008. The grants are provided under the $1 billion Investing in Our Schools Program. This bill will allow the government to extend the program with an extra $181 million over the next 18 months. The bill is not cutting back on funding or changing the goalposts; it is putting more money into the system.

To date, 15,000 grants have been made to state schools around Australia. If 15,000 state schools in this country have to ask for funds to do essential works, there is a really serious problem in our state schools. That money is now up around $650 million for the state schools, while a further $210 million of the $300 million that has been allocated has gone to 2,000 projects in non-government schools.

Investing in Our Schools funding has been available to all Australian schools since 2005. In that year and in 2006, schools were able to apply for up to $150,000 to carry out relatively small infrastructure and equipment projects. The point I would make is that this is a great program. It is meant to take care of that area between what a P&C could reasonably do and what the state governments can do. P&Cs can raise perhaps $5,000 to $7,000, perhaps $10,000, and some of the ones in the bigger state schools in the capital cities might be able to raise $15,000 or $20,000; but by and large it would be up to about $10,000. Then there is state government funding—and I am not having a crack at the state governments in this respect; I do not think everything they have to do is easy. They have lists of priorities for every school, but some schools fall off the bottom of those lists every year, year after year after year. As the member for Ryan said, at the Ironside State School in a very nice suburb of Brisbane, St Lucia, they have been waiting a couple of decades to get the toilet block and changing room at the swimming pool fixed up. I would have thought that was a matter of hygiene and should have been done earlier. So we can pitch those grants in that middle ground, up to $150,000.

I think this program would have gone a lot further if the state governments had been doing their jobs. I know of one school where the principal has to almost totally renew the classroom furniture—in other words, all the desks; I am not sure about the chairs but certainly all the desks. I would have thought state governments had a fundamental responsibility to provide a desk, a chair, writing materials, a blackboard or a whiteboard, lighting and, at the very least, fans, shade for the kids, somewhere they can eat their lunch, and clean toilets. I would have thought those sorts of things were absolutely bottom-drawer, fundamental things that have to be done. But they have not been.

While I was listening to the member for Banks, I went through the list of projects funded under Investing in Our Schools in my electorate. It is quite instructive. Fifty-one projects got up in round 1, 24 in round 2 and 120 in round 3, for just under $7 million. There is a nice little school in the central part of my electorate called Yandaran State School. They have applied for 15 different pieces of equipment, although, admittedly, some are not big. But they have to apply for money to get their fencing fixed and to get some basic furniture, some shade structures, some playground equipment, more furniture, school ground improvements—15 different items. I have to ask a fundamental question: if the kids’ desks cannot be provided then what the hell is the state government doing? This program was not meant to take over the state government’s role; it was meant to fill gaps—and it was meant to fill those gaps in consultation with the school principals and the P&Cs. Relatively speaking, some of these schools would have been in a parlous state if the Investing in Our Schools Program had not been put in place to fund these capital works projects.

I represent a provincial seat with two major population centres and dozens of smaller towns which are fortunate to have their own schools, and with country areas where schools are quite often the centre of the community. The Monogorilby State School comes to mind; some of you have probably never heard of it. It is in the extreme south-west of my electorate, surrounded by the Chinchilla Shire and the electorate of Maranoa on three sides. This tiny little pocket has one state school in it. Just across the border, there is a sawmill called Allies Creek sawmill. It is miles from anywhere—a bastion of the bush, you would call it. There are about 20 kids there.

This program pretty well rejuvenated that school with information technology equipment, computers, shadecloth and other equipment for the school. The place is not only a learning centre for these children of remote areas; it is also the centre of the whole community. This revival through the program not only assisted in the better quality education of those children, it also provided a whole impetus for the community as well. The school, the sawmill and the Monogorilby hall are all that remain of the old community. Not even the old post office is open anymore.

I take a lot of pleasure in this program and I take a lot of notice of the P&C committees that have helped their principals put these projects together. Every week dedicated members of these P&Cs—some of whom are grandparents, I might add, not just parents—are out fundraising so that their schools can provide the basics for the children. I am talking about sporting equipment, playgrounds, buses for trips and in some instances—though I am ambivalent about this particular item—classroom furniture and in other cases renovated buildings. We cannot underestimate the importance of providing support and financial assistance for these schools. That is why the Investing in Our Schools Program is one of the most popular programs that the Commonwealth government has in its locker. I can say that unequivocally: it is the most popular program that I have come across in recent years.

Undoubtedly another point in its favour is the fact that the funding is provided directly from the Commonwealth to individual schools. Wherever possible, though some states have different rules on this, the idea is to try to get it to the principal and the P&Cs so that it is not siphoned off into some other state government project or loaded down with the bureaucracy of the state works department wanting to fiddle with it. It just goes directly to things that are needed in the school.

On that point, I am absolutely appalled that some state governments actually take a commission on this. They have not got anything to do with it. All they have to do is let the money come to these schools to make up for the shortfalls that they have allowed to occur in those schools. Yet some state governments—and I can name the Western Australian government—take 10 per cent. The Western Australian government takes 10 per cent of this money—for what good purpose? It is taking federal money out of the pockets of the kids and their schools, so to speak. It is taking federal money out of the pockets of the P&C, saying: ‘You could have done a bit more with this money but we want our 10 per cent commission. You guys can go out and raise a bit more.’ It is appalling, and it is about time it stopped.

I now want to return briefly to the theme I had before. So far in my electorate state schools have received $6.8 million under Investing in Our Schools and the non-government schools have received $4.6 million. This bill will allow the government to put a further $127 million into the state school bucket, so to speak, and $54 million into the non-government school bucket. As I said before, this is extending the program. It is not, as the member for Banks portrayed it, a betrayal but quite a substantial and generous top-up. By channelling these funds to state schools which have received smaller amounts—less than $100,000—we are making sure that every school gets a chance to get up to around that $100,000 if at all possible.

Some schools have not applied for it. Some schools are quite modest in their claims and have made them work. I went to a Catholic convent school at Gayndah and found that what they wanted for their kids was a multipurpose court so that tennis, basketball and netball could all be played in the confines of this multipurpose area. It was a fairly modest ask. That is why I also found it a bit disingenuous of the member for Banks to say that some of the principals have staged their funding over a number of periods. With the greatest respect, this was still in the sense that they had to be worthwhile projects, a competitive type of tender. Nowhere in the guidelines for this bill did we ever say that everyone was going to get everything they put up in every round. In fact some people did not and, if I might say so, I do not think that some projects were as worthy as they might have been and probably that is why those projects were dropped off.

We have copped some criticism because we have said that schools that have received $100,000 in the earlier rounds will not be eligible to receive more in the last round. Why is that? I will use my electorate as an example. I have got 20 schools there that have got between $106,000 and $143,000. They have done very nicely, those 20 schools. But I have got 37 other schools that have not had anything yet, so the extension of this program is very important to them and it is very important to those schools that have only made modest claims up until now. In the case of the private schools, largely by the hard work of the parents and the fees they pay, they are fairly well resourced and they will be limited to $75,000. If anything, there is a more generous test being applied to state schools than there is to private schools.

I recently wrote to schools in my electorate, informing them of the extra funding which would be made available this year, and the response I received was overwhelming. That tells me that in Queensland many of our state schools, particularly those located in state seats held by the coalition, are chronically underfunded and, in some instances, in a bad state of repair. This affects not only the students but the morale of the staff, the parents and, as I explained before, the local community.

I recall one country state school in my electorate—in fact I will name it: Mundubbera—which desperately wanted to install air conditioning for its students. We had given them a grant of around $100,000, from memory, but they needed Commonwealth funds not to put in the air conditioning that they applied for but because the basic electrical system in the school was of insufficient capacity to carry the air conditioning. The school will have to amend its plans and use part of the $100,000 Commonwealth funds to overhaul the whole electrical system. I return to my earlier premise: surely there are some responsibilities for state governments when it comes to this. Surely, things like a basic electrical system should be fundamental.

I heard of another instance where the P&C put it to one of the regional directors in Queensland—it is not one of mine; nevertheless the question was put—that they could not put their air conditioning into one school because, like this one I just named at Mundubbera, its power supply was not up to scratch. The comment was: ‘Well, get it out of your Commonwealth mates.’ I think that shows an appalling lack of consideration for the state schools that these state governments are charged with funding and keeping in good condition.

We talk about education and the Leader of the Opposition talks about the education revolution that he would like to undertake. He will want a much better vehicle than the current state governments, let me tell you. Since we have been in power, between 1996 and 2006-07, we have increased funding by 160 per cent. In other words, we have gone from $3.5 billion to $9.3 billion. Just a short-term comparison of funding breakdowns shows that for 2006-07 the Australian government boosted its funding to schools by an average of 11 per cent while the state governments increased their contributions by only 4.9 per cent. The states’ failure to match the Commonwealth’s commitment meant $1.4 billion was missing from the coffers of Australian state government schools. Again, that is an appalling indictment.

This bill also provides for an extra $11.7 million for non-government schools next year under the capital grants program. That is very important for non-government schools. This program is providing around $1.7 billion to schools between 2005 and 2008, and is in place to help with the cost of building, maintaining and refurbishing school infrastructure. This is an invaluable funding scheme for non-government schools, which so often rely upon the generosity of parents and the wider community to achieve their building projects.

I would like to salute those schools: St Luke’s, Bundaberg Christian College and Shalom College in Bundaberg, and Chanel College, St Stephen’s Lutheran College, Trinity College and the Baptist College in Gladstone. They are all very good schools, as are my state schools. Sometimes we are accused of being overgenerous to private schools at the expense of state schools. That is not the case. In fact, I can proudly say that the Tannum Sands State School, a relatively new state school in the suburb of Boyne Island-Tannum Sands, in Gladstone, is one of the best resourced schools I have seen in Australia. More Commonwealth money has gone into that than into any two private schools in my electorate put together. So let us have no more of this nonsense that the Commonwealth is indulging private schools. What we are looking for is equity and choice in education, and a fair go for kids. The Investing in Our Schools Program gives us that fair go, and it is about time the state governments became more responsible and did not act in a mealy-mouthed way, taking as much as 10 per cent off some of these grants. I commend this bill to the House and I oppose the amendment.

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

I thank the member for Hinkler for his contribution. I am sorry he did not see fit to support the opposition’s amendment, but when he thinks about it he will perhaps change his view—maybe not on the floor of the chamber but outside he may say: ‘Warren, I think that was a good idea that the Labor Party put up as an amendment. I am sorry I could not support it but it was a good idea.’

I make the observation to the member for Hinkler that the member for Brisbane was sitting here listening to his contribution initially. He listened to the contribution of the member for Ryan. He was fairly acerbic in his comments because, as he pointed out to me, he had spent 18 years in the period when Joh was Premier travelling around schools in Queensland and looking at the very poor state they were in as a result of the negligence and neglect of the National Party government of the time.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s not true!

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

I told you he would want to make a contribution—he has already had his go. Nevertheless, I understand the member for Hinkler, and I appreciate the fact that he feels strongly about education, as do I. It will not surprise him when I make some comments later on criticising his government’s performance. I want to go to a territory government in this case and talk about what is happening in the Northern Territory. I want to do that because I think it is important that we contextualise this discussion.

Before I go into that in any detail I acknowledge that the Investing in Our Schools Program has been very important for many schools in my electorate. In the last round, 36 projects were successful in 32 schools. I commend the government for ensuring that funding was approved for those schools in my electorate. The projects range from small ones for playground equipment to major purchases of ICT and computer equipment. The feedback that I have received from schools is that the application process and timing of funding arrangements have improved since the program was first introduced. I wrote to the schools in 2005 when there were significant delays in the announcement of successful projects. In 2006 my advice to the principals of schools in Lingiari was to have their project plans ready for any future funding rounds. Perhaps the schools took my advice, but the outcome for them has been very good.

However, I am concerned that the government has seen fit to cap the additional funds available under the program by reducing the amount from $150,000 to $100,000. The shadow minister, the member for Perth, mentioned this when he moved his amendment. I am also concerned about the government’s failure to guarantee the future of the Investing in Our Schools Program beyond the current funding round. These funds are important in improving programs and infrastructure in school communities across Australia. Despite the rhetoric we hear from the government, which claims that it is a state responsibility, it is important for the government to accept that it has a responsibility to assist in the education of all Australian students, rather than just emphasising in this place the importance of the independent or private school sector.

I now turn more generally to the issue of education in the Northern Territory, which perhaps mirrored the performance of Joh’s excessive governments in Queensland. From the time of self-government in 1978 until 2001, when the Labor Party was elected to government in the Northern Territory, the government was of one political hue. Successive governments were conservative governments, Country Liberal Party governments. These governments are directly responsible for an appalling state of affairs in education in rural and remote parts of the Northern Territory, principally the education of Indigenous Territorians.

It is very hard for members of this place to understand the culpability of the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory—and a member of that party sits here as the member for Solomon. It is hard for them to understand the culpability of this political organisation in frustrating, handicapping and impeding the educational opportunities of people who live outside of metropolitan areas. They took deliberative policy decisions not to invest in the education of kids in the bush. It is true that up until 2001 not one Indigenous kid in the Northern Territory in his home community was able to attend year 11 or year 12 schooling. It was not until the Labor government was elected in 2001 that they were able to reallocate their resources and accept the responsibility that hitherto had been not accepted by the CLP for the education of all Territory kids, not just some. So successful were they that in 2003, primarily thanks to the efforts and the initiative of two very progressive teachers at Kalkaringi in the north-west of the Northern Territory, three students from that school became the first ever year 12 students in their remote home community to graduate with a Northern Territory certificate of education.

Mr Deputy Speaker, comprehend what I have just said: this was 2003. Understand that my electorate includes all of the Northern Territory, outside of Darwin and Palmerston, as well as Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands. Roughly 40 per cent of that population are Indigenous. The large proportion of those people live in remote parts of the community, in smaller towns—the largest of those towns being Wadeye, with something approximating 3,000 people; Maningrida, with 2,500 people; and Galiwinku, with 2,000. These are significant communities. But not even the students of these communities had access to high school.

We know that around 40 per cent of the Territory population are aged 14 or under. We have a very young population. But what we have as a result of the negligence and the deprivation that was suffered by Indigenous kids and their families in the Northern Territory for a generation—that period from 1978 to 2001—is at least a generation, possibly more, of young people who were denied an educational opportunity once they left primary school. I have estimated—I do not know what the true figure is—that somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 young Territorians still have a problem accessing educational opportunities.

I heard the member for Curtin, the Minister for Education, Science and Training, on The World Today responding to questions about Indigenous kids of the Northern Territory being able to access schools. The minister needs to comprehend the gravity of the situation and not just say, as she did on the ABC, that this is a question for the Northern Territory government—that they are prepared to work in partnership but it is the responsibility of the Northern Territory government. This problem lies directly at the feet of the conservative parties in this country who failed to address the basic human rights of Indigenous people in the Northern Territory by providing for them access to secondary education.

I have said already that in 2003, for the first ever year, 12 students in the remote communities graduated at Kalkaringi. In 2004, five students from Maningrida graduated with a Northern Territory Certificate of Education. In 2005, 25 remote students from Kalkaringi, Maningrida, Yirrkala, Wadeye and Shepparton College on Elcho Island graduated. That figure is inclusive—25 only. This last year, 30 students, including kids from Ramingining and Millingimbi, graduated. This is evidence of the fact that an intensive effort is now being applied by the Northern Territory government to give young people these opportunities. But let us think about it; let us put it in context. Only 30 young people, in a population of 45,000 or 50,000, graduated. You don’t have to be Einstein. There is an appalling educational deficit amongst the individuals in these communities. As I have pointed out, already one generation, and possibly more, has been denied access to educational opportunities. We cannot allow it to continue.

The Northern Territory government has been diligent in putting resources towards the rollout of secondary education within its jurisdiction, including providing new secondary school facilities and upgrading existing school facilities. The government has built a number of new schools, although when you look at the figures for these new schools you see that there are not many of them. The condition of some of the schools that currently exist in the Northern Territory is absolutely appalling. A lot more needs to be done. My point is not that the Northern Territory is not making its best efforts, but that it needs a great deal more support from the federal government to achieve the required outcomes.

I visited a number of schools over the last couple of weeks. On one such visit I was accompanied by the shadow minister for Indigenous affairs. We visited an outstation community at Garrthalala, in north-eastern Arnhem Land. In this community there are two Indigenous teachers, Multhara Mununggurr and her granddaughter Lombinga Mununggurr, who are very dedicated. The teachers service seven communities. They have two groups of 20 students—one junior and one senior, with a group flying to Garrthalala on Tuesday morning and returning to their home communities on Thursday afternoon, after an intensive three-day workshop. They rotate the groups. This week it is juniors, next week it is seniors. It started in 2004—and, I say with appreciation, with some Commonwealth funding.

The program was to be run as a pilot for two years. It was extended in 2005 for three years. In 2004 it started with 18 kids from seven communities, who were chosen on the basis of their academic ability and their attendance at local schools. They went to the Northern Territory Open Education College and asked for a secondary curriculum. At the end of 2006, 13 of the 18 were still in the program. Eight completed the equivalent of year 11. Five were a couple of units short, but had genuine reasons for absence—ceremonial obligations and a whole range of other things—and the units will be completed by the middle of this year. The Northern Territory Open Education College presides over the assessments and gradings. In 2004 they had a 98 per cent attendance rate.

I want members to understand what is going on here. The current classroom used by these children is not provided by the Northern Territory. Nor is it provided by the Commonwealth government. It is provided by a service organisation from Geelong. They have one classroom. Where do these people sleep and eat? Is there a boarding facility? No, there is not a boarding facility—these young people have their swags. The kitchen facilities are effectively a sink and a couple of burners; that is about it. Under what circumstances are we expecting students to learn?

Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Under a Labor government.

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

You have not been listening. Had you heard what I said at the outset, you would known that for 24 years the conservative government in the Northern Territory deliberately took a decision not to put any money into these schools, and took 46 per cent of the money directed to Indigenous education’s strategic initiatives programs for its own administrative purposes. So the money was not even going to the kids. Subsequently the Labor government, recognising its responsibilities, has sought to allocate the resources that are appropriate to try to address these needs, but it does not have sufficient resources within its own control because of the deficit—

Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal 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

We hear the groans. Let me say this to the member opposite: if your child or the children of anyone else in this place were asked to learn under those same circumstances, there would be a riot—but it passes in here with the blink of an eye because of the lack of comprehension and understanding and knowledge that exists within this place and within the wider community.

We have significant responsibilities in this place, and one of the most significant—for me, at any rate—is to ensure that every Australian child, no matter where they live, has reasonable access to educational opportunities. Those educational opportunities include not just primary school education; they include access to high school opportunities and vocational education and training opportunities. If we do not provide those opportunities, we are condemning those kids to a future of poverty and welfare dependency. Yet when we hear discussions in this place about the issue of welfare dependency, do we hear any recognition of the need to address the most fundamental issue of getting kids and communities out of welfare and into work, which is providing them with basic educational opportunities? It is to provide them with not only basic educational opportunities but an opportunity to get vocational education and training. What is the point of having young people go to a primary school, perhaps attain a reading age to a year 3 or 4 level and then get into a high school and not be able to pass the entrance exams that might exist for a VET course because they do not have the literacy and numeracy skills?

The Northern Territory government is fully cognisant of its responsibilities and is doing a great deal to try to address the situation. I noted that when the minister was on The World Today she talked about funding being made available from the Commonwealth for two schools. They are yet to be built, but potentially will be built, one hopes, on the Tiwi Islands and at Woolaning. What do we know about these two schools? We know that they are both independent schools. Whilst the Commonwealth is prepared to provide resources for the independent school sector in the Northern Territory for these schools in the bush, it is not prepared to stump up the money that is required to provide educational opportunities for people in the mainstream who go to educational institutions which are funded by the Northern Territory government.

A great deal needs to be done. I am thankful, as I said at the outset, for the money which has been made available through the program which we have been discussing this morning, but a great deal still needs to be done. If we are to achieve better outcomes then we need to work collaboratively on this. It is not an issue of partisan politics for me; it is an issue of fundamental and basic human rights and the dignity of human beings.

Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Following the member for Lingiari’s thorough condemnation of the Northern Territory’s Labor government and its total lack of funding into schools, which is a basic state responsibility, I equally condemn the New South Wales state Labor government for its absolutely appalling neglect of the schools in that state. In the Sydney Morning Herald today there was mention of the release of a report by the principals of New South Wales public schools on 10 years of failed maintenance. Since the Olympic Games preparations, this state Labor government has taken money out of school maintenance to fund other things and has never put it back. This is becoming crystal clear to the voters of New South Wales in the lead-up to the election this Saturday.

From the federal level, since we have had the Investing in Our Schools Program in the electorate of Lindsay, dozens of schools in my area have got air conditioning. This is for children who have air conditioning at home and in cars and are used to air conditioned environments. I had some parents saying, ‘We didn’t have air conditioning in my day’, but for children to learn the amount that they have to learn today, air conditioning, especially in the heat of summer in Western Sydney, is critical. Being a Queenslander, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, you will understand how schoolhouses were built back in your day. They were raised above a platform; air was allowed to flow. Today new schools are designed on the basis that they will have air-conditioning. Yet the newest school in my electorate, at Surveyors Creek, was built and opened in my time as the member for Lindsay without air conditioning. Thanks to the federal government, Surveyors Creek now has air conditioning.

Other schools that have got air-conditioning under this wonderful program are the Cambridge Gardens Public School and Braddock Public School. There has been such a turnaround in education at Braddock Public School. It is an outstanding school that is doing extremely well. It has come from a level of, I think, 40 per cent of the children not age appropriately literate to the stage now where they have one child who is not age appropriate. They are doing some extraordinary work there in a very difficult environment and they are getting results. That is, again, due to our national literacy and numeracy programs where we are identifying these gaps in education. We are identifying where kids are not learning and we are doing something about it. This is something that the New South Wales government has resisted and resisted. They did not want to be a part of this. There are finally some very good results coming through, including at Cambridge Gardens Public School and Claremont Meadows.

Claremont Meadows had just opened when I first became the member for Lindsay. That was the penultimate public school built in my area. Since then, on every redistribution, my electorate has got smaller and smaller because there has been such a flux of housing coming into the area. The state government’s response to all of the housing coming into Western Sydney is not to build more schools as the housing goes in but to put demountables on existing schools. In that time, the private sector has opened school after school in my area and increased permanent classrooms and permanent building construction. The average cost of a private school in my area is around $1,500 a year. That is about $30 a week. After you have been paying for child care as a working mum, $30 a week for the private school down the road is a lot handier for you than traipsing the kids across town to the public school that is supposed to service your area. You would say, ‘For $30 a week I can send my kid here rather than go to the inconvenience of trying to trek from Claremont Meadows to Glenmore Park High School.’

That is an appalling failure by the New South Wales state government. Not only have they not maintained the existing state schools; they are not even building new ones. And when they do build new ones on the odd occasion, such as five years ago, they are not even air-conditioned—a brand new building. Morris Iemma says, ‘We’re going to give all schools a school hall.’ What do you mean? Schools don’t have a school hall? What kind of promise is that? The program that we have has provided a number of COLAs. Admittedly, there was only $150,000 over the last three or four years, but it has provided covered outdoor learning areas, which substitute for halls at these schools. It is pretty tacky when it is raining, but it is still a bit of shade from the sun, and they substitute as places at which these schools can assemble. Everyone knows school assemblies are critically important. It is the key place where you get lots of information and, by and large, at our public schools it occurs out in the weather. After 12 years—and he was there for every one of them—Morris Iemma pops out and says, ‘By the way, we’ll give schools a large enough classroom to accommodate the school.’

Air conditioning: Leonay Public School, Mulgoa Public School, Penrith High School, Penrith Public School, Penrith South Public School, Werrington Public School, York Public School and Nepean High School. So many schools have been air conditioned under this project. The other thing they have been doing is electrical upgrades. St Marys South Public School is spending the entire $150,000 on an electrical upgrade on the box outside the school just so they can have the power to run air conditioners without blowing up every computer in the school. This is a failure of the electrical infrastructure in New South Wales. Equally, in the older parts of my electorate the electrical grid has been allowed to run down in the same way that the maintenance in the schools has been allowed to run down.

In New South Wales we have seen the electricity grids, the water pipes and school maintenance—every scrap of maintenance in every area and in every department of state responsibility—being ferreted out and tunnelled away. Money has been squirreled away for other purposes—goodness knows what—and we are left with a complete mess, and the federal government has to fix up the electrical grid so that a school can get air conditioning. For goodness sake! And the Labor Party have the hide to even look at amending this bill. They stick their heads up above the parapet like they have some right to have a say in this.

The government, through its good economic management, has delivered the wherewithal, the ability, to deliver programs like this. I would like to see the state government come up with it. We have already had two budgets in the red. Where are they going to find the money? Labor always runs deficits. It is just frustrating that you do so much work. It is like the household budget—occasionally you have to tell your children: ‘No, I can’t afford it. I’m sorry. But we will save up for it and it will come.’ With good economic management, things get done. Instead, we have this willy-nilly way of racing around. I would hate to think about the economic consequences of the New South Wales government’s bailing out of the cross-city tunnel fiasco. If that does not send the state broke, goodness knows what will.

The member for Lingiari talked about the right to a basic education and subsequently a vocational education. That is absolutely right—it is a state responsibility—but vocational education is something that this government has been pushing. The local member for Penrith, Karen Paluzzano—who is a Labor candidate in Saturday’s election—is putting out flyers with claims about education. After 12 years of a Labor government, and she has been there for four of them—and there was a Labor member before that—this is what she has done for education in the Penrith area: a $3 million upgrade to Glenbrook Primary School, a new COLA for Lapstone Public School, a new toilet block for Blaxland East Public School and increased funding for community preschools. Whoop-de-doo! The federal government gave $1.8 million to the Glenbrook Public School.

In addition to that, in 1996 when we came into government, the electorate of Lindsay was getting basic recurrent grants of $14 million to run the schools. Today it is $45,340,000—a massive increase in recurrent funding to schools in our area. And what do you see? The state government squirreling it out to the bottom. They have not increased the operational funding for these schools in 10 years. They are still insisting that a school like Nepean High School has an operational budget of about $100,000—it has not increased—and with that they have to paint the school, recarpet the school and do everything for the school, including having excursions, buying books and running scholarships. It is an impossible situation. I congratulate Nepean High School for the wonderful work that they are doing. Four years ago, 40 per cent of the kids at Nepean High did not come back after year 10. They finished year 10 and did not return for further training. I was at a recent no-dole pledge, a signing ceremony, at Nepean High. Eighty-five per cent of Nepean High’s year 10 school leavers last year returned to the school; and, of the 15 per cent that did not, I think all of those went to further education or apprenticeships.

Speaking of apprenticeships, this government has increased the number of apprentices in my electorate. In 1996 there were 740 apprentices who could get a place and go on to vocational training. The member for Lingiari was going on about vocational training: ‘Let’s get great education at primary and high school and then get vocational education.’ Under the Labor government 760 people from my electorate had the opportunity for that. Today, 1,640 people have the opportunity to take up a trade—an increase of 222 per cent. There was a 222 per cent increase in the number of people going on to vocational education and training, and the member for Lingiari thinks Labor is great at looking after tradespeople. Give me a break!

We have seen the opening of a technical college in Western Sydney which will deliver technical training to children in years 11 and 12, and I expect to see more of those colleges opening across Western Sydney over time. You see Morris Iemma running around everywhere in this campaign. Do you know what Morris Iemma is running on in this campaign? After-hours GP clinics and trade schools! Both of those things are delivered by the federal government. It took two rounds of negotiations for the after-hours GP clinic to be delivered in the Nepean Hospital. The Morris Iemma government was not cooperative at all when we were trying to get that GP clinic in there. I was at my wit’s end and looking at private sector options in order to get that clinic opened. The difficulty was incredible. And now he runs around campaigning for Karyn Paluzzano and Diane Beamer saying, ‘Oh, after-hours GP clinics. Oh, they are charging us rent in Nepean Hospital to deliver the services.’

The other issue is trade schools. How did Morris Iemma suddenly wake up to trade schools? This government is progressive; everthing we have done since 1996 has been about returning status to the trades and making tradesmen the educated people they should be. We have seen a turnaround in this university-or-bust mentality. We are seeing people take up trades with alacrity and go on to have wonderful, successful and lucrative careers. Being the very last government to sign on for any of our incentives to increase trades training, the New South Wales government now wants to sit there and say at the coming election: ‘Oh, but aren’t we great for trades. We’re putting out trade schools.’ Save me, please!

That government has such utter disrespect for the trades. A recent election was held by one of our group training organisations which carries a lot of the apprentices for tradesmen. If you do not necessarily want to have an apprentice yourself we have group training companies that will do that for you. In order to comply with the national requirements the company had to at least offer their workers the option of moving to an AWA. So the Australian Electoral Commission held a ballot for the Neeka Group Trading Co. in New South Wales. That organisation employs approximately 330 apprentices in the field of electrics in New South Wales and the ACT. In that election campaign the ETU actually mailed out to the apprentices electrical trades propaganda against our AWAs. I hasten to add that the vote was overwhelmingly carried for the apprentices to move to the AWA because they would be so much better off on it. But the ETU had a go, as did the CEPU, the PSU, the CFMEU and the ACTU. I am being inundated with literature from these unions in their attack on me in the New South Wales state election campaign.

In any event the union mailed out information to the apprentices. It turns out that their mailing list bears an uncanny resemblance to the mailing list of the Department of Education and Training. The New South Wales Department of Education and Training is handing over to the ETU the private details of people as to what courses they are doing through various TAFEs and trade colleges. Is that a state government acting responsibly? Has the state government even bothered to look at this? Is the state government going to inquire into this and say, ‘Hey, hang on a minute, this is totally unacceptable behaviour—the ability to download that list ought to be investigated and the public servant responsible exposed’? That is the ‘respect’ the New South Wales government have for the trades. They claim they are ‘heading in the right direction’. I do not see how. They are on the way down, in the red. I do not see how you could possibly say that the New South Wales economy is heading in the right direction. Certainly the schools are not. The electrical grid is a nightmare because it cannot even support air conditioning to local schools. The water system is an absolute disaster. I do not know how that can be heading in the right direction; I cannot see any solution happening there.

It is classic member for Lingiari stuff. He gets up here and pontificates and then says, ‘We’re heading in the right direction.’ You’re looking down at your shoes! It is about getting on with the job and fixing New South Wales. We are the biggest state. We have the biggest economy. We have the most people. We were the leaders in Australia. We carry Australia. We’re it. People come from Perth or Melbourne and they say, ‘Ooh! Sydney!’ In Sydney we are not like that. It’s: ‘We’re it. We don’t have to look anywhere else. It’s all here. We’re pretty good. We’ve always been great.’ But at the moment we are not—we are being beaten by Western Australia and by Queensland. We are even seeing growth in Victoria. For goodness sake, on some of the most recent figures, Tasmania is beating us. We are ‘heading in the right direction’? Give me a break!

It is so frustrating when, with wonderful policies such as those put forward in this bill, you are trying to really make a difference and to push forward great assets to your community, to your schools and to your young people, when you are investing in the education of those young people and when you are pushing them on to vocational education and training and delivering it in an environment in which they get employment, and you are hindered at every turn by the unions, with their backing and puppeteering of the Labor Party at the state and federal levels.

My local state member was asked: ‘You’re such a great supporter of public schools; why do your kids go to a private school?’ It is a question that embarrasses, even at the federal level, those on the other side, who will be voting on this bill later today. Their kids all go to private schools. When asked, ‘Why do your kids go to a private school?’ they answer, ‘It’s a matter of faith.’ If it is a matter of faith that a politician on a hundred grand a year can send her kid to a private school, why is it that a family, with mum at home and three kids, on $40,000 can’t send their kids to school as ‘a matter of faith’?

This is it. The Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amwendment Bill delivers funding into the private sector to keep it affordable for schools of faith or choice or difference. We are not all painted red. We all want something different in life, and it really helps if your school environment and your friends’ school environments reflect the values that you have at home. It is easier to raise your children if the values that you are espousing are held at school. I was at the recent opening of further buildings by this government and witnessed the tremendous work by the Muslim community at the Australian Islamic College of Sydney, and that could not have brought home to me more clearly the very different home life and values that those kids have. (Time expired)

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are at least two own goals here today. The biggest own goal is the legislation before us, the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007. The Investing in Our Schools Program is a brilliant concept. I will give a tick where a tick deserves to be given and, when the Treasurer announced and outlined this program in the 2004 budget, I listened to him thinking it was pure genius. It is pure genius to go into an area where you have no control whatsoever, no legislative input and no administrative concern—government and non-government schools throughout Australia—and to use the parents and citizens organisations, or parents and friends organisations, to provide up to $150,000 worth of equipment and projects to these schools over a four-year period. This was promised by the former Minister for Education, Science and Training Brendan Nelson. To do that, I thought, was sheer political genius—to be able to cut through and deliver such a potent program. But when the government says, part way through the program, ‘The $150,000 over four years will not go to 2008 but is going to be knocked off in 2007’ and, ‘If you have not applied for and got the $150,000, although we said you could have it, your new ceiling is going to be $100,000,’ that is an own goal.

The second own goal was the member for Lindsay’s. She said: ‘I’ve got a school that needs three-phase power, Chester Hill Public School, and it won’t get it because it hasn’t yet applied for the major part of the program to supply it with three-phase power so it can run all of the school’s computers.’ That has nothing whatsoever to do with the state of the electricity system in New South Wales.

Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It does!

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a question of whether you have single-phase power or three-phase power.

Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It sure does. Talk to some electricians!

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sorry, Member for Lindsay, but three-phase power is needed where there is a big demand on the system. In industrial capacity areas it is normal to have three-phase power. If you are in a major commercial outlet, you go for three-phase power. If you are drawing a great deal from the grid, you need three-phase power because it is, effectively, industrial strength. It has nothing to do with the grid itself, it is how you are accessing and using the power. At Chester Hill Public School they will not get three-phase power. They will not be able to run their air-conditioning systems.

Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No!

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They have a problem. They cannot effectively run them unless they have the capacity to deliver industrial strength power. That is an own goal—not understanding the difference between single-phase power and three-phase power. The bigger own goal in this is that the government has a brilliant program that cuts through but, firstly it knocks it off early and, secondly, it betrays the absolute trust that every principal in every public school and every private school throughout Australia has in a Commonwealth government that promised a program over four years providing schools with up to $150,000. Halfway through the program, the government says, ‘Sorry, we’re going to knock off one-third of the money.’

Gordon Gekko, in the 1980s film Wall Street, had a simple motto: ‘greed is good’. Any school principal who followed Gordon Gekko’s fundamental principle and who said: ‘There might be a problem here, so I’ll put in for the total $150,000 right now; I’ll go for the lot in rounds 1 and 2; I’ll go for the money and be able to produce the box as a result,’ you would have to say was farsighted. Those principals would have to run in and grab the money before the rest of the principals got any. They were assured by Brendan Nelson, when he was minister, that there would be up to $150,000 for every government school in Australia and up to $75,000 for every non-government school.

This is crazy stuff. This is a government that has gone to la la land. Why would a government, unless it were really stupid, cut a potent program that cut across every corner of Australia—marginal, non-marginal, Labor, Liberal, National Party, Independent; you name it? The program cut through an area where the government had no native responsibility but where it was able to do something for people that is palpable, that is real, that they can see, that is concrete. The government can provide air conditioning in schools, it can upgrade computer technology in a school, it can provide shade covering—and it can provide maximum political effect for itself with a relatively small amount of expenditure.

It should be a no-brainer that the government continue with this program, but what have the government done? They have said, ‘We can’t do it.’ In February Minister Bishop announced: ‘The government is going to provide another $181 million’—that is what this bill gives us—‘and $127 million of that is extra money to enable this program to go through in 2007, with a smaller amount for the private schools. I’m glad to announce that, but a lot of schools in the past have not applied for the full amount of money—they have only applied for a certain amount—so we are going to change the cap so that you can only apply for $100,000; you can’t apply for $150,000.’ They changed the rules. But Minister Bishop said, ‘No, of course we’re not changing the rules.’

It was never intended that it would be the case that that would happen. They have announced that it is going to stop earlier. They said:

To give all state government schools the opportunity to access the new funding—

and let me tell you that they have all had the opportunity to access it right from the start—

schools that have already received funding at or above $100,000 will not be eligible to apply in 2007.

What did Minister Nelson say? He said something different. But Minister Bishop said:

It is a competitive grants process based on need, and in rounds 1, 2 and 3 schools could apply for up to a limit of $150,000. It was never intended, nor was there funding for, all schools to receive $150,000 ...

We have not only got an own goal here; we have got a con job. It means that, if the current minister is correct, there never was any intention in the first place of coughing up the total amount of money. If that is the case, the government has told a lie to every school principal in Australia. That is not a very wise thing to do. What did the former minister say? During the 2004 election campaign he said that this program would continue through to the end of 2008. He said:

It is anticipated that the maximum amount an individual school community will receive is $150,000 over the next four years ...

That is pretty clear. The department also issued advice at the time saying that schools could apply for several projects up to the $150,000 limit. It has come as a surprise to all of those schools to realise now that, although the limit was there, the reality is that whatever you intended to do is not going to happen.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you will not be surprised—and I was not surprised—that I have received a number of calls from school principals in my electorate. I have spoken to those principals this morning and in the last week. When the principal of Condell Park Primary School rang me to tell me that this was on the government website, I said: ‘That can’t be real. They couldn’t be so stupid that they would give with one hand and take away with the other.’ She said, ‘Well, it’s true.’ So I went and had a look at it. It is absolutely true. It was Alex Mandell of Condell Park primary that I was talking to. I said, ‘What is the impact for you at Condell Park primary?’ The impact there is that those things that they have already done will go ahead—that is fine. They already have them and they are in the bag. But they will not be able to do all of the rest of what they wanted to do. That is significant.

At Condell Park primary, which is currently in my electorate but which will become part of the electorate of Banks, they wanted to do a technology upgrade. The first grant was for $40,000 and that is all they have taken so far. They had the expectation that they could apply for $110,000. They can now apply for $60,000. The principal at Condell Park Public School is not a happy camper.

Who else is affected by this? Audrey McCallum, the principal of Bankstown West, is affected. They are lucky. So far they have had $50,000 from the first round and then $82,000 from the second round, so they have a total of $132,000. The expectation was that they could front up for another $18,000 for play equipment. They can no longer do that. What did they get? They got a COLA—a covered outdoor learning area—and shade cloth over the play area. They got a new hall courtesy of the state government. They have things that need to be done in the school and they are on a list as one out of seven in the area to get a security fence to improve conditions in the school. It is just around the corner from my mum’s. I know the school well. This is a school that needs help. The help that it has it appreciates—the principal, the parents and the kids do. Why would you break a fundamental promise and a fundamental contractual agreement unless you are just plain stupid? It is really crazy stuff.

We also have Chester Hill Public School. I presented a flag to the principal, Phil Van de Wyck, and the school, and then we had a tour of the school. It is a large property. They have been able to do a great deal so far. But I discussed this situation and the fact that it had changed and I had spoken to the other principals. The principal said: ‘We’ve got a problem. We need three-phase power for the school. We have air-conditioners but we have been told that we cannot run them because they draw too much power.’ So here is a school that has air-conditioning equipment but will never be able to use it unless they can raise the money. The expectation that they would be able to get it was because of the rest of this funding—up to $150,000 that Minister Nelson promised. That is another own goal by the government.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Isn’t schools funding supposed to be the responsibility of the state government?

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, this is a federal government program, Parliamentary Secretary. It is a federal government program—

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hunt interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The parliamentary secretary is reminded not to interject and get into trouble.

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and every member of the government who has spoken has, as they do on virtually all legislation, just tried to throw it back to the states. You are in government federally. This is a federal government and you should take responsibility for that.

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

The honourable member will direct his remarks through the chair and ignore the interjections.

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not referring to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but to the member for Flinders. This government should govern. If they do something that is brilliant—and they get a tick from me on it—why wouldn’t they go ahead, run with it and go forward? They say: ‘We need to save the money; there was never any intention,’ despite what Minister Nelson said. They really need to say there was never going to be enough money to do it.

I also spoke to Jenni Wilkins, the principal of Birrong Girls High School. I asked her what the impact was for her in relation to this. What they have been able to do already is upgrade the toilets in the school and also upgrade the home economics area to a hospitality grade kitchen. That is significant for that school and it has provided a great facility. The girls will be able to do a great deal more. They are also looking to improve the hall stage lighting. What else did they want to do? They decided that they would do things in small steps.

This is not a Gordon Gekko principal. This is not a Gordon Gekko school. This is not someone who decided to go in and grab the lot, as virtually all of the school principals did. If you make a compact, if the hand is out there and you shake, if they say that it is up to $150,000 over a four-year program, you do not expect to have to count your fingers at the end of it to see how many are gone. Who have you shaken hands with—the devil or the mafia? No, this is the federal government of Australia, intervening in an area to provide a significant new program.

But what has happened to Birrong? Here is the email I got:

Dear Michael

On behalf of the community of Birrong Girls High School I wish to register our disappointment at the Federal government’s recent changes to the Investing in Our Schools Programme. We are one of those schools adversely affected by the changes to the Programme. We have a measured and strategic approach to applying for and spending the programme’s funds that involves community consultation ... so far we have received $91,758 for three very successful projects.

This year we had planned to make a submission for an additional $50,000 to $60,000 to convert an old science demonstration room into a much needed new technology learning space.

Our regret is that we believed that each school was entitled to a total of $150,000 over three years and that we didn’t grab the cash early in the process. We were surprised that the goal posts were shifted in the middle of the game!

We hope that you pursue this issue with the Minister for the Department of Education, Science and Training on our behalf.

And, as promised, I am. What a bunch of dummies this government is, to take a program that was so singularly politically potent and that did so much good Australia-wide and to say, ‘We can’t do it.’

I have been around for a while. I have a bit of a memory with regard to these things, and that extends to the fact that, if you run a program for a period of time, you can work out ways to fund it. It does not all have to be done from within a program. The former minister said that the Investing in Our Schools Program had up to $150,000—not up to $100,000; up to $150,000—for every government school in Australia and up to $75,000 for every non-government school. What are all of the people who are relying on that expectation effectively told by the new minister? ‘Well, it’s a hundred grand, not 150, and we never intended to give you all the money anyway.’

This is a falsehood. Somewhere in the process a decision has been made that they will cut it because they have to put money into other areas. Mr Deputy Speaker, I remember—as you will and as every person in the gallery will—that in the six months before the 2004 election the Howard government spent $21 billion of our money buying their way into every interest group they could find to buy their way back for the next election. That is a lot of money. Mr Deputy Speaker, I have news for you; I have news for the parliamentary secretary; I have news for everyone, including the former Deputy Prime Minister, who is in the gallery—Tim, good to see you. This time around it is not $21 billion; this time around it is double or nothing: $40 billion has already been flagged. This is the Prime Minister’s new approach when things get really desperate: ‘We’ll play double or nothing.’

It is not just my money. It is not just yours. Have a look at every individual person in the gallery, which is filling up for question time. That is $40 billion of our money—everybody in this room; at the table or in their seats—for the federal coalition to buy its way back. In that situation wouldn’t you think that a program as successful, and indeed as politically smart, as Investing in Our Schools could get part of the $40 billion? Wouldn’t you think that they might just think this was a really dumb thing to do? It was a compact, a shake of the hand, with every individual principal in Australia in every school. It was Minister Nelson and not this minister. Wouldn’t you think that that shake of the hand would be rewarded with trust, that it would not be rewarded with having to count your fingers after you have shaken that hand? Wouldn’t you think that every principal in Australia could trust this government?

This government has just kicked an enormous own goal with regard to Investing in Our Schools. I do not want to see it back come the end of the year, but I think every school in Australia wants to be assured that the stupidity of knocking off this amount of money is undone. I am sure the Prime Minister and the minister for education will be contacted by the principals council. Indeed, every principal in Australia should say, ‘You shouldn’t knock off the extra $50,000.’ This is a crazy own goal. (Time expired)

Kym Richardson (Kingston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill 2007. I do so because of the incredible impact that programs like the federal government’s Investing in Our Schools Program are having in my electorate of Kingston. Federal Labor opposition members lose sight of the simple fact that this Howard government funding process was a competitive one, where the maximum funds would go to the neediest schools. Secondly, it has been made available only because of the Howard government’s excellent economic management.

This bill seeks to maintain the Australian government’s commitment to Australian education and to providing schools with the tools and infrastructure they require to provide a quality education to our children. One of the programs extended in this bill is the Investing in Our Schools Program. I cannot speak highly enough of this program. The program was introduced because of the failure of the state governments to live up to their education responsibilities, especially when it came to the provision of infrastructure projects in schools. As usual, the federal government stepped in to pick up the slack.

In my electorate the program has been embraced with open arms. There has been a great deal of appreciation from students, teachers and parent governing bodies alike. I would like to bring to the attention of the House the story of Flaxmill Primary School. They took the opportunity to apply for funding to install reverse-cycle air conditioning in their classrooms. When I first found out about this project, I was appalled at the fact that in this day and age the South Australian Labor government, which should be flush with funds after their GST windfall, were expecting students to learn and teachers to teach in classrooms that were not air conditioned in summer or heated in winter.

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 and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.