House debates
Wednesday, 19 September 2007
Questions without Notice
Schools: Funding
2:21 pm
Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
My question is addressed to the Minister for Education, Science and Training. Would the minister inform the House of the government’s record in supporting schools? Are there any threats to this fair funding?
Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I thank the member for Bonner for his question. What a great member he has been for the seat of Bonner. In March 1996, unemployment was 6.7 per cent in Bonner; today it is 3.6 per cent. He has been a great member. He came from a small business background, and I understand that he is up against a Labor candidate who would know nothing about small business because, of course, she has been a Labor staffer—not a union member; a Labor staffer.
The Howard government has provided record levels of funding for schools in every year since 1996. I repeat: there have been record levels of funding since 1996 for our schools. This year there will be around $10 billion for our schools. Funding for state government schools particularly has increased by 70 per cent in real terms, even though there has only been a one per cent increase in enrolments over that time. The facts are that 65 per cent of students in state government schools receive 75 per cent of total public funding, 35 per cent of our students attend Catholic and independent schools and those schools receive a total of 25 per cent of public funds.
We believe in supporting parental choice. We do not believe in punishing parents for choosing to send their children—
Kerry Bartlett (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order under standing order 91. The members on the other side continue to disrupt. It is hard to hear the answer to the question, with the Chief Opposition Whip walking around deliberately trying to create a diversion. I ask that you bring the other side into order.
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Order! The minister has been asked a serious question. The minister will be heard.
Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The Howard government believes in supporting parental choice. We do not believe in punishing parents who choose to send their children to a Catholic or independent school.
The member for Bonner has asked if there are any threats to this fair support that we provide for parents. I have to tell the member for Bonner: yes, there is a threat, in the form of Labor in lock-step with the Australian education unions. Labor and the unions are ideologically opposed to funding Catholic and independent schools. When they were in government, they had a ‘no new schools’ policy, which was designed to prevent new Catholic and independent schools from being established. In opposition they had a hit list which was designed to rip money out of particular Catholic and independent schools.
After decades of bias against Catholic and independent schools, all of a sudden the Leader of the Opposition pops up and says, ‘You must believe that Labor has suddenly changed. It has suddenly changed its spots.’ It has not. The unions’ unrelenting attacks on Catholic and independent schools—
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I call the honourable member for Perth on a point of order.
Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Unlike your personality, Alex. That is—
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member for Perth will come to his point of order or he will sit down.
Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I rise on a point of order, Mr Speaker. In the course of her remarks, the minister for education said that Labor was ideologically opposed to funding Catholic schools.
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member will resume his seat. The member will not debate a question. The member will resume his seat or I will deal with him.
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Order! I will hear the member for Perth.
Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Well, you would know about that, wouldn’t you, John? Some of us remember—
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member for Perth will resume his seat. If the member for Perth continues to abuse the standing orders, I will deal with him.
Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
As I said, after decades of ideological bias against Catholic and independent school, Labor want us to believe that they have changed their spots. They have not, and I will go on to prove it.
Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I rise on a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member for Perth asked that an offensive remark be withdrawn. You have not ruled on that.
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The member for Perth was asked to resume his seat because, instead of coming straight to his point of order, he started to debate across the table. That is an abuse of the proceedings process of the House.
Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member for Perth will get straight to his point of order.
Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The minister for education said that we were ideologically opposed to funding Catholic schools. That is sectarian—
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
There is not a point of order, and the member for Perth is warned!
Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The minister made an offensive remark and I ask that it be withdrawn.
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I listened carefully. That was not unparliamentary language. I am ruling on it and the member for Lilley will resume his seat. The minister has the call.
Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I will tell you what was grossly offensive: the hit list that was going to take money away from Catholic and independent schools.
Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Ms King interjecting
Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
That was grossly offensive to the parents of the 1.1 million students who attend Catholic and independent schools in this country. The unions’ unrelenting attacks on Catholic and independent schools, as demonstrated by the advertisements that they are running, totally misleading advertisements, are also borne out by what the unions say. In a submission to the Senate inquiry into Commonwealth funding for schools, they state this:
The Australian Education Union has long opposed any funding to private schools.
That is what the Australian Education Union says. In March this year, a press release from the New South Wales Teachers Federation said:
The New South Wales Teachers Federation will continue to campaign for
… … …
- a redistribution of funds from private schools to public schools.
The Australian Education Union is working in lock-step with the Labor Party. Just a few weeks ago the Labor Party adopted the union position on education funding—again this year—and it is now up on their website. The Labor Party’s national platform restates the hit list formula. We know it, you know it and the public knows it. I call upon the Leader of the Opposition to publish the list of schools that the Labor Party will take money away from.
Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Mr Tanner interjecting
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member for Melbourne will withdraw that unparliamentary remark.
Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Mr Tanner interjecting
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member for Melbourne will withdraw that statement or I will deal with him.
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member for Melbourne will withdraw that remark.
Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Why is it okay for him to say it, but it’s not okay for me?
2:30 pm
Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I move:
That the member for Melbourne be suspended from the service of the House.
Question put.
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Order! The honourable member for Melbourne is suspended from the service of the House for 24 hours under standing order 94(b).
The member for Melbourne then left the chamber.
2:37 pm
Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
My question is to the Prime Minister and it follows the extraordinary answer given just now by the Minister for Education, Science and Training. I refer to the OECD report Education at a glance for 2007. Isn’t it the case that Australia has the third lowest proportion of public expenditure on education in the OECD, that Australia’s proportion of public expenditure on education is 14 per cent below the OECD average and that Australia’s proportion of public expenditure on education has declined by nearly six per cent since 1995? Why, after 11 years in office, is the government’s report card on education ‘fail, fail, fail’ and what plans will the Prime Minister now outline to the House to deal with his demonstrable failure on education policy?
John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
In reply to the Leader of the Opposition, the OECD report is based on old data and therefore is wrong. The new data shows the very healthy financial position of the university sector. I ask the Leader of the Opposition, who clearly can accumulate a few more facts about things, to bear this in mind: the OECD analysis excludes HECS and other Australian government public subsidies to students. It leaves HECS out. I would have thought that was a fairly fundamental omission, and I would have thought there would be bipartisan agreement that it was a fundamental omission—not a fundamental injustice but a fundamental omission—because HECS was introduced by a Labor government in the 1980s, with the support of the opposition. The report leaves out 75 per cent of our vocational education expenditure, it leaves out our childcare subsidies which support early childhood education, and it also leaves out all new education expenditure since 2004. These facts would have been available to the Leader of the Opposition. He either knew this when he asked the question and was nonetheless prepared to mislead the parliament and the Australian people or, alternatively, he was not adequately briefed by his staff before he raised the matter in parliament. The truth is that this government’s record of supporting both public and private education is second to none not only around the world but also in the history of this country.
Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Ms Owens interjecting
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member for Parramatta is warned!
John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Let me echo the words of the Minister for Education, Science and Training, seeing that the Leader of the Opposition referred to her remark, and let me endorse emphatically what she said about the bias in the Australian Labor Party, the bias in the trade union movement—the chief bankers of Labor—and the bias in the education unions against government support for Catholic and independent schools in this country. It was Australia’s great Prime Minister Robert Gordon Menzies who led the breakthrough for the first time in the history of this country, more than 40 years ago, to give direct financial assistance to Catholic and independent schools. And it will ever be to the credit of this side of politics that we have stood, through those years, shoulder to shoulder with Catholic and independent schools and shoulder to shoulder with Australian parents in their right to choose the school they want to educate their children.
We have never had a hit list. There has never been any doubt as to where we stand in supporting local Catholic parish schools. There has never been any double as to where we stand in relation to low-fee independent schools. I remind the Leader of the Opposition, and I remind the member for Perth that, if it had not been for the vote of Senator Brian Harradine in the Senate way back in 1996, the new schools policy of the coalition would never have become law and scores of low-fee independent schools, which are now the schools of choice for thousands of parents in the outer suburbs of the cities of this nation, would never have come into existence. That policy, which we introduced in 1996, was opposed by the Australian Labor Party. They tried to pass a resolution in the Senate to sink the policy and it was only with the support of Brian Harradine—and I record again my thanks to him—that we were able to get that policy through.
The Leader of the Opposition, in a rhetorical flourish, held aloft the flawed OECD report, and he said it represented ‘fail, fail, fail’ on the part of the government. Let me borrow the rhetoric of the Leader of the Opposition and let me say that, when you test him on a knowledge of economics, it represents ‘fail, fail, fail and fail again.’ His first failure was: he does not understand anything about productivity.
John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
That’s a fail. His second failure was that he mislead Rosanna Harris about his own rental policy. Thirdly, he misled the electors of Corangamite and all the people of Australia on his trade skills proposal—
John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Fail—and now he does not understand the barest fundamentals of the Australian taxation system. So I would say, in relation to the Leader of the Opposition, when it comes to economics, he has four Fs against his name—failures on all of those counts—and I can assure him we are closely counting.
Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Surely, under the standing orders, if the Leader of the Opposition asks a question, he should at least have the courtesy to listen to the response instead of turning around and talking to the opposition.
David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member for Moncrieff will resume his seat. The member for Moncrieff would be well aware that the chair does not have authority to insist how people sit in their chairs.