Chris Trevor (Flynn, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To continue my contribution on the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 and the related bill, as a recipient of the national Dare to Lead Excellence in Indigenous Education Awards 2007, Barcaldine State School, at Barcaldine, home of the famous Tree of Knowledge in my electorate of Flynn, strongly supported the range of federally funded initiatives which assisted schools to work with communities and implement quality programs. As a result of this funding, Barcaldine State School has strong community involvement through Dare to Lead and IESIP funds, having hosted the district principals business meeting in 2008, where all district principals worked with state, national and local community members to enhance ability to deliver outcomes for Indigenous students; worked with district and state organisations to maximise resourcing and training in this field; built community capacity through parent and community employment, training, parent training, and development of current and future programs in vocational training and cultural awareness; achieved strong academic outcomes, especially resulting from ITAS, IESIP and PSPI funds, which support tutors and teachers to maximise Indigenous student potential; and used funding to overcome rural and remote barriers for schools. To quote Wendy Scott, an Indigenous parent and community member:

My son finished Year 12 and was the first in the family to do so. He did a School Based Traineeship for 2 years and this led to a full apprenticeship which he will finish in just 18 months. He wants to do more training and work in the mines, which he has dreamed of since Year 8. The support of staff helped him through the tough times.

Appropriations provided for under this bill will enable the Commonwealth to continue to exercise public leadership and maintain its support for localised initiatives similar to or the same as that which I have provided examples of and which improve Indigenous education outcomes. This role includes collaboratively setting policy directions and priorities in Indigenous education, engagement with stakeholders and investment in research and evidence in conjunction with states, territories and non-government education providers to support future reforms and systemic improvements in the education and training sectors for Indigenous Australians. I congratulate the Rudd Labor government for its outstanding leadership and I commend these bills to the House.

Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to address the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 and related bill. This proposed legislation is focused on simplifying the legislative arrangements for the Commonwealth funding of schools with a high proportion of Indigenous students. That is a topic that I know something about, and I therefore rise today with a great sense of pending achievement.

There have been decades of effort on the part of governments to improve the lot of Indigenous students, primarily, of course, the outcome. At the beginning of the current government there was much said about closing the gap in the quality of educational outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. There seems to be nothing, however, in so much that has been written about these proposed changes, that addresses the fundamental issue as to why people seek out and obtain an education. There seems to be a great deal of warm encouragement, a lot of carrot dangling and many suggestions about the fine outcomes that will be achieved if the gap is closed. But in Indigenous and community terms, and in understandable terms, there does not seem to be much that would change the mindset of average Aboriginal parents in an average remote community from the existing circumstance where education is not valued at all to a circumstance, pontificated on by our current Prime Minister some months ago, of closing the gap.

The hurdles that exist today in Indigenous communities to producing year-12 capable Indigenous students who go on to seek job training, employment and financial independence are monumental. What so many people in this House do not understand is just how monumental that task is. In the majority, we come from an Anglo-Saxon work-ethic background where one is born, is schooled, gets a job, works and then starts the cycle all over again. That is not the case in Indigenous communities. Until such time as our bureaucracies can develop strategies that will say in a meaningful way to Indigenous parents, ‘The future of your race is dependent upon you sending your child to school,’ there will be no great change to outputs from the education system in Indigenous communities—because most of us do not even understand the status of a child in an Indigenous community. We know a lot about children in our own community, even though we seem to be confused because we spend a great deal of money on volumes, written by somebody else, about teaching our children what to do because of what they are. But we collectively know very little about the status of Indigenous children in communities, whether or not a parent has much control over the activities of their child or whether or not the parent is in a position to tell that child to go to school whether they like it or not. Until such time as bureaucracies responsible for closing that education gap and achieving better outcomes realise that they know so little about the realities, we are not going to have any changed outcomes.

The Schools Assistance Bill 2008 is all about appropriating $28 billion for the purpose of non-government school education in non-government schools and specifically those that have a high proportion of Indigenous students. The Education Legislation Amendment Bill appropriates more than $640.5 million for non-Abstudy payments and anticipates Abstudy payments of an estimated $102.1 million, adjusted to demand. Those Abstudy payments actually do a good job. Why they are not simply study payments for secondary students and why they are Austudy and Abstudy payments I will never quite comprehend. It is difference and categorisation that is causing problems, not solving problems. But if we are going to spend approximately $102.1 million on secondary education for Indigenous students then we are on the right track because they represent a group that is on the way to making it. But the $640.5 million and the portion of it that goes to so many of my remote Indigenous schools, be they government or non-government, provides a great deal of employment for mainstream teachers. It provides a great deal of education for those teachers—taking them into land, teaching them about culture, exposing them to some alternative lifestyles in Australia and providing a wonderful experience in learning about Australian geography and remote area dwellings et cetera—but it does not do a hell of a lot else. Until such time as educators charged with the responsibility of achieving outcomes for Indigenous students in our education system, which supposedly equips those Indigenous children for job training, employment and financial independence, until such time as we understand that we need to know more about anthropology and psychology as well as education, then that large sum of money is not going to change the outcome a great deal.

I guess I must return to this boring legislation. It is going to, I believe, fulfil an election promise of the government about continuing the coalition’s efforts in improving outcomes for Indigenous students. I will highlight some of the problems we have with sections 15, 22 and 24 of the Schools Assistance Bill 2008. Generally, the coalition and my colleagues are going to support these amendments because there is nothing particularly offensive about them; they just miss the point. For instance, section 15 of the bill specifies grounds upon which the minister may refuse to authorise or delay a payment to a non-government school—so we fiddle while Rome burns. Parts (a) and (b) of section 15 state that these grounds include if the school is being wound up or is unable to pay its debts. Section 15(c) of the bill provides for new reasons for such refusal or delay in the case where:

if a law of the Commonwealth or a State requires the body or authority to be audited—the relevant audit:

(i)

is expressed to be qualified; or

(ii)

expresses concern about the financial viability of the body or authority.

This is talking about if the audit says this is a qualified audit, then we have got grounds for delaying payments for that school. We all know it is sensible that an audit should be required to confirm the financial viability of a school but not that the minister may refuse to authorise a payment if an audit is qualified. Qualifications to an audit do not necessarily reflect financial issues or viability. They could relate to any number of things, including an error or omission in the information provided to the auditor, which is much more to do with record keeping than finances, but under these amendments it would appear that, given a qualification on an audit, we have got justification for the minister to refuse to advance funds. I believe that, certainly as a coalition, we have got to stand up for our amendments to this proposed amendment bill.

Section 22 of the bill relates to the national curriculum. It says that any school receiving funding from the Commonwealth must comply with the national curriculum. I ask: what national curriculum is that? It is still being formulated. We currently only have framing documents for maths, science, history and English. We will see the final curriculum documents during 2009, and yet this bill seeks to start to tie schooling funding to it—to the acceptance of a curriculum that does not yet exist in its final detailed form. There ought to be concern about that curriculum because Labor is taking the national curriculum in an unknown direction. Let us face it: this is the government that is entrusting Professor Stuart Macintyre, a former Communist Party member whose major works include histories of Marxism in Britain and a history of the Australian Communist Party, to write part of our curriculum.

This legislation may also affect schools with alternative curricula, for example, those which offer the international baccalaureate, or those offering alternative education, for example, the Montessori schools. We do not know how prescriptive national curriculum will be, so we cannot anticipate exactly how these schools will be affected, but there may be more adverse impacts for non-government schools that affect their ability to deliver the kind of education that parents send their kids there for.

Section 24 of the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 is also of great concern. It says that a funding agreement will require non-government schools to report to the minister the financial operations, including financial viability and funding sources, of the school. I guess that would be a very substantial job.

I had the pleasure on the Saturday just gone of attending the grand opening of the library for the Goldfields Baptist College in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, my home town, in the west. I made the point in discussion with the administrators there that it is quite wonderful to visit that non-government school. It is directly across the road from a very fine government school called O’Connor Primary School. But the difference is that when taxpayers give a dollar to my Baptist college in the Goldfields they get about $10 of value and when the taxpayer gives a dollar to the state government school they get about 90c worth of value. That is because the community of the Baptist school are absolutely impassioned about the education of their children and they give of their heart and soul and their time to the education of their children; they do not simply leave it to the taxpayer funding of their school.

So when we talk about schools now being required by this amendment bill to fully report on the funding of their particular educational institution we are digging down into a complex area. Sure, if taxpayer dollars are going to be used to help an institution then it is only fair that we should know something about it. But I wonder if those developing this legislation and these amendments have thought about just how valid the call for funding is from non-government schools, where parents strive and redouble their efforts—they will do anything in their power—to assist in the education of their children. The legislators in this case seem not to be terribly concerned about the often excessive wastage that takes place in government schools.

Many of the executives from non-government schools in my electorate are saying: ‘What is this? Why are we being subjected to the third degree simply because of the philosophical bent of this current government? We have managed for the last 12-odd years to do very well—to educate thousands of students and to turn them into fine young Australians without this investigation as to where we get the meagre pennies we have to spend on that education. And now this government simply wants to lay bare all of the great donors to our schools so we can continue to get that taxpayer funded handout.’

This legislation gives the minister the new power to demand information about non-government school finances and where all their funding comes from, from benevolent scholarships and bequests to parents and friends group cake stalls. This information is not needed to calculate the socioeconomic status of the school on which the government funding is based, so why does the minister need to know? It suggests a future intervention to change the socioeconomic status approach to funding, an approach which was introduced by the coalition eight years ago and which—although Labor objected to this approach at the time—was part of Labor’s official election policy last year. It seems that there is an intention with this section to develop the groundwork for future changes to funding that would punish schools for receiving funding through benevolent requests, scholarships or other philanthropic acts.

I am not sure if I used the word ‘humbug’ previously, but this piece of legislation has good intent. It has been introduced to this place to simplify a process that has become complex. It has become complex because Indigenous funding over time has accumulated a large number of various programs—programs that will all be cancelled under this legislation. I am sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker, I was assured that I had a list of them in dot point form but I do not seem to have that. There were some six or seven funding programs that all my Indigenous schools knew about and tapped into very strongly wherever they could. Those programs did assist in giving additional staff for additional tutoring and introducing various activities for children to try and coerce them to attend class and pay attention in those classes. Attendance is the second most important element of a child’s education. It will come as no surprise to members of this House to learn that the most important aspect necessary as part of a child’s contribution to education is to attend the education institution, because if they are not there then they are not going to learn anything. Until such time as the students of our education programs in remote Indigenous schools, be they government or non-government, are encouraged to attend by their parents or by their principal and teachers there is no education transfer going to take place.

So I say to members in this place, consider this: for average desert Aboriginal community with a large proportion of young children needing to make their way in life, they need more than amendment bills to improve their shot at getting an education that will equip them for financial independence and a good life; they need some real understanding about what works in creating a total environment where the output is an educated child ready for job training. One of the things that has been overlooked, for instance, is giving a meaningful demonstration to Indigenous parents that education actually matters. We have spent all our time convincing Indigenous parents, down through the generations, that the only outcome that is really required is that you remain alive, because you will be kept alive by government handouts. We invented something that was going to be the be-all and end-all solution—it was called CDEP. It was an abject failure. What we need are very simple programs that keep young people occupied and that demonstrate to Indigenous people generally that the future is not guaranteed to be one made up of welfare payments—just consider a future where one has to paddle one’s own canoe, and that will make an education necessary. That will be the great dawning for Indigenous people, and it will guarantee their future.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As someone who went to a state primary school and a state high school, and who sent his children to a state primary school and a state high school, it always irritated me when I heard spokespeople from the Howard government pit public education against private education, pit teachers against parents and pit states against the federal government. It was all about deflecting blame. It was all about dividing to conquer. We had values ideas that were put into the system. That was supposed to make up for funding deficiencies. So much of what the Howard government did in our education system was about neglect and pitting one local school against another local school or a primary school against a high school.

What was the legacy of the Howard government? Their legacy was a flatlining of children finishing high school and an underfunded education system, whether public or private. I do not think it is any coincidence that the Australian public voted on 24 November last year for a Rudd Labor government and an education revolution. We are happy to listen to the stakeholders in these industries and, unlike the previous government, we are happy to have discussions with parents as well as unions, primary and secondary principals, P&Cs and the states and territories, because this is about cooperation, not about confrontation. This is about uniting and not about dividing.

We have already put significant funding into schools and this particular legislation, the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 and the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, is all about that. The Schools Assistance Bill effectively appropriates $28 billion of Commonwealth funding for non-government schools and bodies from 2009 to 2012, including extra assistance for Indigenous students. It fulfils the election commitment made by the Rudd opposition, and I was happy to campaign on that commitment.

The legislation is about fulfilling our commitment to continue the socioeconomic status—SES—funding model and indexation from the previous government for the non-government education sector for the quadrennium from 2009. That will ensure that non-government schools fulfil requirements of performance, accountability and transparency, as will government schools in terms of the national education agreement, which is being completed through the Council of Australian Governments. The legislation before us today also establishes an Indigenous funding guarantee and ensures that those schools with high proportions of Indigenous students will receive assistance to a maximum level of recurrent funding. It will also mainstream Indigenous-specific education programs.

The Education Legislation Amendment Bill also provides significant assistance in terms of education funding which will go towards reducing the appalling gap in educational attainment between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Specifically, there are some technical amendments to the legislation but it will continue, in the appropriation for 2009 through to 2012, a number of targeted programs and projects under the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000. It will provide funding for supplementary assistance to preschools and vocational education and training providers who have Indigenous students in transition from 1 January 2009 under legislation which becomes operative with the early childhood and vocational education and training specific purpose payments and the national partnerships.

The Indigenous people in my area will appreciate that. I have met with many of them to discuss these types of programs and projects. These will assist to reduce the disadvantage that Indigenous people in my electorate of Blair in south-east Queensland have suffered for a long time. The bills also provide $778.5 million over four years to fund strategic projects to enhance educational outcomes in relation to Indigenous people and in relation to preschools and VET as well.

The education revolution that we talk of will make a significant difference to high schools and primary schools in my area. The $1.2 billion put aside for the digital education revolution will make a big difference in terms of computer literacy and educational attainment of young people in my electorate. I have spoken to many school principals—both private and public education providers—and they are enthusiastic about what this will mean for their schools. They have told me that they will be making application for funding.

The $2.5 billion that we have set aside for the trade training centres and secondary schools is also being realised in my electorate. St Edmunds Boys College, a Catholic high school in the Edmund Rice tradition, is the lead school that has made an application, along with Ipswich Grammar School and Ipswich Girls’ Grammar School, for funding for a trade training centre. And St Eddies, as it is commonly and colloquially known, is probably the lead school in my electorate when it comes to manual arts, particularly the wet trades, and CAD education as well. It really is a tremendous school, and it is great to be there on speech night to see the young men of St Eddies going through and graduating in these particular trades which are so important for the local area. St Eddies has been successful in its grant application, and the Ipswich trade training centre will be established with just under $3 million allocated to it by the Rudd Labor government. I warmly welcome this money and I congratulate the principal, Brendan Lawler, and Wayne Sessarago, who has been so active on behalf of the school in achieving this funding.

But it is important that we do not sit on our laurels when it comes to education. The national education agreement will see more funding delivered to all schools across the country, including in my electorate of Blair—in Ipswich, the Lockyer Valley and the old Boonah shire. I am pleased that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education announced on 27 August 2008 at the National Press Club that the changes under that agreement will raise the quality of teaching in our schools, improve results in disadvantaged school communities, improve the basics—literacy and numeracy—and help all schools improve and direct new resources where they are most needed. In my electorate, it is the public school system which has been so underfunded and is so disadvantaged. I welcome the campaign of the Queensland Teachers Union and the Australian Education Union, who have fought so hard for so long to assist and seek further funding for public education in Queensland in particular. Ipswich is the fastest-growing area in South-East Queensland and we have a great deal of pressure put upon our local infrastructure and also our schools. Just south of where I live, at Flinders View in Ipswich, 120,000 people will be living in the Ripley Valley in the next 20 years. And just down the road, in the electorate of Oxley, Springfield has already got about 18,000 people in it, and it will have similar numbers to the Ripley Valley. The pressure on infrastructure and health and education is acute, so putting more money into public education as well as into private education is absolutely vital in the circumstances.

It is very important that we create an education revolution. We are determined to make our schools palaces of education. It is crucial that we have a population that is the most highly educated and best skilled in the world because education empowers, it gives people opportunity, it builds up individuals, it creates a more just and fair society. It is crucial that our human capital can capitalise on its latent skills and talent. Education should not be about left and right, as the member for Kalgoorlie was preaching a few minutes ago. It is not about the arguments of the past, it is not about public versus private, it is not about vilifying what people did decades ago in terms of their political involvement. It is about economic growth and it is about social justice. It is about making our country stronger economically, but fairer socially. Children who receive the best education are less likely to commit criminal activities. They are less likely to go into cycles of disadvantage. Poor educational levels go hand in glove with intergenerational poverty and disengagement from society and civic responsibility.

Our educational outcomes are crucial for our productivity and our future growth at the bottom of Asia. It is vital that our people are skilled and educated to the best of their respective abilities. Sadly, under the coalition government, education was neglected. We have, as their legacy, 6.5 million Australians with no post-school qualifications. We has a real decline in literacy levels until 2006, according to the OECD Program for International Student Assessment, and a terrible tale in underperformance, which is linked to disadvantage. Our retention rates to year 12—or senior, as we say in Queensland—had flatlined to 75 per cent according to the ABS 2007 report Schools Australia statistics. The 2006 national reading, writing and numeracy benchmarks results showed that in year 7 less than half met the 2006 benchmark; literacy achievement results for Indigenous boys and those students in remote areas were dreadful. It is important that there is a whole-of-government approach in this regard. It is important that we build on the digital education revolution of $1.2 billion and what I have described locally as the trade training centre revolution of $2.5 million of programs, and that we also deliver on education tax refunds for people to ensure their children have vital computer and educational items so they do not fall behind.

This is a program of $4.4 billion, our education tax refund. At my many mobile offices, people in my area have commended the government in that regard. The Deputy Prime Minister, in her second reading speech on the Schools Assistance Bill on 24 September 2008, said:

If this country is to succeed in the 21st century we need a schooling system which delivers excellence and equity for every child in Australia.

What a wonderful thought: excellence and equity for every child in Australia.

The bills before this House deliver $42 billion for schools. They deliver $28 billion to non-government schools in 2009-2012. Along with these bills, we are bringing in a national curriculum. That is so important for my area, because in my electorate I have the RAAF base at Amberley, where thousands of people work. It is becoming a super base, with the Super Hornets going there as we phase out the F111. That base is like a construction site. I did my ADF parliamentary program there and met with many people. I attended a fantastic air show at Amberley that 100,000 people visited, where I talked to many people. What the families tell me is that their kids are so disadvantaged when they move from one state to another. So a national curriculum is so important. Eighty thousand children each year move from state to state and thousands of them live in my electorate. A national curriculum is absolutely crucial. I have spoken to great principals like Peter Doyle, the principal of Brassall State Primary School, and Jan Klotz, the principal of Bundamba State Secondary College, which is my old high school. They have talked to me about why a national curriculum is important, because they see the disadvantage the children have. We are the government that has the wit and the will to do this. A national curriculum was, in fact, promised so often by the coalition. But when we came to power what did we find? No national curriculum. It is important that we have a national curriculum. These bills we are debating today go hand in glove with a national curriculum.

In 2008-09 the Australian government budget figures show that a record estimated $9 billion will be going to Australian schools. This is an increase of $391 million, or 4.5 per cent, over 2007-08. From the federal government $2.9 billion will go to state schools and students. This is an estimated increase of $151 million, or 5.5 per cent, over 2007-08. The federal government will also put in $6.1 billion to non-government schools and students. That is an increase of $224 million, or 3.7 per cent, over 2007-08.

The private schools in my area are schools of excellence. I have mentioned St Edmunds. The two grammar schools are terrific schools. They have produced some wonderful people. Some have gone all the way to being politicians and chief justices of the High Court of Australia. But these schools also provide a great deal of assistance to Indigenous and disadvantaged students. Giving this money to private schools in my area will help students in that regard. A lot of parents battle to send their kids to private schools. They do it because they believe in a religious education or they believe in a private education or they just want to give their kids what they think is the best start in life. I applaud the parents in my area who really aspire for greatness for their children, because it is so vital that we give them the best chance.

Neither of my parents had the advantage of going to high school, nor my grandparents on either side before them. I am the first person in the direct line of my family ever to go to high school. It was a Labor government that allowed me to go to university. The Labor Whitlam government allowed me to go and study law, political science and economics at the University of Queensland. It has been Labor governments which have assisted those battling families in my area for so long. It is Labor governments which make a difference in the life of communities like Ipswich, the Lockyer Valley and Boonah, because we believe in social justice, equity and giving people a chance in life.

I think the state of some of our public schools in Queensland is a disgrace—and it is a disgrace that we have inherited from the Howard government. We are committed to improving the educational outcomes in Queensland from early childhood education through to our Education Investment Fund, which will make such a difference to people in my electorate. I warmly commend the bills to the House. They have my full support, and I am sure I speak on behalf of all of my electors in saying that these bills will help both public and private education to the betterment of all the communities in Blair.

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

Prior to his departure, the member for Bonner made a couple of remarks which I think require a response. The first one was that we are dealing here with funding for private schools, and it appears that that funding will be tied to the acceptance of those private schools, those non-government schools, of a national curriculum. Having been a shadow minister for defence personnel, I understand completely the great pain and difficulty experienced by any family that transfers from state to state when the state governments cannot not get even together and have the same entry year for their student populations. And, of course, the difference runs to all sorts of curricula. If defence personnel and others have to go from one state to another, they are entitled to know that under the government school system there is a common curriculum and a common starting age et cetera.

I nevertheless cannot understand why that needs to be applied to a private school, where the parent has some say in that particular decision and obviously can go elsewhere if the service or the curriculum does not suit them. I would like to come back to that. Unfortunately, the member for Bonner has not hung around for my good advice, because the second thing that I wanted to do was to explode the myth of the federal parliament’s contribution to government schools. The only funding of any substance that goes to the private school sector comes from the budgets approved in this place. A very small amount is begrudgingly provided by state governments. That is the reason that the Australian government under Menzies stepped in to this particular area.

Having said that, it is the habit of the school teachers union in particular to advise parents to advertise in the media that that sum of money is given to the private school sector and a lesser sum of money is budgeted in this parliament specifically for government schools. That is a fact. But it overlooks entirely the simple fact that roughly 50 per cent, between 48 per cent and 52 per cent, of all the expenditures of state governments is provided through the budget of this parliament—and, more importantly, by the poor old taxpayers, who are compulsorily contributing their taxes to this parliament because it has most of the tax-raising capacity.

To simplify that, in years gone by, Prime Minister Howard looked at the mishmash of funding arrangements and took upon himself the reform of the Australian tax system—with, I might add, the support of all of us present at that time in government—and to introduce a GST. In that process he and we, unlike those opposite with some of the decisions on taxes that were brought into this parliament in the last budget, went to that particular election telling people that if they re-elected us we would introduce tax reform including a GST. That was a huge political risk. It was exploited to the nth degree by the then opposition under Beasley and we lost quite a few seats.

What did we also promise the Australian people that we would do with the money once it was collected? We promised that we would distribute every cent of it to state governments. What did Prime Minister Howard say during the election debate? He said that this was the first time in a long time that the Australian states would have a growth tax. By the way, it has grown well beyond the predictions at the time. He said that that was so that they could do their job throughout the Australian democratic system. What was that job? To provide education, hospitals and law and order to the community.

As I said, the money has increased dramatically and, as I look around Australia, I cannot find where the money has gone. But unless we bring to account that contribution which is not spent on private schools—the billions collected and distributed—it is a farce to say that the government school system gets a raw deal from this parliament. It probably gets four or five times the amount that the private schools get. One of the reasons for that is the fact that Australia at the last count had 2,268,000 students in the government schools sector and 1,148,000 in the non-government school sector.

I have corrected a couple of myths. You can bet your bottom dollar that that will not alter the misleading advertisements run by the school teachers union, whose interest does not seem to be in the education of students but in protecting the power they seem to exert from time to time by closing down schooling with strikes.

The reality is that Australia has a system in which both of those sectors are available to the Australian people. Parents of those 1.2 million children—be it through a small Catholic or Christian school or one of the more elite schools—are making a huge financial contribution towards the education of their children. Were that system to be undermined, as is the ambition of this government, then that cost would fall upon the taxpayer in ever increasing degrees or, as is so typical in the health system, the level of service would decline accordingly.

We are here today to discuss two bills. One is the Schools Assistance Bill 2008, which provides $28 billion over four years for the purpose of giving funding assistance to the non-government school sector, some $640.5 million for further Abstudy assistance and $102 million for other purposes related to Indigenous education. I would like to come back to some of that in some time. But all of a sudden we discover that there are some rather curly pieces in this funding arrangement. Probably the worst is the clear intention of the government to return to what I always called the ‘no new schools in the non-government sector’ policy. It was referred to under Minister Ryan as the new schools policy. What was it? If a Christian or other community wanted to open a school, until they achieved a certain student attendance they did not get any help at all. They had to say to parents interested in the establishment of the school, ‘Pay full fees.’ And they had to find premises.

I saw that in the town of Geraldton, where there was an attempt to open an Anglican grammar school. Under the so-called new schools policy they got no student assistance and no capital assistance until they achieved a certain attendance. Of course, they could not do that. The Catholic school up there lent them one of their redundant school buildings because they had amalgamated their girls and boys schools. They had a free building virtually, but they still got nothing. The present system pays up to 70 per cent of tuition fees, depending on the size and wealth of the school. But they got none of that and, of course, they could not get their numbers up and, consequently, the school was going to collapse. We then got elected and we brought in our arrangements. That school has 600 students today and magnificent premises, and there has been a very significant contribution from this parliament and from the parents involved. What we are talking about today is funding, yet we see that this proposal virtually goes back to that old system and makes it impossible for new schools to be commenced. No doubt the teachers union will be laughing about that.

These are matters of grave concern. I have already made some remarks about curricula. I am all in favour of improved curricula. I also believe that in the government education sector curricula should be uniform—it should be homogenised, or whatever word we want to use. That would be a good thing. I am delighted to see that whoever has been selected to propose the new English curriculum has said we are to go back to teaching grammar. I just happen to have a granddaughter, aged nearly 15, who was fortunate enough to go on an exchange from her school to a boarding school in Connecticut for three months. The thing that struck her most was that she had to learn some English grammar. The Americans—certainly in these elite schools—are of the view that grammar is part of English. Of course, when one reads today’s newspapers, and I make this comment to those sitting up top, it has been totally forgotten that you do not finish a sentence with a preposition— ‘something has been given to’ instead of ‘to whom it has been given’. Of course, the next question is: when the new curricula come in who is going to teach the teachers? I would advise them not to read our newspapers to get enlightenment.

The whole fact of life is that we had this attitude to education that did not make children think. Worse, it is a long time since we thought the first and highest capacity for a school teacher was the capacity to teach. I had the privilege of going to an elite government school that also produced people like former Prime Minister Hawke, former Secretary to the Treasury John Stone, and Governor of the Reserve Bank, ‘Nugget’ Coombes—all who attended a little before I did but not much. That school was an elite government school that everybody fought to get into and that you got into by scholarship. It did not matter how rich your parents were, if you could get a scholarship to Perth Modern School in those days you went there. On my arrival we got a new English teacher, who in his first address to us pointed out that if we thought he knew everything we were wrong, but he thought he knew where to look. On the occasions we asked questions he would always be able to go and find out and answer it at a later date. I cannot say that about the Deputy Prime Minister—I am still waiting for an answer to a question I put to her at the last sitting—but the whole matter was that this man, in a very laid back way, was a great motivator. He had us wanting to learn about the English language, and I am pleased to say he delivered me what we called a distinction in those days. He himself got more distinctions than the other two English teachers in that school.

This is part of the challenge, and I do not know that it has been addressed. I constantly hear the Minister for Education and Deputy Prime Minister telling us about how much money has been committed by this government, and that is welcome, but we are yet to see any of the results. I refer to it as measuring excellence by expenditure, and it is not the way to do it. Private school funding is of extreme importance, but I do not see that that funding should be tied to the curricula that those schools teach. There is a reference in the second reading speech to transparency. Of course, schools should make what they are teaching patently obvious. I believe that some of the so-called private schools have not got the capacity to teach some of the higher levels of maths any more than the public schools do, and they should be condemned for that because they charge the fee and do not necessarily provide the service.

Just while everyone is rushing in to listen to me before question time, I make the point for the government that out there in the retirement brigade are all sorts of professionals who should be offered relief from any means testing or anything else so that they are encouraged to go back and teach those higher level subjects—be they retired engineers or retired scientists. I spoke at the Institute of Engineers recently and asked them why they did not encourage their retired members to go back into schools part time and teach. The fellow said ‘We go there and we promote engineering as a profession and give the kids talks about it.’ Of course, the kids cannot get anybody to teach them the basic subjects they need to get entry to engineering when they go to university, yet the Institute of Engineers thought it was too hard to encourage their retired members.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What have you been doing for 12 years, Wilson?

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

Sid, I do not know what you are joking about, but the best piece of advice I could give you is what I am saying, and if you are too dumb to understand it you know where to go.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. The member for Braddon will cease interjecting. The member for O’Connor will ignore him.

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

We know about you mob: you only exist to prove New Zealanders can swim! Thank you, Mr Speaker, for coming in to hear my words. I appreciate I have about five minutes left, but I hope that in your party forums you will think about giving special attention to encouraging retired engineers and other professionals to go back into our schools to teach those kids those higher level subjects.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 2 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. I say to the member for O’Connor that I came in because I thought he was going to be speaking on tidal power. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.