Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 and the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 have been presented as delivering Labor’s promised education revolution. Together with computers in schools, trades training centres and the educational tax refund, they represent significant improvements to parts of our nation’s education systems. These are welcome measures but they are hardly a revolution. The Schools Assistance Bill sets out the priorities of the government through the national partnership payments as improving the quality of teaching, raising outcomes in disadvantaged school communities and delivering a new era of transparency to guide parents, teachers and policymakers in making the best decisions.

But in line with the commitments given before the 2007 election, the existing distribution of funds between private and public schools will remain in place until 2012. In her second reading speech, the Minister for Education 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.

She went on to say:

This is only possible if the community is confident that governments are applying the same principles of excellence and equity to all Australian schools, regardless of their location or the sector of which they are a part.

But we will have to wait four more years before we make a start on addressing the issue of equity in all Australian schools.

Over the 12 years of the Howard government, we saw the share of Commonwealth school funding going to public schools drop from 43 per cent to 35 per cent. Real Commonwealth grants to public schools grew by 68 per cent, while grants to private schools grew by 137 per cent. There is nothing in this legislation which would redress that imbalance and, indeed, there is no guarantee that the funding gap will not widen over the next four years for which the Howard government’s program is to be locked in. We will still have SES funding and indexation. In fact, we can expect to see annual grants to private schools increase by a further three per cent while grants to public schools fall by two per cent over that four-year period, something that the minister describes as applying ‘the same principles of quality and accountability, excellence and equity that have shaped our national reform agenda’.

It seems to me that the national reform agenda has been put on hold for four years, and the real education revolution is a long, long way off—that is, unless we take those parts of the bill which provide for the five activities that are essential to achieving transparency in Australian schooling. These are national testing, national outcome reporting, the provision and publication of individual school information, and reporting to parents. These activities are to be central to the national education agreement to be negotiated with the states and finalised later this year. The suggestion is that poorer performing schools, which it is assumed are in socially and economically disadvantaged communities, will receive additional resources to improve their performance—that is, to achieve greater equity and outcomes for students in those areas. But the Prime Minister added his own suggestion: that if some schools are not performing this encourages parents to, as he colourfully put it ‘walk with their feet; that’s exactly what the system is designed to do’.

We need to ask if that is the real agenda. Is it to conduct testing and national outcome reporting in order to identify areas of need and allocate additional resources to those areas? I would think that would be a sensible agenda and would mark a return to needs based funding. Or is it to promote a competitive education system where parents in a position to make choices about their children’s schooling may select from a smorgasbord of educational offerings? I have to ask: where is the equity and social inclusion in that proposal? And where does that line up with the reported comments of the minister that ‘we are on about the performance and quality of every school’.

It is not hard to see why there is some confusion about the so-called education revolution. On the one hand we have with this legislation measures which set in concrete for four years a private school funding formula which is no different from the Howard model and will provide an even greater proportion of Commonwealth funding to private schools. Until we see the dollar commitment for assistance to disadvantaged schools, we can only guess at how effective this assistance can be.

At its first caucus meeting after winning government last year, Labor members were urged to visit schools in their electorate. As a member who keeps close contact with many, many schools in my electorate, I felt this special visit was hardly necessary. But, as I visit schools today, particularly staffrooms, I hear some grave concerns from teachers in disadvantaged schools. While it might be popular to speak of teacher unions fighting yesterday’s battles, unlike so many commentators, these teachers see the problems facing students and schools every working day of their life. When we hear of improving teacher quality, it is rarely about providing a proper level of resources. And when we hear objections from teachers to national testing and outcome reporting, we should bear in mind that those objections come from firsthand experience of the unfair nature of our education system. I am sure that, if we had a truly fair and equitable education system, there would be no objection to national testing and outcome reporting. But the system is not fair and, until it is, it will not be fair to the dedicated teachers working in our disadvantaged schools to attempt to report on outcomes for each school.

Let me give just one way in which the results from testing can be distorted in disadvantaged schools. In New South Wales, students in primary schools can be classified as ‘intellectually moderate’ or ‘IM’. A number of schools—and these are generally larger primary schools—have special programs and classes for IM students, and IM students are generally exempted from testing unless a parent requests their child be included. In smaller schools, however, students who could be classified as IM may remain in mainstream classes and, as such, they are required to be tested unless a parent requests that they be exempt.

In some disadvantaged schools, these numbers can be as high as one in five students. You can appreciate how the results for a school can be distorted if the lowest performing fifth of students is not included in test results. While it has been suggested that any comparison between schools will use socioeconomic factors to attempt to compare like with like, there are differences between schools drawing from similar populations. I am very concerned that we will finish up with a system of classification by postcode. A great many factors, including the one I have just mentioned, can influence the outcomes, which have nothing to do with the standard of teaching in the school.

While I am on the subject of teaching standards, there are a few things I would like to add to the debate, which to date appears completely one-sided. It has been said that we should judge teachers the same way that we judge lion tamers. If they come out of the cage alive they have been successful. The same could be said for school principals and others in school leadership roles. As you would be aware, Madam Deputy Speaker Bird, the harshest critics of teachers and principals are students and other teachers.

What is surprising is that so many teachers survive for thirty or more years in a system which takes a high toll on those not up to the demands of the profession. So, before any government embarks on an education revolution, it would be wise to consult the collective wisdom of classroom teachers and school principals rather than dismissing so-called left-wing teacher unions, as members opposite and many media commentators do so often. We would do better to respect their experience and their great dedication.

We may speak of an education revolution, but we are a long way from bringing true equity, excellence and social inclusion into our education system. Unless the measures to be announced following the negotiations with the states for a national education agreement bring a massive allocation of resources to disadvantaged schools, our education system will become more unequal and the great hopes for education driving a successful Australian nation into the 21st century will be proved definitely to be more of a slogan than a reality.

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the early 1990s the then Labor government operated a New Schools Policy. Orwellian in name, this policy effectively discouraged the establishment of new schools. It was repealed by the Howard government, leading to the establishment of many new schools which exist today. Indeed, many of these schools can be found in the outer suburbs and in the regional areas of Australia. By 2007, 33.6 per cent of students attended non-government schools in Australia, and the proportion of students in independent schools in years 11 and 12 is even higher.

The disdain for independent schools has surfaced in Labor Party policy frequently. Remember Mark Latham’s hit list of the wealthiest schools targeted for funding cuts? Under the plans of Mr Latham and Jenny Macklin, 67 schools would have seen their funds cut and another 111 would have had their funds frozen. Mr Rudd subsequently repudiated this proposal in his election commitments last year, saying that funds would be maintained for the 2009 to 2012 period, with a review of subsequent arrangements. No school would lose a dollar was Mr Rudd’s claim. During the campaign, the Labor candidate for Eden-Monaro, Mike Kelly, revived the spectre of a hit list but was slapped down by Mr Rudd. But much of the Left remains antithetical to non-government education, as I shall illustrate.

The President of the Australian Secondary Principals Association, Andrew Blair, argued recently that non-government schools would have to cap their fees to qualify for federal funding or have their subsidies removed. Mr Blair proposed three tiers of funding: first, government schools, which receive all funds from the government; second, government supported schools, which receive some government and some parental funding; and, third, independent schools, which receive no government funding.

If this proposal were implemented it would return us to the days before the Menzies government introduced state aid for non-government schools. Worse, it would impose a new level of government control over the hundreds of independent schools that could not afford to operate on fees from parents alone. They would be required to abide by government policy on issues like accountability and curriculum and cap their fees. Mr Blair quotes other activists, including Chris Bonnor, who describes the current system as ‘stupid’.

Supported by groups such as the Australian Education Union, this is a campaign to slash expenditure on the education of many young Australians and to introduce left-wing controls over most non-government schools in this nation. Given Labor’s history on these matters, Australians are entitled to be suspicious about their current intentions.

The Schools Assistance Bill 2008 and the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008, which we are currently debating, raises these suspicions. The Schools Assistance Bill mandates as a condition of funding that all Catholic and independent schools implement the new national curriculum and make public data about school performance, including all sources of funding. This has a number of problems. First, the requirement of adherence to a national curriculum puts at risk the uniqueness of many schools such as Steiner schools, Montessori schools and special needs schools. It also risks the International Baccalaureate and the Cambridge international exams. This requirement is being introduced in this bill despite the fact that the national curriculum will not be finalised until sometime in 2009. Worse, the requirement that all funding sources be disclosed and revealed fuels the campaign to remove funding from independent schools. That campaign, I submit to the House, is misleading.

The proponents claim that Australia is at the bottom of the funding table compared to other OECD countries, but when both public and private funding is combined we are about average among OECD countries. They also ignore the huge savings to the taxpayer because parents sacrifice other expenditure for their children’s education—and, remember, one in three children who are in school in Australia are now in independent schools. The cost of educating a child in government schools in 2005-06 was, on average, $11,243. The cost to government of educating children in non-government schools in the same period was just $6,268. So, on average, the cost to government to educate a child in a government school in Australia was $11,243 compared to just $6,268—about half—to educate a child in an independent or non-government school. What this represents is a saving of billions of dollars each year because of the financial sacrifice that hundreds of thousands of parents throughout this country make. It is a laudable objective to increase schools funding, but it should not be undertaken in the misleading and divisive manner being advocated by the Australian Education Union and its supporters. It is for these reasons that I commend to the House the amendments which have been moved by the shadow minister.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Schools Assistance Bill 2008 and the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 are complementary, hence the two being dealt with together. My comments will canvass both, sometimes discretely and sometimes fused. The Schools Assistance Bill will appropriate an estimated $28 billion in funding for the non-government schools sector for 2009 to 2012. The bill maintains the current SES funding and indexation arrangements consistent with meeting the Rudd Labor government’s election commitments of 2007. It also contains two other key reforms consistent with Labor’s national priorities.

The first key reform is additional funding for all non-government schools where 80 per cent or more of the students are Indigenous and for non-government schools in remote and very remote areas where 50 per cent or more of the students are Indigenous. Previously, there was no such guaranteed funding to the maximum level. This bill will provide an additional $5.4 million to the eligible schools. It also brings together several components of funding for schools with Indigenous students which were previously scattered across a range of programs through the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000.

I understand that, in addition to allocating extra dollars, the new bill will also reduce reporting and a red tape. I had a local example of this with a school that contacted me. Even though they were reporting on the same students and the same issues, they had to do two lots of reporting, state and federal, which created an enormous amount of work. When they had asked previously—some time ago—whether that could be coalesced, the answer was no. That is why it is important that we have the COAG process that is being undertaken because that allows issues like that to be worked through in COAG and be subject to reform. The government’s enhanced COAG process and activities enable agreements to take place on issues like that, so that those real problems at a local level can be resolved.

The bill brings together the Indigenous funding guarantee and the Indigenous supplementary assistance, which will provide an estimated $239 million over four years. Also, for the first time, it will be indexed at the same rate as other recurrent school funding. It is estimated the increase from indexation will be an additional $24.5 million, which is a significant amount.

The second key reform is the new reporting requirements for non-government schools. This brings in a new framework in transparency in Australian schooling. Transparency is only ever a good thing, especially where our children and their education are concerned. The reporting requirements will be consistent with transparency measures for government schools and will help to enable proper understanding of how all schools perform. I know that, at first, when transparency requirements are being introduced there is often a debate within the particular communities that are affected and sometimes there is some discomfort as well. But transparency is always in the public interest and it is therefore always in the interests of our children.

The activities that will yield the information necessary to meet the transparency test are in the following areas. The first is national testing—and, again, testing is one of those issues that is always debated quite heatedly and strongly, and sometimes there is discomfort about it, but it is in the interests of our children. The other areas are national outcome reporting, the provision and publication of individual school information, and reporting to parents. What this means is that there will be some common data sets around record handling and what needs to be recorded, as this determines what is reported. The key issue is that all schools, government and non-government, need to be included. Non-government schools have not previously been included in the overall reporting framework.

The minister, in her second reading speech, in particular underscored the importance of education that is reflected in the Rudd Labor government’s education policies—notably in our overarching policy framework with the education revolution. I know sometimes we bring personal stories and experience of ourselves and others to the debates in this place, and this one is no exception. I owe a lot to education. I have a view that is shaped and informed by that experience. Earlier in my life I was in an educationally disadvantaged situation, leaving school at 13 and not really having any high school to speak of. But it was broadened by later engagement in the education sector with my teacher training; being involved in educational politics in the New South Wales Teachers Federation; in the New South Wales TAFE TA; working part time; part-time lecturing; community adult education; serving on boards; and teaching young people with disabilities and in sporting areas and working in refugee camps in conflict zones. The education experience I have had goes beyond the schools, whether they be private or public. That shapes what I think and what I feel and some of the passion that I have around education. It is a right, and it is a right for all. I know that in the Rudd Labor government’s education revolution and in our framework that that principle underpins a lot of what we do. It certainly underpins my approach to my engagement with the education area. Minister Gillard also said:

Education is central to the future of our society.

Indeed it is on many levels, and the comments I have just made attest to that. There is a whole range of indicators around education, including, if we just look at child health and the level of education of mothers, the more educated the mothers are, the healthier the children are. That is one of the best arguments for education. I am probably straying from the bill a little bit, but I just wanted to make some points about education in general. Minister Gillard also went on to say:

It is a central part of building a stronger, fairer Australia, ready to meet future challenges and able to make the most of its talents and resources.

This is precisely what our education revolution is about—ideas. Ideas do matter, ideas are important, they shape our society, but these ideas are backed up by action, and that is a powerful combination, particularly in the area of education. Without a solid education system, we cannot have a stronger, fairer Australia. As we say, education is a great leveller, or should be, and it is needed to ensure Australia stays strong to meet the future challenges that are upon us: the many skills shortages in the workforce and climate change, among others.

Some initiatives of our education revolution, which is central to what we do with legislation, include the new computers, which are already in schools. I have been able to get around the schools and see some of those and it is certainly very pleasing to see them being rolled out. The new trades training centres are on their way. There is the education tax refund, which is very welcome indeed. And then there is the 15 hours for four-year-olds at preschool. That will be rolled out over coming years and I know that is being assiduously worked on by the Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care, the member for Bennelong, who is in the chamber at the moment. There is a commitment to parents for their children’s education needs of $4.4 billion, and that has been available since July.

A number of key reform initiatives are being pursued as well through the COAG process, and they are driven by the government as collaborative and cooperative reform. COAG has agreed to a number of national targets in this area. Some of them will be met through the national education agreement, an agreement among governments in Australia that the minister says will set the terms of funding and accountability for schooling over the next four years.

The minister further says in her second reading speech—and is it a really important point that I wish to reiterate here—that Commonwealth funding for government schools does not require specific legislation. I would like to note here that I agree that government schools are also in need. That is a constant; it is not a new thing. All schools are constantly in need with changes that come in within the school environments—and public schools certainly are in need of enhanced funding.

In 2007, during the election campaign, I signed what was called the pledge in company with teachers and their Teachers Federation representatives. It was outside Grafton High School and I was saying that I would support and advocate for such funds. The key amount the teachers were saying was around $2.9 billion. I know there has been some work done by the unions to quantify that and I am still ploughing through some of those documents on education, where we should be aiming for brevity. I know that every time we get a document to read, it is like the books I can see in front of me, so I am still ploughing through it. But what I would like to say is that it is actually the states that have provided the core funding of government schools. I note that here and I noted it at the time. Unless there is a change then that will continue. The states have their obligations to fill as well in this regard to ensure that that funding is there.

When there are some schools in need, who feel they are missing out, it can and does have an impact on morale, and that is one of the things we always have to be mindful of when we are having debates like the one we are having in this House on these bills. I have said to parents, teachers and students that there is no longer a debate to be had about government and non-government, public and private within an either/or framework. The debate that never took place—it is a debate that never took place under the previous government, one of the many left unattended—is the debate on how to ensure the following things: equity for students; excellence in teaching; strong support for teachers; and the same or similar resources for all in schools, in education communities, with some particular attention to our regional and rural and isolated students. I also had the privilege throughout these debates to have met with the association.

The previous government’s approach to education, from what I can gauge—and some of that was directly as a member of a university council—was that there was more attention paid to or obsession with the so-called governance, which had little substance and no leadership in it, than with educational outcomes. For the first time, under this bill non-government schools will have a legal obligation to participate in the five key reporting activities in a transparent, clearly marked framework, along with government schools. The outcome, of course, is better information for schools, for the school communities, for the parents and for the families, and improved educational outcomes is always the ultimate goal. All Australian students will be included, for the first time, and it is paramount to have that inclusiveness. Previously, the school funding legislation, which did not focus on the educational outcomes but on about 20 separate requirements in terms of regulation, monitoring and red tape, caused an excessive level of that regulation, monitoring and red tape.

I alluded to my situation at the beginning of my contribution. What I would like to say in general about education is that education was able to give me a life that was richer and more meaningful, and I know it can do that for all young people. In my concluding remarks I would like to compliment and commend the teachers in my local schools and their respective parents and citizens associations and other interested citizens, whom in my seat of Page put an enormous amount of work into local schools and education, as indeed do teachers—beyond their regular working hours. I know that they would welcome some of the reforms in these bills. I would like to commend the bills to the House.

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

It gives me great pleasure to rise tonight in this cognate debate to speak on the Schools Assistance Bill 2008. At the outset of my contribution to this debate I would like to emphasise the enormous contribution that is made to the education of students throughout Australia by both the public and the private sector. In the Shortland electorate over 80 per cent of students attend public schools and as such it is imperative that those children have equal access to quality education. This is the first tranche of legislation that will ensure that all students throughout Australia have a quality education. This is about setting a high benchmark, a benchmark that will ensure equality of education and equality of opportunity for all students in Australia. The bill defines a major change in Commonwealth funding for schools as the current act and previous acts provided funding for both government and non-government schools. In the future, Commonwealth funding for government schools will be negotiated through the National Education Agreement, which is currently being negotiated between the Commonwealth and the states through COAG.

This bill addresses the funding of non-government schools for 2009-12. It is part of the government’s overall agenda for delivering a quality education revolution to all schools. It will continue the current socioeconomic status funding, the SES funding, and indexation arrangements for non-government schools for 2009-12, meeting the government’s election commitment. Part of that commitment is that no school will receive a lower level of funding.

Today the students of Budgewoi Public School visited this parliament and saw firsthand how it operates. The students in that school come from a less advantaged area than some other students in Australia and the funding arrangements that will be put in place by the Rudd government will ensure that those students obtain a quality education. They asked some very insightful questions about the operation of this parliament and they demonstrated an outstanding knowledge of government.

As I mentioned, the majority of students in the Shortland electorate attend government schools. The 19 per cent of students who attend non-government schools mainly attend Catholic diocese schools. Those schools need to receive the security of funding that is provided through this bill. In addition to the Catholic schools in the Shortland electorate there is one other non-government school, the Belmont Christian College, which provides a fine education to the students who attend that school.

The secret to education is that it must provide opportunity. Education is the key to a successful life. Education is the key to a career, the key to success and the key to choice in life. If a young child is denied equal education opportunities when they first go to primary school and is unable to read or has poor numeracy skills, that will impact on their whole life. It will impact upon their choice of job and of where they live—it will impact on every aspect of their life. The simple fact is that, if they do not have those basic skills, they will not have the same opportunities that others enjoy from the knowledge gained at school. One of the key aspects of the Rudd government’s legislative program for schools in Australia is to ensure that all students have that opportunity.

The students from Blacksmiths Public School, who will be visiting parliament later this week, will benefit from the education policies that the Rudd government is putting in place. When the first round of computers were provided to high schools in the Shortland electorate, all schools—government and non-government—bar one obtained computers, which means that the students at those schools now have the opportunity to embrace information technology and access the wide range of information that computer technology provides, simply because of the policies of the Rudd government. The trade training centres will also provide young students with the skills that they need when they leave school to take up apprenticeships and will assist them to move seamlessly from school to the workforce. Many of the election commitments delivered in the 2008 budget were part of our education revolution. That includes the trade training centres that I just spoke about. The digital education revolution, as I have already pointed out, has put computers in high schools in Shortland. And the COAG reform framework means that for the first time governments in Australia will agree to a single set of objectives, outcomes and outputs resulting in educational priorities and reform directions for the education system.

This legislation will include requirements for non-government schools to meet certain objectives and provide certain information. That will provide parents with clear information about the performance of their children and their children’s school, comparative information about performances, and performance data about schools and school systems. This is a whole new approach to education.

I must also inform the House that the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 is a continuation of appropriations for 2009 to 2012 for a range of targeted programs and projects under the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000. It provides appropriations for supplementary assistance to preschools and vocational education and training providers of Indigenous education. This is very important because one aspect of Indigenous education is the very low retention rate. Indigenous students do not have the same educational outcomes as non-Indigenous students. As I pointed out in my earlier comments, this affects the choices that they have in life. The Rudd government and Minister Gillard are not prepared to let this situation continue. We can see the problems and we intend to act to resolve those problems to give Indigenous students the same sort of educational outcomes that other students have. This legislation will give students who attend schools in Shortland the same sort of educational outcomes as students who live in Wentworth, the Leader of the Opposition’s electorate. I believe that, no matter where a student goes to school, they should have exactly the same opportunities as students in other areas.

I notice the shadow minister for early childhood education, childcare, women and youth, who is at the table, shaking her head in disagreement with my comment. I say to the shadow minister: I am committed to ensuring that all students have equality of education. I think that she should get on board, stop shaking her head and say, ‘Yes, I think that no matter where a student goes to school, whether in the non-government or the government sector, they should most definitely have the same opportunities in life as students in my electorate.’

The legislation will ensure the security of funding for non-government schools. It delivers on the Rudd government election commitments, as will other legislation that will soon be before the House, including legislation for the national education agreements that will fund government schools. I commend the legislation to the House.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise very proudly to support these two government bills: the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 and the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. These are both fine bills which, as the previous member speaking in this debate said, go a long way towards delivering on our election commitments. The debate on these bills has been quite lengthy and there have been a number of eloquent speeches made. I probably will not be troubling the timekeeper too much this evening. For those who might turn to my speech to read it, I commend to them the eloquent contribution of the member for Port Adelaide, Mr Butler, who spoke yesterday I believe. It is quite serendipitous that I should follow the member for Shortland in this debate as she and I attended the same primary school at the same time, which is almost the Nambour State High School example again except that Nambour State High School seems—

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who’s older and who’s younger?

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not telling.

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

And it was an excellent public school at that.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was, and we both did fairly well. Nambour State High School seems to have been a little more successful than Macksville Public School in terms of the eventual outcomes for their students. As I read it, these two bills do not do much of anything that should have caused the length of debate that we have had. The Education Legislation Amendment Bill really only transfers appropriations from one area of legislation to another. It contains no reduction—in fact I believe there is a little additional spending that is attached to this. These nearly $780 million worth of measures are designed to improve the educational outcomes for Indigenous Australians. The education gaps that have been outlined in the parliament are inexcusable in modern Australian society. This is not the fault of the previous government alone but, I guess, the collective fault of all the governments that have preceded it, including some that, for a short period of that time, were Labor governments. We as a parliament and we as a government should be as one as we set out to remove those gaps. I note that there are some additional measures for Indigenous education included in the Schools Assistance Bill.

The Schools Assistance Bill simply provides exactly what we said we would provide for non-government schools. The same piece of legislation removes funding for state government schools which is still the subject of an agreement to be finalised later this year with the state governments. This is a funding regime for non-government schools. I want to quote a couple of sentences from the contribution of the member for Swan. He said:

... Commonwealth funding for non-government schools remains essentially unchanged

He also said:

... 67 per cent, or $6.4 billion, of Commonwealth funding for schools will be provided to non-government schools.

He went on to say—about something that we said we would do during the election campaign:

The government has also retained the socioeconomic status—SES—funding regime ...

So what is the problem? This government have put in place for the next four years what was in place for the previous four years. We are maintaining the existing SES funding and the indexation that goes with it. What has been happening here over the last couple of days as this legislation has been debated is a real concerted effort of dog-whistling. The opposition we see in the parliament these days is more interested in developing a narrative that says, ‘The government is doing this but we think that they are going to do this.’ The reality is that we are not.

In the parliament earlier today we had the member for Hinkler rise and make a personal explanation. He read to the parliament again some of his contribution to this debate. I would like to, for the third time, read a particular paragraph into the record simply because I think it deserves to be there and it tells the story. The member for Hinkler said:

It is also an encouragement to some of the more affluent schools to take on a cross-section of less affluent kids by way of scholarships or reduced fees or whatever it might be. That enriches the profile of their school and it gives other kids the opportunity—

and this is my emphasis—

to go to good quality schools.

That is what the member for Hinkler said: the SES system gives poor kids the opportunity to go to private schools which are good-quality schools. Whatever he might say about having support for the state school education system as well as the private school education system is wiped away in that one sentence. I believe very strongly that state schools provide an education product easily the equivalent of the majority of private schools. Some of the private schools of course are uber wealthy and they have the capacity to provide resources that are not available to the state schools. But for a member of this parliament to stand up in here and make the comment that only by going to a non-government school will a child from a less affluent family receive a good education I think is disgraceful.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare, Women and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s not what he said.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the interjection from the member for Indi. That is what he said. He said:

That enriches the profile of their school and it gives other kids the opportunity to go to good quality schools.

Those are his words not mine.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare, Women and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s all part of your class warfare. You’re just trying to create division.

Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not my class warfare, member for Indi; it is his class warfare. I am not standing here in class warfare. I went to a private school at high school. I have been in both the state and the private system. I support both. I have wonderful schools in my electorate, both private schools—whether they be Catholic or not—and state schools, and they do a wonderful job. The teachers in those schools do the equivalent—not better—job of the teachers in the public schools, and the students in my area are benefiting from that.

I want to say a couple of quick things about schools in my area. I am pleased that the minister is in the House as I can report that the schools in my electorate are very pleased with the computers that they have received. These schools include Caboolture State High School and Caboolture Christian School, which is a low-fee non-government school. The Edmund Rice Flexible Learning Centre at Deception Bay have received computers to help them with the children they are trying to teach who have not been able to be accommodated by the mainstream schools. Northpine Christian College has also received computers. I am particularly proud of the effort that was put in by the Caboolture State High School, the Tullawong State High School and the Morayfield State High School, who formed a cluster to get one of the trade training centres. The parents in my area are very grateful for the tax refund regime, which they are starting to gather their receipts for in terms of next year’s taxation.

I do not want to stand here and try to make the point that the opposition—the former government—did not fund schools. I have had the opportunity to go to a number of school events in the last 12 months to acknowledge federal government funding that the schools received as a consequence of the previous government—North Lakes State College, Caboolture State School, Narangba Primary, Narangba Valley State School and Grace Lutheran College. And next Sunday I will have the opportunity to represent the minister at the opening of the high school component of St Eugene’s, a school in my electorate where the federal government has contributed a little over $1 million.

But can I say that there have been varying degrees of priority afforded to education. I go back to a document produced in 1988 by the then Queensland state government. I believe at that time Mike Ahearn was the Premier. That document, to give it its full title, was Quality Queensland, building on strength: a vision and strategy for achievement and was prepared by the Queensland government. In that document they decided that the Queensland education system was sufficient to prepare students for the jobs that were available to them after they left school. That kind of inferior policy is rife in business dominated, conservative-thinking governments who see the future generations as fodder only for the profit mechanisms of their masters.

People who are going to schools today should be fed the aspiration that they can take on jobs that have not been invented yet, not that they should do their schooling with a view to ending up in the jobs that are available today. As former Prime Minister Keating said once when talking to students, the job that he took when he first left school did not exist any more. That is the way things are changing. The education revolution is about Australia’s future, but it is also about people’s futures—individuals’ futures. We need to train and inspire our children to take on these other roles. I am a little disconcerted at the concentration that has been evident in recent years on trades training, both at school and postsecondary. I think that we need to concentrate a little more, particular in the area where I come from, on conditioning our children to the idea that they may seek to do something beyond a trade course or a certificate course if that is their desire.

I have had a lot to say in other forums about the need for a full university campus on the north side of Brisbane to serve Brisbane North and the Moreton Bay region. We have an excellent campus of QUT operating at Caboolture, and I am in no way critical of the work done by the administrative or academic staff there; they do a first-class job. The students achieve first-class results, as well, and I do not wish to diminish the workers in that university or the students in any way, but there is a limited range of opportunities available for students there. Neither of my own children were able to study a university course locally and it is quite difficult for people from our area to access universities elsewhere.

I propose to say no more than that this evening other than to say that these bills, whilst they are remarkable in the amount of attention they give to the areas that are affected, really do nothing more than that. They are not making any radical changes in terms of the funding for non-government schools—it is steady as she goes. In terms of assisting our Aboriginal students to close the gap in educational outcomes, this legislation is continuing with those processes and adding to them. I commend both bills to the House.

Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just want to make a few short comments to put my views and my support for the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 and the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 on the public record. I want to acknowledge, first, the hard and dedicated work that has been put in by a whole range of people, from the school communities, the department, the teachers and the unions through to the minister, who is ultimately responsible for these bills.

I would just like to put on the record that there is a genuine desire and a genuine commitment by the Rudd government and by Labor to move forward on education. The debate of old is just that—old—and I think a bit tired. The debate I am talking about is the one we hear from time to time in this place—the class warfare debate, where it is about one school versus another school or about who gets how much funding. These are simplistic debates that do not provide a real basis for saying that we are trying to improve the lot of all our kids in the education system, regardless of their school, regardless of the area, regardless of their background and regardless of the particular funding mechanism which provides for their education. I think that ought to be the basis on which all of us in this place can have a common goal.

If we talk about shared values and we talk about what is important, this issue would have to be one of the most important things of all: the way in which we provide a strong, solid basis to a fair system, which means that any young person going to any school in Australia has access to a bare minimum standard—a quality standard. That means that they will have an opportunity and a chance at life and education beyond the old hackneyed debates—the tired old debates—between people who keep raising excuses about why you cannot change the system or how you should leave the system in one particular way, to suit their own political ideologies. For me that is wrong. And I am talking about anyone on any side. I am not going to point a finger in one particular direction. I just think we ought to be a little bit more focused on the betterment of all schools.

When we talk about schools I think there is a disconnect. We tend to talk about the school and forget the primary goal of the school, and that is to educate young people. For me, it should not be a matter of having to make a critical decision of which school will end up being the one that provides that opportunity. It should be a decision for parents to make based on the quality of education and, depending on the area in which they live, which school can provide that education for their child. The reality for most parents is that they just do not get a choice. It really is the school in their local region that is the sole provider. There are plenty of examples, whether it is in remote areas, rural areas, or regional areas—wherever it might be. In some areas there are more choices than in others, and again we will hear plenty of debate about all those issues, but the core value comes back to the same principle: what is the role that government should play in ensuring that there is a decent level and standard of education in this country?

I certainly strongly believe that these bills are part of that process. I firmly and strongly believe that we are keeping our election promises and moving to meet the commitments we made to the Australian people in the 2007 election with these bills. It is something we have acted on very quickly and of which I am very proud. Kevin Rudd and Labor talked about and put in place a new standard. We have called it the education revolution, and we are in the process of making that revolution happen. We are doing it through a range of mechanisms: by providing more real funding than has ever been provided in the past, by providing more computers than have ever been provided before, by ensuring that teachers are recognised for the work they do and for the part they play, by working very hard to bridge the gap between those schools which have the fewest advantages and those with the most advantages and by saying, ‘We need to bring people up to a minimum standard; we need to make sure that there is a standard out in the community that is acceptable to everybody.’

We want to make sure that we bridge the gap between the highest performing students and the lowest performing students. We want to make sure that the things that we provide through our policies and through legislation are a fair reflection of how we deliver on all of those election commitments. I believe that that is what we are doing. The simplistic and tired old debates of government versus non-government should now be falling on deaf ears; they no longer should apply. Over a period of time, that is the goal; that is what we are aiming for and driving for. That is not what should be the basis of debate tonight.

The bills that we have before us do a number of things, and neither is hugely controversial or a major departure from Commonwealth funding arrangements for schools. The Schools Assistance Bill will provide for continued funding arrangements for non-government schools, and future Commonwealth funding for government schools will be provided through the national education agreement, which is currently being negotiated through the Council of Australian Governments. We are not only providing for and continuing the funding with a view to reviewing those arrangements in the future but also working very closely with other governments in Australia and partnering with them to make sure that we deliver on our promises and do the best that we can for the Australian school system.

This bill also fulfils the government’s commitment to retain the current system of general recurrent funding for non-government schools, the socioeconomic status or SES funding system, over the next four years. There are some minor modifications, and there will be a routine revision of the SES funding scores for the next four years. There will be no school that will receive less funding because of any reassessment of the SES score, so we have set a baseline guarantee that schools will not lose out. There are no losers in this. This is not about creating losers; this is about creating winners and making sure that funding is there for schools that need that funding.

The bill also provides additional funding for non-government schools that have significant numbers of Indigenous students, and this is something that I think needs to be put on the record and clearly stated. There is a massive gap in Australia between lower performing schools and higher performing schools and also, particularly in remote and rural areas, with Indigenous students. We need to do something significant that will deliver real results to increase the number of Indigenous students who do better, who have better access and more opportunities and who become less reliant on government and more reliant on themselves through a better education. That is an important fact to consider, and part of this package that we present will go to that cause. This bill will make the maximum rate of general recurrent funding automatically apply to non-government schools in remote and very remote areas that have 50 per cent Indigenous enrolments or more. I think this is a great commitment that we are making to ensure that Indigenous students get a hand-up and some fair access.

The bill also provides funding for capital grants and continues funding for existing targeted programs. These include short-term emergency assistance, education in country areas, teaching English to new arrivals, literacy, numeracy and special learning needs. The bill also provides for students with disabilities. As I said before, the funding for Indigenous students is a very important part of these bills, and the aim of the Indigenous supplementary assistance, the ISA, is to reduce the reporting and red tape for schools and provide them with increased flexibility to focus more on the educational achievement of their students and less on the administrative and red-tape provisions. This funding will be increased by $18.1 million over the next four years and will be provided through a guarantee. Together the ISA—the Indigenous supplementary assistance—and the Indigenous funding guarantee will provide $239 million over four years for the education of Indigenous students in non-government schools.

There are a number of specific conditions for Commonwealth funding for schools which I think are important to note and which schools need to be aware of. Schools are basically required to act in six key areas. One is participation in national student assessments. I think we need to ensure that right across the country students are performing to a standard. You need a way to measure it, and I think a key component of that is not just the measurement but what you do with it afterwards. I am quite excited about the prospect of using this to assist schools to make sure they have access to the sorts of resources they need.

Schools will also need to participate in national reporting on the outcomes of schooling within their school and in providing individual school performance reports to the minister so that the minister is in a position to be able to make a number of assessments about school performances. Schools will also need to provide plain-language reports to parents so that parents have a better comprehension and a better understanding of the way that their child is performing not only against their peers within the school environment but also on a national and collegiate basis as well. Schools will also need to provide publicly available information about the school’s performance and be part of an implementation of the national curriculum. These are all key parts in ensuring that, while government, through legislation and funding, plays its role in ensuring that we move forward on these issues, schools also play their role. In the end, these bills represent a follow-through on our commitment to schools and the education revolution. They will ensure that we move forward in providing the best possible opportunities and outcomes for every single student in this country. No longer should the debate be about one school versus another school; it should be about making sure that every single student has the opportunities that they need. I commend the bills to the House.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

in reply—I thank the member for Oxley and all other members who have spoken in this debate on the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 and the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. I particularly thank the member for Oxley for his personal assistance to me during the course of the debate.

The Rudd Labor government is committed to creating an education revolution. Our aim is to establish this country as one of the most highly educated and skilled nations in the world. Education not only drives productivity but also empowers individuals to reach their full potential and helps overcome disadvantage. The government has made substantial progress towards these aims with the 2008-09 budget delivering $19.3 billion in investments in education, cementing the government’s commitment to trade training centres, new digital technology and a national curriculum. The Schools Assistance Bill 2008 adds further significant investment to school education, whilst the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 extends the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000 so that the government can continue to make supplementary investments to contribute towards closing the gaps between the outcomes for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

I thank everyone who has spoken on this debate, from both sides of the House, for their participation and I note that the debate has been thorough and wide ranging. I think that the commitment of members to speaking in this debate reflects the central role that schooling plays in our nation and, consequently, the priority that members of this House—indeed of this parliament overall—attach to it. I will respond to the claims that have been made during this debate and reiterate why these bills presented together are an essential building block in our reform agenda. In doing so, I would also underline to the House the urgency of passing them. Schools and students need this legislation to pass before the end of 2008. Without the legislation, the Australian government is unable to make recurrent payments to non-government schools and systems for the school year beginning in January 2009. I cannot imagine that any member of the House would want non-government schools to start the next school year in a situation of uncertainty.

The Rudd Labor government has promised certainty and stability in school funding. We cannot leave these schools, students and families in a position of not knowing what might happen just because it might suit the opposition, or indeed other political parties in the Senate, to seek to delay passage of the bill. As the Independent Schools Council of Australia among others have recognised, it is urgent and imperative that this bill is passed in a timely way and that the various stakeholders work together constructively to pass it. They are wise words which should be considered by all members of this House and certainly by all members of the Senate. Scrutiny and transparency should, of course, always be respected in the parliamentary process, but delay for the sake of political point-scoring should not be a feature of that process.

The Schools Assistance Bill will appropriate an estimated $28 billion in Commonwealth funding for non-government schools over 2009-12, including supplementary assistance for Indigenous students, and will implement the government’s commitment to provide stability and certainty of funding. A further $779 million is estimated to be appropriated under the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000 through the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. These bills have been introduced in parallel with the development of new financial arrangements being negotiated between the Commonwealth, state and territory governments through the Council of Australian Governments. They will be reflected in the national education agreement that we will complete later this year.

The COAG reform framework means that for the first time all governments in Australia will agree to a single set of objectives, outcomes, outputs and targets—and, hence, educational priorities and reform directions—for the school system. The Australian government considers that the COAG reform agenda must deliver real change in three core areas: it must raise the quality of teaching in our schools; it must help ensure all students benefit from schooling through strategies based on high expectations of attainment, education and transitions for every student, especially in disadvantaged school communities; and it must improve transparency and accountability of schools and school systems at all levels. These two bills are an essential step in delivering that change.

Before the 2007 election, we committed to improving transparency in Australian schooling through national testing, easy to understand reports for parents and public reporting on the performance of schools. A central feature of funding arrangements for 2009 to 2012 is therefore a simpler, stronger performance information and reporting framework for non-government schools which will be consistent with the conditions required of government schools under the national education agreement. This transparency framework will apply equally and consistently to non-government and government schools.

The requirements in this bill focus strongly on five features that are central to good reporting to parents, the community and government: national testing, national reports on the outcomes of schooling, provision of individual school information, reports to parents and publication of information by schools. This bill contains provisions to ensure that non-government schools receiving Commonwealth funding will provide a range of information in readily accessible formats which enable fair and transparent reporting. These are needed in order to give parents information about how their child and their school are doing to support them in making the right choice of school and in order to guide resources and policy decision making towards the greatest possible effectiveness and improvement.

Transparency about the income received from different sources is of obvious importance in understanding the effectiveness of individual schools and in treating all schools, government and non-government, consistently. There have been claims that the bill will require schools to publicly disclose every individual item of income. In fact, the bill makes it possible for income to be reported consistently by source in a way that will be compatible with the existing regulatory requirements to report to the department through a financial questionnaire. We are committed to reducing the regulatory burden on schools and we will examine, through the regulations and guidelines for this act, how we can ensure that the provision of information about income can be as efficient as possible.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Pyne interjecting

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The shadow minister for education is inquiring of me by way of interjection whether we will commit to not publishing it. The government is committed to transparency. We believe that transparency is important. The same transparency framework will apply to non-government schools and government schools.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is interesting that interjections are coming from the Liberal Party, which at one point used to proudly say that it believed in transparency. Clearly, now it believes that secrecy should be associated with education. But we will not allow critics of transparency to obscure the purposes of our reforms. Only by understanding the total amount of funds at the disposal of individual schools is it possible to understand the relationship between resourcing and educational outcomes.

The opposition have claimed in this debate that the income of a school is irrelevant to understanding its performance. I find this claim nonsensical. If we are to identify accurately where the greatest educational need across the Australian community is located and encourage excellence in every school, we need a basis for fair, consistent and accurate analysis of how different schools are doing.

This bill includes performance reporting at individual school level. The government has repeatedly stated that such reporting will not take the form of simplistic league tables. Instead, any public reporting would show how schools are doing compared to other like schools that share the same student characteristics. States and school systems are currently working with the Australian government to examine which forms of data are relevant to understanding the performance of schools, given their overall circumstances and the students that they serve. A particular emphasis on Indigenous students will feature in performance data to guide improvements in closing the educational gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children.

Implementation of greater transparency will be supported by the recent agreement by the Council of Australian Governments to the establishment of a new national education authority, the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. That will bring together for the first time the functions of curriculum, assessment and reporting at the national level. The new national curriculum will provide a clear and explicit agreement on the curriculum essentials that all young Australians should have access to, regardless of their socioeconomic background or the location of their school.

In this bill, the government is not requiring detailed adherence to a rigid, line-by-line program of curriculum study. Instead, it is making clear that the national curriculum, once agreed and completed, will be compulsory. Consideration will be given to whether some existing curricula meet the requirements laid down by the new curriculum framework. What is not open for negotiation is the idea that a world-class curriculum will be an optional extra for schools that are receiving significant public funds.

The national curriculum will not be a straightjacket for schools. It will provide for flexibility and scope to allow schools and teachers to implement its content and achievement standards in appropriate ways at the local and school level. It should not interfere with the ability of independent schools to continue to offer local curriculum arrangements within the requirements of the curriculum essentials of the national curriculum.

A further erroneous claim in relation to the bill has been made. That claim is that it enables the minister to in some way capriciously withhold money from a school that has an unqualified audit report. I indicate for the benefit of the House—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Qualified.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I understood the opposition’s claims—and I have its second reading—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Qualified for reasons other than financial viability.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Right. I have the second reading amendment. I can clarify this for the shadow minister at the table. According to his second reading amendment—which has been foreshadowed and circulated and which will be moved later in the debate—he is apparently concerned about a:

hidden agenda evidenced by:

(a)   granting greater power to the Minister to delay or end funding to non-government schools because of an audit qualified for non-financial reasons;

Can I provide to him the explanation for the provision in the bill. The explanation is simply this: it is possible for an auditor to submit an unqualified report—that is, unqualified directly in the sense of an auditor’s qualification—that still expresses concerns about the financial viability of the school. The auditor may report that the school’s accounts provide a fair and true representation of the school’s finances; however, without qualifying their opinion, the auditor may also express concerns about the school body’s viability such as where it is highly dependent on the continued goodwill of its financiers in which funds have been borrowed on better-than-commercial terms. It is in relation to that kind of matter that the provision is being sought—a probity provision, something related to appropriate and proper use of government funds and something the shadow minister is obviously confused about.

The Schools Assistance Bill will make important changes for Indigenous students in non-government schools. Non-government schools where 80 per cent or more of the students are Indigenous and non-government schools in very remote areas where 50 per cent or more of the students are Indigenous will receive maximum funding. This additional funding will enable Indigenous students to receive a higher level of support and to achieve better educational outcomes—something I trust every member of the House is able to support. Bringing supplementary Indigenous education funding into the Schools Assistance Bill and streamlining the administrative arrangements that support that funding will reduce the administrative burden and increase flexibility for providers so that they can get on with the vital job that we want them to do: closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. We trust that the impact on Indigenous Australians will be positive; 2,157 Indigenous students in non-government schools will attract maximum funding under the bill.

COAG agreed that as a national priority we must aim to halve the gap in literacy and numeracy outcomes over the next decade and halve the year 12 attainment gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians by 2020. This will not be achieved unless we create the conditions for schools to do things differently to meet these targets. The Education Legislation Amendment Bill extends the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000, which also enhances the government’s ability to create the right conditions for change. In summarising the debate I also note that, under the Schools Assistance Bill, most approved authorities will be better off financially but, importantly, no approved authority will be worse off. Independent schools can decide on the best way to support their students. Where schools are in a cluster association with each school contributing resources, they will not be prevented by this legislation from continuing this arrangement in the future.

The legislation ensures that states pass the funding to approved authorities in a timely manner. The legislation makes no changes to the SES funding model used to calculate the allocations to the non-government sector. Indexation is also calculated in the same way as for the previous quadrennium. One change is the discontinuation of establishment grants, and this has been referred to during the debate. Establishment grants were introduced in 2001 as part of the socioeconomic status funding arrangements for non-government schools. The additional funding was provided to allay independent non-government school concerns about establishing new schools with funding levels based on their SES scores in competition with Catholic systemic schools, which at the time were not funded in the same way as the rest of the sector.

When in 2005 Catholic systemic schools became part of the SES funding arrangements, the rationale for establishment grants continuing was weakened. A survey of the non-government schools sector undertaken as part of the evaluation of the Establishment Grants Program showed that school operators did not base decisions about opening up a new school on the availability of establishment grants funding. For example, the following quote is typical of the views expressed during the evaluation:

The grant is too small to influence such a major decision as opening a new school.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rubbish!

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a quote from a person involved in the process, not from me. I would also like to correct the assertion that this government was responsible for the demise of the Investing in Our Schools program. The previous Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, made it clear that the last round of funding was the final round.

We need to build in our schools a culture of high expectations for students and teachers. This culture must also be matched by effective transparency and accountability mechanisms that meet the needs of parents, policymakers and the broader community. The Schools Assistance Bill 2008 and the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 are critical elements in this national agenda, and I commend the bills to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.