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

I indicate to the House that the government proposes that amendments (1) to (3) and (5) to (9) be agreed to and that amendment (4) be disagreed to. I suggest therefore that it may suit the convenience of the House to first consider amendments (1) to (3) and (5) to (9) and, when those amendments have been disposed of, to consider amendment (4). I move:

That Senate amendments Nos. 1 to 3 and 5 to 9 be agreed to.

Amendments (1) to (3) are government amendments. The government has been in constructive discussions with Senator Nick Xenophon. I would also like to acknowledge that Senator Christine Milne and the Australian Greens have also taken a very constructive approach to the Schools Assistance Bill 2008, and I thank both Senator Xenophon and Senator Milne for the approach that they have taken.

Government amendments (1) to (3) deal with the question of the powers of a minister when a school has a qualified audit. Obviously, to withhold or delay funding to a school is a very major thing to do. It was never the intention of the government that such a power would be used in any but the most serious of circumstances. It was proposed by Senator Xenophon that it may be convenient to make this a disallowable instrument so that, should this quite serious step ever be taken, the matter would be brought before the parliament. The government is very happy to agree with that. Obviously, our intention was never to use these powers lightly. Having a disallowable instrument will ensure that the parliament can exercise oversight should payments to a school ever be stopped or delayed because of a qualified audit.

Amendment (5) is also a government amendment. The government has been very clear that among other election commitments one of the things that it is seeking to achieve through this bill is a new era of transparency in schooling. We have also made it abundantly clear that there is not one obligation we will put on non-government schools that we will not also put on government schools. That will require transparency in relation to characteristics and needs of the school population, the teaching resources of the school, the academic results of students—including on national testing and attainment to year 12 and equivalent—and also the resources available to the school.

There developed a concern that making available matters associated with resources may require the identification of a particular donor to a school. It was never the government’s intention to seek to have the identity of individual donors disclosed. We were obviously talking about, and continue to talk about, categories of funding. Consequently, the government is more than happy to respond to these concerns by clarifying in the legislation that there is nothing about the government’s transparency measures which requires the identification of a particular donor. That was never sought by the government.

Amendments (6) to (9) were moved by Senator Mason in the Senate last night. These amendments relate to the Indigenous funding guarantee. The government maintains that the amendments moved by Senator Mason are not necessary given that the Indigenous funding guarantee ensures that non-government school authorities will receive funding levels at least comparable to their 2008 entitlement, and most schools will become immediately better off through the new arrangements. Obviously we are very keen to get money through to assist Indigenous students. Whilst we view these amendments as not being strictly necessary, the government is very happy to include them in the bill, because I believe we are all on the same page on this: we want to make sure that funding for Indigenous students reaches Indigenous students. Senator Mason had a concern about that and we are happy to respond to his concern by including these amendments in the bill.  (Extension of time granted)

I thank the House for facilitating a further contribution, which will be very short. With these amendments the bill delivers what the government promised. It promised non-government schools before the election that we would deliver to them on the SES funding formula. This bill delivers on that promise, making available $28 billion in resources. We promised the Australian people before the last election that we would introduce new school performance reporting. This is a matter we have worked on all year. This is a new era of transparency. We have just had Joel Klein, the New York City schools chancellor, in the country speaking about this matter. In this bill, with these amendments included, we deliver a new era of transparency. Once again, every obligation that this bill puts on non-government schools is an obligation that has already been agreed to for government schools by premiers and chief ministers when they met at COAG on the weekend.

This bill also delivers on the government’s election commitment for a national curriculum. That matter is still the subject of disputation and that will be dealt with when I speak to amendment (4), with which the government disagrees. I recommend to the House that Senate amendments (1) to (3) and (5) to (9) be agreed to, for the reasons that I have outlined.

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

The Schools Assistance Bill 2008, which we debated in this House in October, was opposed by the opposition as it stood, without amendment, for very strong and very important reasons. We are glad that the government, although they have been dragged kicking and screaming to this position, have backed down in two out of the three areas of the opposition’s concerns. They are yet to do so in the area of the national curriculum, which we will debate later on this morning. In two out of the three areas that I outlined in my speech on the second reading and that I have repeated, some would say ad nauseam, since 16 October when we had that debate, the government have finally seen reason and common sense has prevailed. While they are hiding behind the fig leaf of Senator Xenophon on these amendments, these are essentially the amendments that we proposed for the qualified audit and funding disclosure. I do not mind if the government feel that they cannot own up to the fact that they have adopted the opposition’s amendments. I am sure Senator Xenophon does not mind being used as a fig leaf if the outcome is better for schools.

We said in October that the powers that the bill gave the Minister for Education over audit provisions were too broad. We said that when an audit of a school was returned that was qualified for financial viability reasons then the minister should have the power to delay or stop funding to that school. That has always been the situation; it was in the previous government and we believed it should continue. The bill said that, for any reason, any qualified audit could give the minister that power to delay or end funding. We took the view that that meant that, if, for example, an auditor was unfamiliar with the set-up of a governing council of a school and said in their audit that while the school was financially viable they had concerns that perhaps the governing council was too large or too small or whatever, that would in effect be a qualified audit—and our advice was that that was the case—and, for non-financial reasons, the minister would have the power to delay or end funding. I am quite sure that the minister would not do that for any nefarious reasons. The government certainly would not. We did not think it was a good idea to have that in the bill and we moved to amend it in the House of Representatives. The government defeated our amendments in October and the amendments then went to the Senate. Yesterday, hiding behind Senator Xenophon, the government backed down on their opposition to our amendments, which we are debating today. The opposition will definitely agree to those—it would be a bit unusual for us to oppose our own amendments.

The second area that the government has backed down on, which is even more important—certainly very important for the schools sector—is the whole issue of funding disclosure. The opposition have no difficulty with transparency; we never have. The financial records that the previous government collected from schools as part of their report to the government about their financial affairs were always collected by the government and held by the government and used for useful reasons. But they were never to be published.

The previous government’s view was that non-government schools, and government schools—but we are debating non-government schools in this bill—had a right to be able to receive funds and revenue from sources and that those sources should not be made public. The fact that they receive federal government resources, or taxpayers’ money, means that there is a certain level of necessity to justify what they are doing. An individual taxpayer provides their information to the Australian Taxation Office and hence the government, and they are of course prepared to do so, but they would not expect to see that information published on the front page of the newspaper or broadcast on the nightly television news—and neither should the non-government school sector, or for that matter the government school sector, have to do so.

Therefore in October we moved amendments to the bill that would not allow that information to be published. The amendments would allow the information to be collected but we did not believe that it should be possible for that to be disclosed. The government said at that time that they would essentially fight us on the beaches with respect to the funding disclosure aspects of this bill. (Extension of time granted) We sought to amend the funding disclosure aspects of the bill in October. The government opposed those amendments in the House of Representatives. Again they went to the Senate. Again, the intervention of Senator Xenophon assured the opposition that these amendments would be adopted because the government simply did not have the numbers if it did not adopt Senator Xenophon’s proposals, which essentially are amendments. We will not be opposing them.

The minister said that it was always the intention of the government not to publish the individual sources of funding to the non-government school sector. It is unusual, because what the minister has said in this place is on the record in Hansard. During the debate on 21 October, when I interjected across the House, I said to her that when we were in government they were not to be disclosed. I asked, ‘Are they going to be disclosed?’ The minister responded:

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.

How on earth could anybody take those comments to mean anything other than the fact that this information was going to be published? If it was not going to be published, why didn’t the minister say, ‘I will commit to not publishing it’? She could have said that instead of:

The shadow minister for education is inquiring of me by way of interjection whether we will commit to not publishing it.

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Training and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She was just going to keep it in her top drawer.

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

She was just going to keep it in the top drawer, as the member for Boothby says. She could have said on 21 October, ‘I will commit to not publishing it.’ Instead she said:

The government is committed to transparency.

So every person in the school sector and everybody in the House—not that it was packed on that day; I think it was the minister, me and maybe one other in the House—would have taken from that comment that the government were going to publish it. Yet the minister now says, hand on heart, over and over again, that it was always their intention to not publish it. It is not important to us whether the minister can admit to backing down. That is not important to us. What is important is that the school sector has certainty that their sources of funding are not going to be on the front pages of the newspaper or on the television news at night. It is important to them, and I am glad that the government has adopted the opposition’s amendments in relation to funding disclosure. I welcome it.

We are delighted, and we do not mind at all that the minister cannot admit that she has adopted the opposition’s position and that, again, she has to hide behind the fig leaf of Senator Xenophon in her embarrassment. But we will support those amendments because, as I said, they are our amendments. We will get to the debate, of course, about the issue of the national curriculum shortly—after these debates are concluded. I thank the House.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this debate on the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 I wish to speak about the great Gillard backdown, the great Deputy Prime Minister backdown. I pay tribute to the shadow minister for education, the member for Sturt, who has done a fantastic job on this bill. It started in October, in this House—and I spoke on this bill—when we opposed the requirement that funding be made public, which is what the minister intended to do. Make no mistake: this is part of a long-term agenda that the Deputy Prime Minister has. It is about the school hit list. This is what this is all about.

If we go back to 2004 to look at the history of this matter we find that the Deputy Prime Minister’s then favourite member of parliament was the member for Werriwa—the Leader of the Opposition at that time, Mr Latham—whom we all remember. There were three great policy issues that dominated the campaign in that year.

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Training and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Medicare Gold.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The first one, of course, was the forestry issue, which was so well handled by those on the other side! The second one, as the member for Boothby so rightly identifies, was Medicare Gold, which will hang like an albatross around the Deputy Prime Minister’s neck for ever. She does not mention it anymore. It is the policy that dare not speak its name. But it was her idea. She pursued it. It was her great idea to win the election, but of course we know what happened. The third issue was the school hit list, which I do not think she was involved in at that point.

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How are you going on the Work Choices?

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, I noticed that there are some interesting changes to that bill too, Minister. What we have seen here today is the Deputy Prime Minister arrogantly refusing to acknowledge that the reason they have changed this bill is the opposition. She arrogantly refuses; it is part of the tactics. She is an extraordinarily clever lawyer; there is no question about that. She is an extraordinarily clever debater. She gets up in this place and answers questions through omission. That is what she does. She does not answer the question; she leaves out what she does not want to answer. The Deputy Prime Minister did that yesterday in question time. She is very clever; there is no question about that. But on this matter it is quite clear that these amendments were pushed by the opposition and pursued by the opposition. And credit should go to the opposition. It is to our credit that we pushed this. This was of great concern to private schools in my electorate, to independent schools who were very concerned about this information appearing on the front page of the Advertiser.

And, make no mistake, that is what the Labor Party do. That is what they do at the state level and that is what they will do at the federal level. What they do is build a case on their ideological agenda, put it through the newspapers and say: ‘Well, you know, they do have a lot of money; they do have a lot of resources. We should take a lot of resources off them.’ That is exactly what their intention was with that amendment. It was the school hit list writ large on its way back, the Deputy Prime Minister pursuing an ideological agenda. She arrogantly dismisses our role in this. She uses Senator Xenophon as a fig leaf, as the member for Sturt rightly identifies—an interesting fig leaf. She arrogantly refuses to accept our role in this because, of course, it is the greatest spin-run government in the history of the Commonwealth. Yesterday I mentioned the ‘decisive-o-meter’. We have not heard ‘decisive’ on this. This, of course, is a decisive decision to backflip on this.

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A decisive backflip.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is. Hopefully it will add to the six mentions of ‘decisive’ so far in December. We had 156 in October and 111 in November. We had one in January. We were not decisive in January, but we were decisive in October and we were decisive in November. We have started strongly being decisive in December and this could be a ‘decisive’ day today—a decisive backdown. The other piece of information that has come to me overnight, interestingly, on the decisive-o-meter is the decisive-o-meter versus business confidence. You will see the comparison: decisive is up, business confidence is down.

I come back to the point, which is that the Deputy Prime Minister arrogantly refuses to accept the work of the member for Sturt, the work of the opposition, who stood up for independent schools on this and protected independent schools from the hit list. Because, make no mistake, the hit list is back—back with this minister, back with this Deputy Prime Minister. I commend the member for Sturt.

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

There are just two other items I want to add. One is that the opposition will support amendments (6) to (9), which will ensure that Indigenous students from very remote areas who are boarding at schools in towns and cities will not be disadvantaged by the bill. These amendments improve the funding arrangements. It was particularly called for by the Queensland Catholic Education Commission and arose out of evidence that the commission gave to the Senate inquiry. I thank the Senate for raising those amendments yesterday at the behest of the opposition and I thank the government for adopting those. Like the minister, I am not sure they are absolutely necessary, but they do make certain and clear the intention of the bill.

The last thing I say on these matters that we are agreeing to is that the real reason, of course, for the funding disclosure part of the bill, which I have not touched on yet, is that it was part of the hidden agenda in this schools bill. The hidden agenda in this schools bill was, ‘Let’s publish all the information we can about funding sources for non-government schools and build the case over the next two years to undo the SES funding model.’ The objective: to undo the SES funding model that the previous government introduced that the Labor Party has always hated. The hidden agenda in this bill was, ‘If we give the Australian Education Union—and others in the community who do not like the SES funding model—the tools they need we can tear it down in 2010 when the review of the model is slated to begin.’ That is one of the reasons the opposition was so strong in opposing that part of the bill and in moving its amendments. I am not sure that they were the reasons that motivated other senators, but it was certainly one reason that motivated us in the Senate.

One of the key people, of course, who hates the SES funding model is the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education. In the Hansard of 16 October I quoted what she said in September 2000:

The last objection to the SES model is more philosophical, that the model makes no allowance for the amassed resources of any particular school. As we are all aware, over the years many prestige schools have amassed wealth—wealth in terms of buildings and facilities, wealth in terms of the equipment available, wealth in terms of alumni funding raising, trust funds, endowment funds and the like.

       …         …         …

… it must follow as a matter of logic that the economic capacity of a school is affected by both its income generation potential—from the current class of parents whose kids are enrolled in the school—and the assets of the school. The SES funding system makes some attempt to measure the income generation potential of the parents of the kids in the school but absolutely no attempt to measure the latter, the assets of the school. This is a gaping flaw …

She was joined by the Assistant Treasurer and the new member for Eden-Monaro in publicly condemning the SES funding model over the years. Of course, the member for Fowler, as recently as the debate on this bill in October, criticised the SES funding model. So we know that on the other side of the House there is a deep wound about the introduction of the SES funding model and the removal of the hated education resource index. In 2004, the Minister for Education, then the opposition spokesman, supported the then Leader of the Opposition’s schools hit list, but also particularly—

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She was Latham’s numbers man.

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

In fact, the Deputy Prime Minister was the numbers man for the member for Werriwa—the numbers woman in this case or the numbers person. She supported the return of what they called the national resources index. They changed one word. It was the return of the hated ERI system and the dismantling of the SES funding model. The hidden agenda in this bill, the funding disclosure aspects, was of course to undo the SES funding model. So at least the school sector has some comfort, because of the adoption of our amendments, that the day that the SES funding model goes to the guillotine has been put off for a little while yet.

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

The question is that Senate amendments Nos (1) to (3) and (5) to (9) be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

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

I move:

That Senate amendment No. 4 be disagreed to.

We have just seen, even on the amendments that were agreed to, the perspective that the Liberal Party are bringing to this debate. It is about them, the Liberal Party, and it is about political credit for the shadow minister for education. It is about fear campaigns, and it is about misrepresentation. The only thing that it is not about, according to Liberal Party, is the education of Australian children. From the point of view of the government this is all about the education of Australian children and particularly Australian children in non-government schools.

The government went to the 2007 election saying that we would deliver funding on the SES formula—that has been done in this bill and is no longer contested by those opposite. We said we would deliver new transparency measures—that has been done in this bill and is no longer contested. We said we would deliver a national curriculum, and we are determined to deliver that national curriculum because it would be better for Australian children—better for Australian children in non-government schools, better for Australian children in government schools and, most particularly, better for those 80,000 children who move interstate each year and go into a school with a different curriculum.

This amendment deletes section 22 of the Schools Assistance Bill 2008, which requires as a condition of funding the implementation of a national curriculum in all non-government schools by 31 January 2012—that is, this amendment that I am asking the House to disagree to deletes the section that delivers on the government’s election commitment for a national curriculum. This amendment—which was moved by Senator Fielding and supported by the opposition in the Senate—would destroy the national curriculum. We are determined to deliver on our election promise of an improvement for Australian children. Already government schools have signed up through the premiers and chief ministers. This is a curriculum that is being worked on through a collaborative process—a curriculum board, which includes amongst its number representatives of independent schools and Catholic schools. So we are determined to deliver our election commitment and determined to have the same arrangements for non-government schools as those that apply to government schools.

Most importantly of all, we are determined to get money to non-government schools. Shortly before I came into the chamber I stood with Mr Bill Daniels, who is the executive director of the Independent Schools Council of Australia, and with Dr Bill Griffiths, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Catholic Education Commission, at a press conference. At that press conference those national representatives of independent and Catholic schools in this country said to the people of Australia, and most particularly to members of this parliament, that they are supportive of the national curriculum process, they are engaged in the national curriculum process—they are part of it and they are on the national curriculum board—and they do not seek the amendment that the Liberal Party supported and that Senator Fielding moved. They are content for the national curriculum to be part of this bill and they called most urgently and strenuously on all members of this parliament—both the House of Representatives and the Senate—to pass this bill with the national curriculum provisions in it and to pass it to give funding certainty to non-government schools.

The shadow minister therefore is not representing in this place the schools this bill is about. The schools this bill is about—the non-government schools who are going to get money—have said loud and clear through their national representatives that they support the national curriculum and that they want this bill passed with the national curriculum clause in it. The shadow minister is not representing them. The schools that will actually benefit from this bill want this bill passed as the government is proposing it. This is very serious. They want this bill passed as the government is proposing it.

The shadow minister has said in support of his arguments—and I say ‘his arguments’ because they are not the arguments (Extension of time granted) of the national independent schools sector or the national Catholic school sector—that people should not be required to sign up to a curriculum that they have not seen. But this is hypocrisy by the Liberal Party—rank hypocrisy of the worst order. When an education funding bill was last before this parliament for schools and the Howard government was in office, and the shadow minister was a member of it, the Liberal Party presented to this place a bill that tied funding to statements of learning that at that stage had not been developed. So the Liberal Party is now seeking to lecture the government about something that it did it itself when in government. This is hypocrisy—nothing more; nothing less.

Finally I want to lay before the House very clearly the consequences of the Liberal Party staying on this erroneous path and defeating or holding up the Schools Assistance Bill. Let us make no mistake about it—what this will mean is that non-government schools will struggle to open next year without the benefit of government funds that they are relying on. The shadow minister for education knows that. He is seeking to avoid the political responsibility for it by muttering that the government must have a contingency plan.

I want to say in this parliament very clearly that there is no contingency plan. To appropriate money for non-government schools requires the passage of this legislation—that is what it is for; it is for the delivery of $28 billion into the hands of non-government schools. If the opposition insist on this course then they must also take political responsibility for its consequences. You cannot act in politics without owning the consequences. Let us be very clear, and everybody in this parliament and members of the public should be very clear about this: the consequence of the opposition sticking to this course and this bill not passing the parliament whilst it sits in 2008 is that non-government schools will struggle to open next year because they will not have the benefit of government funds.

Now, I cannot tell you precisely what is going to happen, Mr Deputy Speaker Slipper, because we have never been in this position before. Maybe some of them will not open at all. Maybe some of them will open underresourced. Maybe some of them will open having stood teachers down because they cannot afford their salaries. I do not know precisely what will happen, but imagine you were a principal of a non-government school and a large percentage of your income—maybe 50, 60 or 70 per cent—was contingent on this bill passing. If it does not pass, how then do you run your school in the opening weeks of the school year next year?

This is not about the kind of politics that the Liberal Party is seeking to play with it. In this parliament, we get up here and, sure, we do the sorts of things that the member for Mayo just did—talking about other members, referring to things about them, seeking to make political advantage, political capital. That does happen in this place; it happens on all sides of this parliament. I acknowledge that. But this is more important than that. This is not the grievance debate, this is not a statement in the Main Committee; this is making a decision about whether or not students in this country who attend non-government schools go to schools next year that have the benefit of $28 billion of resources. The school sector has spoken. They stood alongside me at a press conference: Mr Bill Daniels to one side for independent schools; Mr Bill Griffiths on the other side for Catholic schools. They said they support the national curriculum. They support the national curriculum clause being in this bill, and they are asking this parliament to make sure that this bill passes the House and passes the Senate. On their behalf, I am asking the Liberal Party to do the same thing and to not play destructive politics which would harm non-government schools in this nation. They say they care about the non-government school sector. There is one way to prove it: vote for this bill with the national curriculum in it.

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

I will begin where the Deputy Prime Minister finished—that is, this is a very important debate. We understand that, absolutely. I am not sure that the Deputy Prime Minister understands it as clearly as she makes out, because in fact this bill has been amended by the Senate. The national curriculum aspect of the bill is no longer linked to the funding aspect of the bill. The national curriculum has been removed from this bill by the Senate, and that is why the government is moving the motion that the amendment be disagreed to, because they—not the opposition—are making the decision to put the national curriculum part back into the funding part of the bill. So the government could agree right now to pass the bill, and the funding would flow to the schools as of tomorrow. They could do it if they wished to. They could do if they made that decision. There is no reason at all why the national curriculum has to be part of this funding bill. It is the new Labor way, of course, to link all things together—parts that the opposition does not wish to support with parts that it does. But we do not have to play the government’s game, and I do not intend to.

The national curriculum does not have to be part of this bill. It is not slated to begin until 2012. It is 2008. The government has all the time in the world to get the national curriculum right. It has all the time in the world to clarify the position for Steiner schools, Montessori schools, schools that teach the International Baccalaureate, schools that teach the Cambridge International Examinations method of schooling, schools that teach the Amelia Reggio method of schooling, schools that look after students with special needs and disabilities—all of which are at risk under the way the national curriculum is being described in this bill. Now why is that? Because the way the government has described the national curriculum is not the way that the previous government did. The government has removed a critically important phrase from the way we described the national curriculum. We used to say—it was actually our idea—that we would have a national curriculum or its equivalent accredited by appropriate authorities. The government has removed ‘or its equivalent’ and is simply mandating an inflexible, centrally controlled national curriculum that each school must sign up to or it will not get its money.

The coalition have no difficulties with diversity and choice in education. We stand for diversity and choice in education and always have. We were the party that decided to fund the independent and Catholic school sector in the Menzies government. That was our decision. On this side of the House we have always been in favour of supporting diversity and choice; both the non-government and government sector are important to us. This is an important debate. This is the debate on this bill, because if the national curriculum is linked to funding from 1 January, if every school is required to sign up to it, they are signing up to an unfinished, inflexible, mandated and centrally controlled national curriculum and they have not even seen the fine print, let alone the final national curriculum document.

The Minister for Education was a lawyer before she came into this place. The Minister for Education would not sign a contract for which she had not seen the fine print. The Minister for Education would not advise a client to sign a contract which they had not even seen the terms of. It is the most absurd notion that in December 2008 apparently the sky will fall in if a national curriculum is not part of this bill—it is not slated to begin for four years. It is an absurd notion. The Minister for Education knows full well that she could support the opposition in removing that part from the bill and the money will flow to the non-government schools from the moment the bill is passed. We are committed to supporting that. We supported it in the House of Representatives, we supported it in the Senate, and we will support it again today. We will support the funds flowing. So if the funds do not flow, there is only one side of the House that will be responsible for that, and that is the government side. It is the government’s decision. It is the cabinet’s decision. It is the Prime Minister’s and the Deputy Prime Minister’s decision. (Extension of time granted)

The Deputy Prime Minister talked about the sector. She had a show press conference today where she brought out representatives of the sector. One of those representatives from the Independent Schools Council of Australia wrote to me on 10 October, before this bill was debated in the House and before I gave my speech. In that letter, the Executive Director of the Independent Schools Council of Australia, Mr Bill Daniels, said:

There are also reservations about several provisions of the Bill.

               …            …            …

The sector has yet to see the draft regulations or guidelines and consequently it is not clear precisely what the Government intends to require of schools under this provision.

He is talking about the national curriculum. He continued:

There is also considerable uncertainty about the final form of the national curriculum given that it is in its formative stage of development. The Bill in effect will require independent schools to agree to have their funding contingent on undefined curricula, subject to undefined arrangements.

Many independent schools offer curricula such as the International Baccalaureate, the University of Cambridge International Examinations, Montessori and Steiner programs and will wish to continue to do so in the future. There are also independent schools that offer high quality teaching and learning programs for students with special needs and ISCA considers that it is important for the autonomy of independent schools that they have the freedom to offer these curricula. It is not at all clear that this will be permissible under this legislation.

The Executive Director of ISCA, Mr Bill Daniels, wrote to me on 10 October 2008 in those terms. It could not be clearer that in October the Independent Schools Council of Australia was urging and supporting the opposition to amend this bill and to remove the national curriculum so that we could have that debate and make it clear in the months ahead. What has changed is that obviously we know the government has held a gun to the head of the independent schools sector, to the non-government sector, and is bullying the sector, as they tried to hold a gun to the head of the Senate last night. All credit to Senator Fielding from Victoria and the opposition for standing by their principles on the issue of the national curriculum.

I am disappointed that today ISCA has done a public press conference with the minister and said what they have said, but I understand it because it would be a very courageous peak body indeed that, faced with the prospect of the government cutting off their money on 1 January, decided to continue to press their concerns. We know that they have concerns; we have it in black and white. It would be very courageous—it would be Sir Humphrey Appleby level courage—for the independent schools’ peak body to today come out and attack the government. They have $28 billion on the table and they know that the election is not for two years. If I were advising them, even though I have a different view on this issue, I would say, ‘You are between a rock and a hard place.’ But the opposition is not between a rock and a hard place, because the opposition believes fervently that this bill can be split—it has been split—that the national curriculum can be taken out of the bill and that we can have the debate about how it affects Steiner schools, Montessori schools, IB schools, Cambridge International Examinations schools, Reggio Emilia schools and other schools of that kind. We support diversity and choice.

The power is in the hands of the government to make the money flow, and all they have to do is insert ‘or its accredited equivalent’—four words, two of them small and two of them long—in the bill and we will pass it. All we need to know is that an accredited equivalent will be acceptable. Why will the government not do that? Why will the government not insert those four words in the bill? Why would the government be so intransigent about it? They were happy to do so to clear up the issue for Indigenous students. They were happy to do so in the face of Senator Xenophon’s amendments that we supported that were our amendments. But, for some reason which I cannot fathom, apparently to insert ‘or its accredited equivalent’ would bring the government to a standstill.

Our view in the opposition is that if the government inserts ‘or its accredited equivalent’ in the bill we will pass it. There is an offer for the minister to consider. We are obviously going to vote against the government’s motion and it will go back to the Senate and the Senate will then have to decide what to do. We will support the bill if you insert those four words. (Time expired)

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the shadow minister, the member for Sturt, and to support amendment (4) passed by the Senate last evening. What we saw before was typical of the Deputy Prime Minister where she puts words into people’s mouths—she verbals people. She made the claim that we do not support education. That was the claim she made when she stood up and spoke. That is completely untrue. I spoke very clearly in this House on this bill because I do support education. I support education because I understand the importance of educating our young people. As a father with two young children, I understand how important education is. I have a conflict of interest: I intend to send my children to an independent school. I know that might be offensive to those on the other side, but I do. In fact, my eldest will be in her primary year of school in 2012 when this national curriculum starts—three years away. So why is the Deputy Prime Minister threatening the independent schools sector in December 2008 with something that will not begin until 2012, and we have not even seen it yet? We in this place are expected to sign a blank cheque for the Deputy Prime Minister on a national curriculum that my children will learn under.

You sit there and tell us we do not care about education. Let me tell you, Deputy Prime Minister, that we do care about education—we care deeply about education—and we will not be told by a bullying Deputy Prime Minister that we do not. We know that is your tactic. We know the arrogant tactic to come in here and be virtuous on everything. We dare speak out. Can you imagine an opposition speaking out? Can you imagine an opposition actually standing in this place, in a democracy, and raising issues with the government of the day, particularly when we might be right? I know it hurts to make mistakes. We have all made mistakes. The previous government made mistakes, this government has made mistakes; and you have made a mistake. So you should change your mind on this bill and accept the amendment.

Yet again the Deputy Prime Minister refuses to identify the shadow minister’s and the opposition’s role in this. That is part of the political tactic—the opposition is irrelevant. We have seen it with the global financial crisis where a big mistake was made on the bank deposits guarantee, a mistake they would not have made had they listened to the Leader of the Opposition. We have seen it with this bill—she has backed down on two provisions, the schools hit list being the main one—and we have seen it with this mistake. There is no need for the national curriculum to be moved until 2012. It has not been written yet. We know who is going to be writing it—close friends and people from backgrounds not dissimilar to that of the Deputy Prime Minister.

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

That is disgusting.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know what their backgrounds are. I am not commenting on their backgrounds but we know what the backgrounds of some of these people are. The member for Sturt, the shadow minister for education, referred to the view of some in the sector on this bill. I would like to reflect on one of the submissions to the Senate inquiry—one from Geelong College, which is an independent school, so I know that the Deputy Prime Minister does not like it. It is probably quite a well-resourced school, in fact. This is what they said to the Senate inquiry:

What is of particular concern, however, is that, through the introduction of the legislation in its current form, we are being required to accept the national curriculum even though it is yet to be written.

So, it is a blank cheque for the Deputy Prime Minister to push her ideological agenda. This is what it is all about—it always is with the Deputy Prime Minister. She is a very clever lawyer; she argues her way through things. She is very good at it. I accept that she is extraordinarily good on her feet. The problem is—

Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not tricky and mean. Work Choices—that was your legislation.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we go again! The typical tactic—bullying the opposition. Go ahead. You can try to bully us all you like. It might work in the Labor Party, it might be part of the Labor Party’s tactics, but it does not work with us. We are happy to stand up and argue our point because we are right. One thing I imagine will be included in the national curriculum is the word ‘decisive’. Let us see how many more ‘decisives’ we get on the decisive-o-metre today. We are up to six in December; let us see what we get up to today. There were 156 in October and 111 in November. We are off to a flyer in December. What the Deputy Prime Minister can do today to give assurance to the independent school sector is accept the amendment and move on.

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

Can I clarify what is under consideration here and respond to some very false claims made during this debate on the Schools Assistance Bill 2008. The amendment that the Senate moved was to delete clause 22 of the bill—that is, to delete the whole section that refers to national curriculum. The shadow minister, apparently, says he is now arguing for something else. But what is before this parliament is the motion that I have moved that amendment No. 4 be disagreed to. Voting against that means that people are voting against the entire national curriculum clause. The shadow minister ought not to try to confuse people. Voting against that is voting for the deletion of the whole clause which deals with national curriculum.

Secondly, there has been a misrepresentation in this debate of the way that our national curriculum proposal works in relation to Steiner, Montessori, International Baccalaureate and other schools. The government have made it perfectly clear publicly—I have done it in speeches and we have spoken to these schools—that the national curriculum will be about content and achievement standards. There will continue to be flexibility. There will continue to be room for innovation and creativity and for the development and delivery of curriculum methods at the local level in schools. We have made it abundantly clear that we will ask the National Curriculum Board to advise on the best way of acknowledging the internationally recognised curricula of Steiner, Montessori, International Baccalaureate and other such schools. I spoke about this publicly in a speech quite some time back. We have made it clear to those schools.

Thirdly—and I think this really does need to be said and I want to correct the record in relation to it—I am not writing the national curriculum. The government appointed the chair and deputy chair of the National Curriculum Board. They are internationally recognised educationalists. Representatives on that board come from states and territories and the independent and non-government school systems. I think it is highly offensive to the individuals involved to suggest, as the member for Mayo just did, that in some way they are party political.

The member for Mayo has laid bare what this debate is about. It is about the Liberal Party and it is about credit for the shadow minister. It is all about them. It has nothing to do with the educational standards of Australian children. The people who speak on behalf of non-government schools, those who represent at a national level the Catholic and independent schools system, have spoken loudly today and they have spoken clearly. They have said to this parliament: pass this bill. They have said to this parliament: pass this bill with clause 22 in it. The government hears their voices. The government wants to make sure that non-government schools open next year with the benefit of $28 billion of resources. With those words, we are going to continue to work to get those schools the resources they need and to deliver on our election commitments of transparency and national accountability. I move:

That the question be now put.

Question put.

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

I present the reasons for the House disagreeing to Senate amendment (4) and I move:

That the reasons be adopted.

Question put.