Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nothing is more important for the future of our country than investment in our schools and the education of our children. Our schools are the bedrock of our society. Our schools are the bedrock of our culture. Our schools are the bedrock of our economy. They are the bedrock of our society and economy because schools, along with the family, are where future citizens are created and future workers are trained, and because schools are where the moral values and cultural outlook of our society are nurtured and created. So if our schools foster inequality, our society will become less equal. If our schools foster inequality, our economy will become even more unequal. Unfortunately, that is what our current school funding system does—it fosters inequality. It fosters inequality because schools do not have the same access to resources. It fosters inequality because school fees are a barrier to who can attend one school and not another. It fosters inequality because many who already have substantial resources are able to make a choice about which school their child attends.

This is the reality of our education system at the moment, and the primary driver of this inequality is the level and distribution of funding to schools and, in particular, the failure to give every child access to a high quality public education as a right. The budget constraints under which our government schools operate mean that primary schools have to make choices between employing additional staff to support students with learning difficulties or employing a specialist science or language teacher to give primary school students early expertise in these areas.

Secondary schools have to choose between offering physics or providing extra computers or iPads for disadvantaged students. At a time when we face a collapse in science and maths participation at every level of education, we need to see more support for science and maths, not less. Schools should not be forced to make these sorts of choices. This flows on to the choices that parents make.

I know parents in my electorate, where we do not have a well-funded, wealthy private secondary school, are sending their students outside the electorate—sometimes paying significant private school fees. They tell me that they are doing it because they believe they have to make a forced choice and they do not believe, rightly or wrongly, that they can get access to the kind of secondary education that they want within the electorate. They tell me they would rather send their children to a well-funded public secondary school but, instead, they opt to go outside. It is these kinds of failures that the recommendations of the Gonski review, if properly implemented, will start to address. Gonski would mean that schools would be given a base level of funding per student that would be adequate to provide high quality education. Schools that have students with various forms of disadvantage would receive a loading on the funding per student to assist with addressing that disadvantage. These reforms, if implemented, would see a big boost to public education.

It would also see additional funding to many Catholic and other independent schools, such as the schools in my electorate that have large numbers of disadvantaged students. My electorate of Melbourne has 56 schools attended by 16,000 students. Two thirds of the students in Melbourne attend one of the 31 government schools in the electorate. Forty per cent—that is, 6,200—attend one of 24 government primary schools. Over half the government primary schools in my electorate of Melbourne are in suburbs with a SEIFA indicating disadvantage. At the same time the population of Melbourne is expanding and schools that were closed during the Kennett era are now sorely missed. So the Gonski reforms are crucial to my electorate and could start us on the path to a more equal education system and a more equal Australia.

The Greens welcome the government finally agreeing that Gonski should be implemented, but fine words about a crusade are not enough. Now we need to see the money put on the table. As the Australian Education Union said at the time of the recent announcement:

"Today’s announcement is an acknowledgement that the current funding arrangements are failing our children and must be scrapped …

"What is now required is for the Federal Government and state and territory leaders to demonstrate their commitment to our children and agree on the changes and additional investment required.

"There is no more fundamental responsibility that governments have than ensuring that every child receives a high quality education … “Our children should have first call on the budget—not be told there isn’t the money available to deliver every one of them a high-quality education.

“The price of failing to act will be enormous and that price will be paid by children; it will be paid by communities and it will be paid by our country in reduced prosperity and reduced opportunities.

They went on to say:

"International research shows the benefits of investing in equity in education significantly outweigh the costs.

"Any leader who does not sign on to school funding reform will be sending a clear message to parents about their unwillingness to act in the interests of children.

… teachers and principals were disappointed in the six year transition to full funding under a new system.

“The urgent need for additional resources was clearly established by the Gonski Review and all ways to speed up the transition should be considered …

“The task of lifting our overall performance and closing achievement gaps is dependent on the resources being available for our schools.”

That is what the Education Union said in response to the recent announcement. I agree with them: we now need to see the money. But, unfortunately, from the beginning of this process, the Prime Minister and the government have jeopardised these reforms by making promises to some of the country's richest schools. Firstly, the Prime Minister promised that no school would get less funding—a position clearly at odds with the Gonski review principles. Then, in the face of a fierce lobbying effort from the richest private schools, the Prime Minister promised every school would get an increase. We need to be clear what this means. It means less money for public schools. It also means less money for disadvantaged Catholic and other independent schools, such as many schools in my electorate, and it means more money for the richest schools in the country. Ultimately, that means more inequality in our schooling system and in our society, because every extra dollar that goes to Scotch College or Kings College is one less dollar for a disadvantaged student in a public school.

The Greens are ready and willing to work with the government to get the Gonski principles of consistency and fairness into legislation by the end of the year and we urge the states to put aside their differences and do the same. We need to get on with Gonski. With a fairer funding system in place for next year or the year after, 2014, we will all be winners—our kids, our teachers and our nation alike.

But the Greens want to make absolutely sure that the greatest beneficiaries of school funding reform are those schools that have been suffering from chronic underfunding for so many years. The details will be crucial, such as how much money will flow, when it will be allocated and who will get it first. A true commitment to needs based funding has to see public schools, and especially the most disadvantaged, get the money ahead of everyone else. This is vital if we want to start correcting years of inequity in our system and build a fairer, smarter country.

Let me put that another way. If the government says there is not enough money to fully fund the Gonski reforms, then we should at least start by funding those most disadvantaged public schools that need it first. If we say that they have to wait until there is also money available for the richer schools to get an increase, we are delaying the much-needed funding boost for the schools that look after the most disadvantaged students while we scrape around to find money to give to schools that are already well off and where they do not need additional funding increases.

The renowned British statistician Claus Moser famously said:

Education costs money, but then so does ignorance.

We will not overcome ignorance without investing money in our schools. We will become an even more unequal society if we do not invest first and foremost in our public schools.