Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. What do schools and families in my electorate and across Queensland stand to lose by the state government's refusal to sign on to the national plan for better schools?

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

I thank the member for Moreton for his question and thank him for his passion and interest in education. He is a former teacher and brings to this parliament a real understanding about what it is like to improve the lives of children and to enable them to get a great education.

He asked me what Queensland schools can lose because Premier Newman to date has refused to sign on to our plan for better schools to improve Queensland schools and to bring them new funding. I can advise the member for Moreton, and I can advise the House, that what is being put at risk by the behaviour of Premier Newman is an increase in funding for Queensland schools of $3.8 billion. On average, that is $2.2 million per school. That is a lot of new resources to improve the education of Queensland children.

I will take just one example of what this can mean for a school. This is, of course, a system of funding designed to bring schools around the country up to a school resource standard, with particular loadings for the kinds of kids who are in that school; and so more resources if children are from a disadvantaged background or are Indigenous kids.

If we take the example of Corinda State High School. I met the principal there at community cabinet. Indeed, I understand that the member for Moreton was a teacher with that principal. For that school, the increase in funding would be $13 million. That is a very sizeable increase for those children for that school community.

Those are 13 million reasons why Premier Newman should sign on to our plan. But in fact there are 3.8 billion reasons why Premier Newman should sign on to our plan. I want to assure the House that those resources will be put into the kind of work we know improves children's education. We know it, because we have proved it in national partnership schools.

None of this has been done quickly. First, we got the evidence and we exposed it to everyone in the nation through MySchool. Then we started the national curriculum development and rolled it out. Then, of course, we improved school buildings and school equipment. Then we showed in our national partnership schools how you can lift standards, joining new resources with very practical changes in classrooms that make a difference for children. It is that plan that we now want to take around the nation to give our children a world-class education.

Premier Newman should not stand between the children of Queensland and a world-class education, and the Leader of the Opposition should not oppose a world-class education for our nation's children.