Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Maribyrnong proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government’s failure to implement real education reform.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are few questions which are more important in the national parliament than the future education of our young people. There can be few things more important than providing the best start in life for our young people. There are few things which are more important to parents than the quality education of their children. And there are few things more important when it comes to education than keeping your election promises.

We have seen a circus in the last few days and weeks. Before the last election the coalition promised that there would be no difference between Liberal and Labor policies, in a cynical attempt to gain votes at the election. Then we saw another development after the election. The then opposition, now the government, presented position No. 2: 'Actually, we didn't say what you think we said before the election; we actually said something different.' Then they went even further. They chose to deny that they ever made the promises they made in the first place. In fact, they said on the Bolt Report: 'There are promises that the coalition government will make. We will decide what those promises are. What other people think they are or what other people heard they are does not actually make them a government promise.' It is a case not of 'read my words' but of 'read my mind'.

In the last few days, after the legitimate uproar of an angry population saying, 'You lied to us before the election; you are lying to us now; we just want our promises honoured,' we had what I suspect was one of the more remarkable meetings that a cabinet of Australia has ever had. I would love to have been a fly on the wall at that cabinet meeting. You would have seen them all saying, 'What did we really say?' Oh, my goodness, there would have been head-slapping. 'Oh, that's right, we agreed with Labor because they had the best education policies. Do we have to still keep our word? No, no.' Apparently the Minister for Education said he had a good day yesterday. I would hate to see him have a bad day!

Anyway, the F Troop of education, those opposite, now have their latest position. You can just imagine the damage control experts in the bunker underneath Liberal Party headquarters saying: 'Do something. Just get this issue out of the newspapers.' The coalition government would have said, 'Let's just chuck some money at the problem.' Of course, if you are going to chuck some money, $1 billion, at a problem, you have to have some detail. Today we have revealed there is no detail in their education plan, which is a point I will come to in a minute.

We asked the government, 'Are you going to do what Labor said'—because they said they would do what Labor said—'and ask the states to provide $1 for every $2 we put in?' It is a great offer: $2 of Commonwealth money so kids get greater individual support, so we can improve teacher standards and so we can help empower school communities—all of the good things that the Gonski report recommended. Did they ask the state governments who had not signed up before the election: 'Listen, we're under pressure; we're under friendly fire from Barry O'Farrell, who's giving us a flogging; we're under fire from everyone—what if we just give you some money? Is that okay with you?' I have never seen a federal government beg a state government, 'Can we just give you some money?' I am sure that the state education ministers when they got these panicked calls said: 'Oh, I know what's coming. The Commonwealth is going to ask us to contribute some money as well.' You can just imagine the dumbfounded silence at the other end of the phone when the state education ministers waited for the Commonwealth government to act like a Commonwealth government and say, 'This is taxpayer money; we'd like some accountability,' but nothing came.

Then we asked the Prime Minister today, 'How about the student resourcing standard?' In what has to be a new standard for a nonanswer, in response to the question, 'Are you right with the student resource standard—is that going to happen?' the Prime Minister said, 'It's well known.' I do not think it is, Tony Abbott. You have no clue what the student resource standard is. To be fair, he was probably saying, 'It's well known by everyone except me.'

The real issue here about education reform is the Gonski report. You do not need to read the Gonski report, which is fine because I am very sure most of those opposite have not read the Gonski report.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Have you?

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will tell you. For the sake of the 'minister for GrainCorp' over there, let me just say one sentence. If there is nothing else the 'minister for GrainCorp' ever learns in this place, he should learn this: personal and social circumstances should not be an obstacle to achieving educational potential. Getting a lecture from the National Party about whether I have read something is a little like saying, 'Have you burnt a book for literacy?'—it does not make sense. Barnaby, you are better off keeping quiet and leaving us in doubt as to how smart you are. The real issue in education reform is this: why should a child in Australia—

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I ask that you please ask the 'minister for pie shops' to call members by their correct titles.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What matters today is: what is going to be the best deal for schoolkids in Australia? There are two teams on the field. There is one team interested in education reform and then you have the clowns sitting opposite, who are just trying to patch things up and not be accused of breaking a promise. Today in this parliament, several key questions were asked but not answered. Have the government asked anything of the state governments they have given the money to? Have these people opposite written the ultimate in blank cheques? 'Here's some money. Rescue Christopher Pyne from the mess that he has made. Take the money; we won't ask anything back for it.' Have those opposite even met the Gonski panel? If they do not like reading, perhaps they like talking. Sometimes learning could just come from sitting in a room with the Gonski panel. The government have set no standards for the states. When it comes to education, these people opposite have not gone after needs based funding. All they have done is given money to the states with a green light to cut their own state education budgets. That is all they have done.

Kathryn Greiner was on the reform panel, and today's Sydney Morning Heraldstates:

Ms Greiner said that it was no good for the government to blindly match money without adhering to the principles that underpinned the original proposals by the Gonski panel.

This is not a government interested in education. This is not a government interested in reforming education. This is not a government interested in needs based funding. his whole sorry saga of the last 10 weeks reveals some basic truths. This is not the government Australians thought they were voting for on education. This is a government who have wanted to abandon education reform. They fell into a terrible argument with nearly everyone in education. The sum total of the last 10 weeks in education is that no-one trusts the Abbott government on education. What is more, no-one trusts the education minister on education reform. No-one takes the education minister seriously about education reform.

We asked today: 'Were there any conditions put on the states?' I have never in the history of state-Commonwealth relations seen an amount of money of this size handed to state governments with no strings attached. The real issue here is: what happens to kids in schools? At the moment, 60 per cent of unemployed people lack the literacy skills to meet global standards. At the moment, too many kids are falling behind because of their personal family circumstances. Why is it that in Australia poor kids are on average about three years lower in their academic results than children from rich circumstances? This is not right. This is a country that is interested in giving every kid a fair chance.

I know there are members opposite who are interested in seeing kids, no matter what their circumstances, get a fair deal. I understand that. I do not doubt that for a second. It is not enough, though, just to want to help; you have got to have a plan to help. The Gonski review was 20 months, 7,000 submissions and 3,000 pages. But some of these people opposite are too lazy to open the book, too lazy to look at the reforms. What we want in education and what was promised before the election is that this would be a government where there would be not a cigarette paper of difference between Labor and Liberal on education. They are the government who said there would be no surprises and no excuses. We have seen in the last 10 weeks every excuse and nasty surprises. What we see from those opposite is the ability to fundamentally distance themselves from everyone who has ever tried to do anything in education. It is very simple: this mob opposite cannot be trusted— (Time expired)

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

That speech by the Leader of the Opposition was 24 hours out of date. The Leader of the Opposition is still trying to cling to the notion that the Labor Party was putting the same amount of money in as the coalition. Unfortunately for the Leader of the Opposition, in the last 24 hours, the coalition is putting $1.2 billion more into school education than Labor would have done had they been re-elected. In the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, Labor reduced the additional funds to schools from $2.8 billion over four years to $1.6 billion over four years. That speech by the Leader of the Opposition might have worked if it had not been for two important facts. Firstly, he was the one who ripped $1.2 billion out of schools—

Ms Kate Ellis interjecting—

You admitted it yourself in the media. It was a tragedy for you. On Meet the Press you admitted that you had ripped out $1.2 billion. That followed shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen admitting it on ABC 24 on Thursday. You say nobody believes it. But you believe it, because you admitted it on Sunday and Chris Bowen admitted it on Thursday. We know that you took the $1.2 billion and ran with it. The first fact is that you took the money. The second fact is that the coalition put it back in. Yesterday we put $1.2 billion back in. Rather than the Labor Party coming into the House and thanking the government for putting more money into school students over the next four years, we are in this ironic, ludicrous position where Labor is coming into the House and pretending that did not happen: 'Let's just pretend yesterday did not happen—2 December, just wipe it off. We were asleep—Rip Van Winkle. We have woken up and nothing really changed on Monday.' So Labor have kept their question pack from last week. They have kept their MPI speech from last week—and the Leader of the Opposition just gave it.

The ironic thing about the Leader of the Opposition's speech and all the questions that were asked today is that, if Labor had been re-elected, the loadings for children with disadvantage, the funding to achieve the student resource standard in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, would never have been delivered. We have had a conga line of questioners come up to the dispatch box today demanding that we put in the loadings for disadvantaged students—which we have done yesterday—which they took out in the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook! If Labor had been elected, students with disadvantage in Queensland, WA and the Northern Territory would not have got the loadings, would not have got the extra support, would not have reached the student resource standard. It was because the coalition was elected, and because yesterday we put the $1.2 billion in, that they are getting the loadings, that they are getting the support to reach the student resource standard. We inherited a very serious mess and we are moving to fix it up.

The Leader of the Opposition, in his MPI speech, said it was all about trust. The lack of sincerity that Bill Shorten can bring to bear on the subject of trust is not worth writing about! Julia Gillard could not trust him. He said he was 100 per cent behind Julia Gillard. Bill Shorten did not go so far as the member for Lindsay, who said he would have a tattoo put on his forehead rather than not vote for Julia Gillard. But Bill Shorten said he was 100 per cent behind Julia Gillard—until he stabbed her in the back. He said he was 100 per cent behind Kevin Rudd—until he stabbed Kevin Rudd in the back. You know, the really sick thing about that night in 2010—I was in parliament and I heard the whole thing—was that Bill Shorten was bragging to people about how easy it was. He thought taking out a Prime Minister would be tough, he thought it would be hard. He was bragging to his right-wing factional mates in Sussex Street, 'It was much easier than I expected.' And this is the man that comes to the dispatch box to lecture us about trust! It is a remarkable audacity for the Leader of the Opposition.

So we inherited a mess. We inherited a situation where there was $1.2 billion removed from school funding. We inherited a school funding model that was not national—that did not include Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory—and where every state and territory had a different indexation rate, and every state and territory needed to reach the student resource standard at different percentages over different years. It was a complete shambles—

Ms Kate Ellis interjecting—

And the member for Adelaide says, 'Scrap it all.' Unfortunately, she is still trying to catch up. We have not scrapped anything. We have actually made a national agreement. We have created the national agreement that you failed to create. I know it is hard for Labor to accept, because they say: 'We're best at health and we're best at education. Yes, you're better with the economy, and you're better at defence, and you're better at national security, but we're better at education and health.' They always say it. How tragic for them to have to show up to question time and admit that we are putting more money into schools than they would have and that I, of all people, achieved the national agreement on school funding, which they said I could never do! But quietly, methodically, calmly, behind the scenes for the last 11 weeks I have been talking with Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory about bringing about a national agreement, and I achieved it.

I must admit I am very pleased that those extra funds are going to students around Australia, because it allows us to move on to the real issues in education: to quality and standards; to principal autonomy, which we on this side of the House are very attached to; to quality teaching, which we think is the most important thing you can do to bring about good outcomes for students; and to parental engagement—because, unlike the Labor Party, we are not trying to push parents away from their children in schools. We want parents to be deeply engaged in their children's education—to ask them when they get home from school: 'How much homework do you have? What areas is it in? How long do you think it will take? Can I help you to do it?' We want parents to be deeply engaged, and that is one of our three pillars. And, finally, we want a robust curriculum. We want a strong, orthodox curriculum that achieves the outcomes that we believe in in Australia for our students, because we want them to have the best outcomes possible.

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

It's the Eureka Stockade anniversary today. Are you going to get rid of that too?

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

I know it is hard to take, member for Moreton. It is hard to take that this side of the House is delivering more money, delivering a national agreement—and actually, incredibly, getting to implement its policies, because we won the election. You are the government-change deniers on that side of the House! As far as you are concerned, every now and then the Liberals win an election—we have governed for two-thirds of the last 60 years, but we will put that aside for one moment. We are apparently allowed to win an election, but woe betide us if we actually try to implement our policies! That is outrageous! We are not allowed to do it on the carbon tax. We are not allowed to do it on the minerals resource rent tax. We are not allowed to stabilise the economy through the debt ceiling. We are not allowed to introduce temporary protection visas. We are not allowed to focus on quality and standards for our students. We are not allowed to do these things—because we won the election, and we were supposed to keep Labor's policies in place!

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

Well I have some news for the member for Perth. I know it is not going to be easy. I have some news for her: she is on the wrong side of the House to implement policies; we won the election, and we will. We said we would keep the same level of funding as Labor. We have gone one better: we have put $1.2 billion in. We said that we would have a national scheme, and we have delivered it, unlike Bill Shorten when he was the minister for education. And we said that we would remove the command-and-control features from Canberra that were inherent in the model: that we would take away the red tape and the regulation, and that we would get rid of the School Performance Institute, the ministerial directions from Canberra about performance and implementation, and the federal inspectorate of schools—we said we would get rid of those and we will. So we will have a better model with more money. And it will be national.

So where to from here? We will have a four-year funding agreement as promised. In 2014, we will amend the Australian Education Act to deliver the policies that we took to the election, because we on this side of the House think it is really important to keep your election commitments. We will keep our election commitments, unlike Labor. In 2007 they made commitments; they broke them. In 2010 they made commitments; they broke them. They said there would not be a carbon tax; they introduced one. They have so traduced people's faith in the Australian parliament that we will make sure in this parliament that we restore people's faith in the government because we will keep our commitments, just like we are on schools and education.

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What has become very clear in today's parliament is that this government's education policy is nothing more than a sham. The government have taken Gonski, which then they thought was 'Conski', which then they thought was Gonski again, and they have left absolutely nothing but one big con—one big con for the Australian parents, the Australian students, the voters who took them at their word when they said that they were on a 'unity ticket' with the Labor Party when it came to school funding. But what has become apparent is that they are on no such unity ticket whatsoever.

Whilst we have had the member for Sturt flipping and flopping and flipping like a fish on a jetty, they have got absolutely no closer to meeting their election promises. They have got absolutely no closer to being able to repeat the statement they made before the election that no school would be worse off under their government because they know that, under the arrangements they have put in place, absolutely every school will be worse off.

Nothing can disguise the fact that they are betraying every Australian child. They have shamelessly broken their commitment to reforming and lifting our schools. Nothing can disguise the fact that they have deceived every Australian parent, every Australian teacher, every Australian educator, because they told them what they wanted to hear in the lead-up to the election and now they have just tossed that all aside and left absolutely nothing but this sham of a policy. Nothing can disguise the fact that what the minister described as 'a good day in the office' is actually a shamefully bad day for every Australian child relying on us having a strong, healthy future education sector.

So let us be very clear about what it is that those opposite are offering. Those opposite are offering a tiny fraction of the $14.65 billion of additional funding which would be invested into Australian schools under our plan. And what came out in question time today is that those opposite are offering absolutely nothing of the overdue reform of our system which they pledged they would at the election.

So let us just have a look at the facts, because we know that this government are not the government that they said they would be if they were elected. But let us just have a look at what they said before the election and what they have now run an absolute million miles away from. On 29 August we had Christopher Pyne saying:

So Tony Abbott and I made a decision … matching Labor's funding model dollar for dollar.

Uh-uh, you have less than one-third of the dollars putting forward. You are ripping it out of the hands of every school principal, of every Australian parent and of every Australian child who is relying on improvement to our school community.

They also said:

You can vote Liberal or Labor and you will get exactly the same amount of funding for your school.

Well, isn't that interesting? Because now the Prime Minister says, 'Oh, no—we didn't say that. We didn't say "of your school". We said "schools"—plural.' No, you did not, Prime Minister, and no, you did not, government opposite. What you said was that no school will be worse off, and you cannot repeat that to the Australian parliament today because you know what we know, and that is that every single school across Australia will be worse off as a result of this government being elected.

The Prime Minister said, 'As far as I'm concerned and as far as Christopher Pyne is concerned, we are guaranteeing that no school will be worse off.' He said it on 2 August, but come December we cannot hear any of those words again from this Prime Minister. And he said, 'We have a clear commitment for all Australian schools; your funding is certain.' And if there is one thing we have seen in the last couple of days—if there is one thing that all the flips and flops and backflips have shown—it is that absolutely no funding is certain whatsoever because this government have not even made agreements. They have not even made any agreements whatsoever.

So, we had a plan that Labor put forward: $14.65 billion to reform our schools. They have put a commitment of just $2.8 billion and no guarantees that schools will not be worse off or that states will not just rip out that same funding. What we heard in question time today was: no indexation; no guarantees against state funding cuts; no co-contributions, which were an important part of our model; and no accountability mechanisms whatsoever. All they are doing is trying desperately to backflip and clean up the mess that the member for Sturt is making by throwing blank cheques around and asking absolutely nothing of the states in return.

This is a shameful betrayal of Australian students and their parents who took this government at their word when they said they were on a unity ticket—when they said that they would sign up for this model that they have now turfed aside—and when they said that no school would be worse off. (Time expired)

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There has been a lot of talk about unity tickets in relation to this school funding debate, but the real unity ticket we now know is the unity ticket between Mark Latham and Bill Shorten. Because the last Labor leader to rip funding from schools was none other than Mark Latham. And now Bill Shorten has become the second one, ripping $1.2 billion out of schools.

Mark Latham, to his credit, at least had the courage to be up-front and to say, 'I'm going to cut funding from lots of independent and Catholic schools,' whereas Bill Shorten did it very sneakily. He did not announce it, he did not put out a press release—it was only through the details of the financial outlook pre-election where it was revealed that $1.2 billion of school funding was ripped out of public schools from Western Australia, from Queensland and from the Northern Territory. There is a unity ticket, and it is between Mark Latham and Bill Shorten. And perhaps we can add Jay Weatherill to that, the South Australian Premier, who just yesterday confirmed that $220 million has been ripped out of public schools in South Australia.

This is an extraordinary MPI that has been put forward by the Labor Party. Labor had six years to do so much in education, but they did so little. And yet only after 2½ months of the coalition being in government, they have the audacity to criticise us for supposedly failing to achieve real reform in education. I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that after just 2½ months we have achieved more than what Labor did in six years. Let me go through just some of the things that we have already done in this 2½ months.

Firstly, we reversed the disastrous decision in relation to capping self-education expenses. Secondly, we found the $1.2 billion which the Labor Party ripped out of school funding and put it back in. Thirdly, we negotiated a real national school reform agenda, something which Labor could not do in their entire six years of office. And, fourthly, we are putting in place the steps which are necessary to implement our election commitments. Four substantial things, real reform that we have put in place in just 2½ months—so much more than what Labor did after six years. And yet they have the audacity to come in here and lecture us about not delivering on school reform.

Let us just go through what Labor did, though, in relation to education. They ripped $3.8 billion out in total, as the Prime Minister mentioned. They ripped a further $1 billion out of the universities. They ripped $1.2 billion out of schools on the eve of the election. They added volumes of red tape to the school funding reforms, which, had they been in power now, would be tying up the education system. And they put in place reforms which have led to the collapse of teacher entry standards for students going into teaching courses. Those are some of the substantial things which they did in their six years of office. And now you can compare that to what we have already achieved in our 2½ months.

What is real education reform? School funding is part of it, but it is not the only thing. We know that because over the last decade we have had a 44 per cent increase in funding in real terms in education in this country but we have actually had a decline in standards. So clearly there is not a direct causal link between funding and outcomes. So what does matter? Yes, funding is necessary but it is not sufficient. What does matter is giving school principals autonomy so that they can make decisions for their own schools. What further matters is teacher quality. Every single piece of research will tell you that teacher quality is what matters and it starts at the education faculties of the universities. Thirdly, what matters is a rigorous curriculum, because the standards are set by the minimum standards of the curriculum. Those are the things that we are going to be concentrating on: teacher quality, school autonomy and a rigorous curriculum. That is real school education reform. (Time expired)

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

  I rise to speak today about a subject dear to my heart and dear to the hearts of parents and teachers in the 53 schools within the electorate of Lalor. I speak of education funding reform. I wish I could talk about the impact of high expectations on student learning, on the impact of the meta analysis of Professor Robert Marzano and Professor John Hattie. I wish I could talk about the impact that had on schools. I wish I could rise today to speak about this in a real and useful way. But, unfortunately, this vitally important issue has been reduced to a mere debacle by those opposite. There have been backflips, half-pikes and half-pikes with twists used to obfuscate this critical policy area during and since the election campaign. In the process, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education have made and broken promises, leaving school leaders in every state and territory of our nation trying to read the words, read between the lines, infer and guess what the future will be for their schools.

Let me summarise. In the last three years, while the Gillard government conducted an exhaustive education review that attracted 7,000 submissions, in his capacity as shadow minister, the member for Sturt asked just three questions about education.    On release of the Gonski report, the same member took just minutes to dismiss it as a con. When Better Schools proved critical to voters, they did a U-turn and promised a unity ticket, even though it was two years and many millions of dollars short. After taking government, we heard Minister Pyne talking about the curriculum, specifically the history curriculum—yes, that old chestnut. Predictably, this stole the headlines while the undoing of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, or ACARA, went unnoticed. Next he was backflipping on the now non-unity ticket and saying he needed to go back to the drawing board—the drawing board of the previous, Liberal government. Then we had the Prime Minister saying he did not promise anything, or maybe he did and we misheard him, or maybe we all just imagined it. Anyway, the Prime Minister would only keep the promise that he had not made, that we had imagined but that no-one had heard. And then yesterday he declared he would fulfil the misheard promise that maybe had been made after all. Now he is telling us he will go one better and find the money for the state governments who have shown their contempt for student learning by putting politics over progress. But it is still not unity. It is another new promise, this time to our state premiers that they do not need to spend money on education after all.

I am tired just trying to make sense of it all, but not trying to make sense of it is not a luxury that we can afford—not for the parents of our students or the committed educators; they need to know so they can plan and implement programs to give every child the best chance in life. The most damning thing of all in this circus charading as policy is what lies behind all the shenanigans. There are a couple of giveaways: the destruction of ACARA as an independent body working with states and territories and putting in place a critical data source to tell the story of our schools and of disparity amongst them. This and Minister Pyne's assertion that Australia does not have an equity issue are the keys to this protracted mess. It tells us much about this government's plans for education. They are not interested in addressing inequity; they are acting to enshrine it by hiding it and denying it. But the My School website and the ACARA data have been available for a long time and schools have been tracking their progress against national and state benchmarks for years.

Today I want to share the story of two schools I visited in my electorate last week. Both have made good use of national partnerships money and Victorian equity funding over the past four years. The first is Westgrove Primary School. The principal is Lila Gray. In 2009, Westgrove had an ICSEA—Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage—ranking of 989 and their grade 3 students performed below average in reading, writing and numeracy. By 2012 it had an ICSEA ranking of 956. The measure of disadvantage had in fact increased, and yet the grade 3 students performed above the state average in reading, writing and numeracy in 2013. The second is Iramoo Primary School. The principal is Moira Findlay. Four years ago, this school had an ICSEA ranking of 940 and grade 5 students performed 50 points below the state average in reading, writing and numeracy. In 2012 it had an ICSEA ranking of 928. (Time expired)

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Probably one of the most appalling performances over the last period of Labor will be the way they trashed the education expectations and performances that are now typical of our country's schools, particularly in rural and regional Australia. No country would stand proudly when it looks at the rankings of Australia as they slip further below other countries, whether it is in reading, writing or numeracy. It is an appalling indictment on this government that today they have the cheek to bring into debate in this place the extraordinary failures of their government, trying to somehow justify their existence.

In 2007, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd promised Australia an education revolution. He was fond of revolutions. This was his education revolution. What did we get and what were we left with? We had the Building the Education Revolution. That was $16.5 billion worth of bricks and mortar and bits of wood and we were told it would somehow revolutionise the outcomes of education in the country. It imposed templates on schools around the country. I think of my poor little Nathalia Primary School. They wanted a toilet block. They begged the Commonwealth government for a toilet block. What did they get? They got a classroom built over the town's sewerage easement. They did not get a toilet block. The cost of the classroom they built was way outside of any reasonable costing parameters. No locals were allowed to be engaged in the building; it was people brought from the capital city. Building the Education Revolution left school councils in despair and it left $16.5 billion less in the education budget, money which could have been spent on better outcomes for kids.

Then we had the Digital Education Revolution—the computers that were meant to magically show up on student desks across the country. They did not show up or, where they did, there were no funds for connecting them. It was a tragedy, a mockery of what the schools really needed. Some $2.4 billion went down the toilet as a result of the Digital Education Revolution.

Then we had the magical MySchool website. I can remember the then minister standing up and saying, 'This is a great success; we have had so many hits on this website.' What did the website do? It named and shamed schools whose kids did not achieve the country or state average on the NAPLAN tests. The trouble is that there were no funds to support those schools that were being shown to be unable to reach the national average. It was simply a name-and-shame outing exercise. What an appalling indictment!

What about student outcomes? After six years of Labor, how did the performance of our students in reading, maths and science compare internationally? We had slipped to 27th in the OECD in reading levels for year 4. In maths we were down to 18th and in science we were down to 27th—that is out of a group of about 30. We hang our heads in shame when we see developing countries way ahead of us and our kids struggling to read and write in year 12.

This is an indictment of Labor's period in government. They gave us a revolution in education all right—a revolution in how to appallingly mismanage a huge budget. Most of it ended up just supplying work for their mates in the building industry, I suspect. Then they ripped $1 billion out of the universities and $1.2 billion out of the schools—after which they have the temerity to stand up in this place and ask what we have done.

We have been in government for only 11 weeks, but we have already said how it will be. We will improve teacher quality. Have you ever heard of that—teacher quality? There are people enrolling in teacher education who have barely passed year 12 and who need remedial maths and English. That is not good enough for our kids. We have to improve our year 12 outcomes so that our best and brightest want to become teachers and then we have to give them a strong and robust curriculum.

Let us get back to teaching history in this country—and to teaching geography and literacy. Let us help our multicultural communities understand how we came to be a free country. It did not happen by accident. Let us talk about parent engagement. Let us give our principals some autonomy so they can move on the underperformers they have inherited from the Labor regime.

We have added back the $1.2 billion that Labor ripped out just before the election. All up, we will deliver $2.8 billion over four years to all of the states and territories, not just the lucky ones who signed up before the election was called. In implementing real education reform— (Time expired)

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

Before I became a lawyer, I was a schoolteacher for 11 years. Even though I taught English, today I am going to do a little bit of history. I am going to run quickly through the history of school funding, just so people understand it. This is a very important topic. The history is troubled, particularly when you look at the Commonwealth's involvement.

Before the socioeconomic status, or SES, model the main focus of the way the states and Commonwealth organised the allocation of money was the average cost of educating a kid in a state school. Then the Howard model came in—the SES model. This model looked at data from each census collection district—about 200 households. Wherever a kid came from, the data for their CCD was looked at and that determined how much money should be handed out to their school. This was for non-government schools. State schools received their money under a different scheme.

The idea behind the SES model was to recognise where the money was. That is a pretty crude analysis of it. It may well have had the best of intentions behind it. On Lateline with Steve Cannane last week, the member for Sturt said that he thought the SES model was a needs based model. More than anything, this statement underscored for me that he was the laziest shadow education minister this nation has ever seen. He did not understand the basic premise of the SES model—that was a fundamental misunderstanding.

Irrespective of the reasoning behind it, the SES model did not deliver for a number of reasons. For a start, about 50 per cent of the schools were funding maintained. That means they would have lost money under the SES model except for the Howard government saying that no school would be worse off. So it was a flawed scheme in the first place. What were the results? We saw money flow to the wealthiest non-government schools. I think Mark Latham's spirit was invoked earlier and I have to say that, when I was a candidate in 2004, I was particularly troubled by our education policy—with all respect to those who formulated it in 2004.

Thankfully, we saw the development of the Gonski model, which came out of consultation with stakeholders—7,000 submissions and going out and talking to people—and out of bringing in the best minds, not just from education but from outside it. It came up with the idea of needs based funding. The idea was, 'Let's calculate what you need to educate a kid'. It costs more to educate kids in a state school because state schools have to take a student. The Thallon State School must take the kids in Thallon—and it costs more to keep a kid at the Westmar State School than it does in the middle of Brisbane. I am talking here to the member for New England. He knows these schools. A private school can make a few decisions and normally people sending their kids to a private school are more prepared to put their hand in their pocket. That said, there are Aboriginal schools, some very poor Catholic schools, some very poor Christian schools and schools like the Southside Education Centre in my electorate, which caters for girls who have had babies. There are all sorts of private schools. They are not all Geelong Grammar.

The Gonski model said, 'Let's work out what it costs to educate a kid and then we will give loadings based on whether, for example, the kid has a disability.' It is based on the individual kid, irrespective of the sign above the gate—be it Catholic, independent or state, we do not care. It was a blind education policy in that we did not care what the sign above the gate was. It was brilliant and I commend the Gonski panel for coming up with it. Funding was based on disability, on whether kids were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, on school size and location—it is harder to run a small school like Westmar because of the challenges they face—on whether there are lots of kids with limited English and on whether there is low SES. They were part of the loading. It is not like the SES model that said the richest kid from St George who went to boarding school in Brisbane imported the data from their poor census collection district.

Why did we need to improve the system? Because the current model had been broken. We found that poor kids were up to three years below. As a cooperative federation we needed to come up with a better model. We do have to have some controls—and it is not command and control; it is about making sure that there is performance and implementation so we can lift the standards across all Australia, which is a good thing. (Time expired)

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A disappointing aspect of this discussion so far is that the approach the opposition has taken has been so much focused on inputs and so little focused on outcomes. Secondly, they were in government for six years and generally you would think that in a 10-minute speech or a five-minute speech they could have given one minute to the record of the Rudd and Gillard governments in education. We heard no mention of that.

The topic of today's matter of public importance is the failure of the government to implement real education reform. It is not as if we have not had enough education reform in this country over the last six years. In fact, we have had education revolutions. There has been education revolution fatigue. Remember the Building the Education Revolution—$16½ billion? We never hear members opposite talking about that. Remember the Digital Education Revolution? There was going to be a laptop on the desk of every child. There was also the Productivity Places Program. Members opposite never talk about it. It was a disaster in the area of vocational education and training.

The OECD has a very interesting benchmarking publication entitled 'Strong performers and successful reformers in education.' I thought that we have had all these years of education revolution, so we should have a look at where Australia sits. In chapter 3 we had Ontario, Canada; chapter 4, Shanghai and Hong Kong; chapter 5, Finland; chapter 6, Japan; chapter 7, Singapore; chapter 8, Brazil; chapter 9, Germany. Australia did not get a mention. That is no surprise because, even more depressingly, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement found in its latest benchmarking in December 2012 that Australian year 4 students are ranked 18th in the world in maths, 25th in science and 27th in reading. They are a long way behind leading educational systems like those in Hong Kong, Russia, Finland, Singapore, Korea and Chinese Taipei. It is depressing that the opposition have focused so much on resources but they have no idea how to get a really good education system. It involves more than resources—it involves improving the curriculum, it is about better teachers, it is about having more local decision making and it is about having more parent engagement.

It seems the government is being criticised for finding an extra $1.2 billion for schools, and at the moment the only government in Australia pulling money out of education and out of schools is the government in my own state of South Australia. It is pulling $230 million out of its school system. One of the problems with the current argument is that under the previous government we saw increased funding not leading to improved effectiveness or student outcomes. I have not heard one member of the Labor Party talk about student outcomes under their reign. Their performance was abysmal. For the first time we saw Australia in some of the lowest international rankings, ranking 27th, 25th and 18th—well behind other countries that are spending less on their schools but have better education systems. We need to have a sophisticated debate about what sort of schools we want. As I said before, there is a lot more to this. We do want to see better teachers in our schools, we want to see parents more involved in the education of their children and we want to see local communities having responsibility rather than bureaucrats in a centralised education department.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do want to talk about education outputs and I do want to talk about the inherent schizophrenia in the position adopted by the government. Outputs are incredibly important, but if the member for Boothby really understood that data he would know what is happening in Australia—the top 25 per cent of Australians are doing very well, the next 25 per cent are doing quite well but the bottom 50 per cent, those two lower quartiles, are doing very poorly. When you read that data, you need to understand how it is broken up and you need to understand that that is why we need Gonski; that is why we commenced the whole process of Gonski. It was to investigate forensically where we are going wrong in our education system and target the funding towards those people who need it.

Quite correctly those opposite say analysis shows that things have been going wrong in our education system—but that education system has largely been run by the states. Under Labor, federal Labor said, 'We've got to get more involved. This is too important.' Federal government has to get involved because, as the minister has himself said, this is essential and important to the productivity of this nation. So the federal government decided that it had to get more across the detail. It had to get more involved. That was the whole point of Gonski and the agreements that were subsequently entered into with the various states to deliver change, to deliver the money where we needed it, to deliver the resources where we needed them. It is certainly true it is not about resources. There are other things that have to happen as well. But the resourcing is certainly part of it. There is inequity in our system. You have got to understand how that lack of educational opportunity is playing out and why we need to actively go in there and fix it.

There is a complete and absolute contradiction. You are saying you want to do all these things. You are going to insist on school autonomy. You are going to have better teaching. You are going to have that, but you are not having any agreements with the states. The states have presided over this regime and have been delivering the schools. You say, 'The states run the schools. We're going to let them continue to run the schools and we're not going to have any engagement with them. We'll give them the money no strings attached.' How are you going to do that? How are you going to make change by just giving more money to the people to continue on with business as usual? It does not make sense. You have to engage. You have to get into agreements. Now, we did have agreements with—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I am reluctant to draw the member for Perth's attention to the use of the word 'you'. It is a common failing on both sides of the House, but it is not me that has to understand it is someone else. I would just ask you to reflect your comments through the chair, not at the chair.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. It is absolutely essential that we understand that we do have to enter into agreements. If we want to forge a new pathway then we have to constructively engage the states, because, as you have identified, 'business as usual' is not working. How can we just say, 'We're just going to tip a bucket of money in, but we are not going to take any responsibility for what that outcome is'? It does not make sense.

Let me just make one little comment too about Western Australia. It is quite interesting. The minister yesterday was claiming that Labor wanted to punish WA. We only offered them $170 million over the next four years for their schools, and we were punishing them because we did not like the school autonomy of the independent public school model that had been introduced. Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard twice came down to schools in what was then my state seat and absolutely promoted and embraced the principle of student autonomy. We offered $170 million. You have gone in now and offered only $120 million. It has gone from $178 million to $120 million. So you have actually cut by one-third the amount of funding that was on offer from Labor. (Time expired)

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do thank the House for the opportunity to address them and debate this matter of public importance. It is clear to anyone listening that a bit of calmness is needed in this debate. The Australian people voted for change on 7 September, and, after listening to those opposite in this matter of public importance, it is not hard to see why. I take up the comments from the member for Boothby, who is right when he said that he thought those opposite would actually talk about their own record in government. It is a reasonable thing to think that after six years in government they would talk about their record in government. But those opposite did not mention it once—not a word. Zilch! Zip! Nada! Nothing! Not a single reference! It is like they were just getting up to it. They were just getting there. After six years, if you had only given us one more term we would have done it, we would have delivered that education reform. You just have to trust us and give us one more chance.

Today we even had a lecture on trust by the member for Maribyrnong, the man who did not tear down just one prime minister, he tore down two prime ministers. The same member who stood up here day after day in the previous parliament and defended the previous government on that great carbon tax deceit: 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead.' We have had lectures on trust and not a word from those opposite on their own record when it comes to education reform. Having stripped $1.2 billion from its own funding package prior to the election, members opposite now want to lecture us again. They stripped $1.2 billion from their own funding package prior to the last election, and they have the audacity to come in here and want to lecture us because the Minister for Education has had the audacity to actually increase the funding. He has increased the funding and provided an opportunity for having a genuine national approach.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know that the three new members opposite are a little bit embarrassed. They should be a little bit embarrassed because the Leader of the Opposition, when he was in the role of minister, stripped $1.2 billion, carved out Western Australia, carved out Queensland and carved out Northern Territory. I know they are a little bit embarrassed about that, as is the member for Perth. The three jurisdictions that were going to be adversely affected by the Leader of the Opposition when he was Minister for Education are going to benefit because the coalition government has come in and undertaken to provide $1.2 billion and provide a real opportunity for some sort of national reform in relation to education funding.

Opposition members interjecting—

All the ranting, all the raving, all the hooting, all the hollering over there—keep it going, keep the hooting and hollering going—we love it. We love listening to the new members. It is good to hear your voices, but it does not change that simple fact: you carved $1.2 billion out of the forward estimates for education funding. We are putting it back in, and those opposite have a problem with it. We are actually going to give Australian schools the opportunity to participate in a truly national program. So we can have this faux outrage. We can have all this confected anger. We are actually going to deliver more money. This side of the House, the government, the coalition, the Liberals and Nationals in government are going to deliver more money than you were able to provide when you had the opportunity.

This is a better deal. It is a better result for students across Australia, particularly in those jurisdictions that were financially penalised by the opposition leader when he was the education minister.

Opposition members interjecting—

Oh! They are going again. The member for Perth is going again. It is not hard to get her going, I must admit. She fires up very quickly. But I just urge the member for Perth to recognise that the Leader of the Opposition— (Time expired)