Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill amends the Australian Education Act 2013 to require that the minister be satisfied that a state or territory will not reduce or has not reduced its education budget before making a determination of Commonwealth school funding to that state or territory. In simple terms, what this means is: the states and territories cannot take funding out the back door as the Commonwealth increases funding in the front door.

Before the election, Tony Abbott promised a unity ticket with Labor on schools funding, but we see now another broken promise. What we see here is legislation designed to ensure that states are not decreasing education funding. Before the election, the Labor government did a lot of work to come up with a fair funding model for Australian schools. Along with that fair funding model for Australian schools, we made a commitment to substantial extra investment in schools, $14.65 billion over six years. That $14.65 billion included Commonwealth funding, and it also included state funding. For every $2 that we were putting in, we expected the states to put in an extra $1.

Before the election, first of all we had Christopher Pyne—the opposition spokesperson at the time—saying: 'Absolutely not. Over my dead body. No Gonski. No way are we supporting this funding model'. What became apparent as the election campaign progressed was how terribly unpopular that position was. Australian parents of both public and private school kids understand that the quality of our education system depends on every child in every community in every family in every school having an opportunity to get the best possible education.

Parents want their kids to get the very best education but they know that, for the cohesion of our society and the strength of our economy, all kids need to get a decent education. So there is very strong support for the Gonski school education funding reforms. The coalition was dragged kicking and screaming to say that they were on a unity ticket with Labor. But then what happens afterwards?

Under this government, Commonwealth funding drops to just $2.8 billion over four years—instead of the $14.65 billion combined Commonwealth state funding over six years I mentioned earlier—and the states do not need to put in a single extra dollar. In fact they can cut funding from their own education budgets and still get the small amount of extra Commonwealth funding in comparison to what was previously on offer.

The reason that we went into the complexity of our school education funding system is: every child in Australia deserves a decent education. But, just as importantly, our national prosperity depends on every Australian child getting a top quality education. So it was not just $14.65 billion of extra funding for our schools that was important; it was also better quality teaching; higher standards; better training, support and development for teachers; better student outcomes, focussing on more individual attention for every student; more flexibility for principals, engaging with parents in the community. I am a particularly strong supporter for more flexibility for principals. I think principals know their school communities and what their kids need in their schools, and they are dedicated to achieving that.

I am a big supporter of more flexibility for principals; a needs based funding system where every child in every school gets a good education; and transparency and accountability. Transparency and accountability were controversial measures. We were criticised, including by some teachers, for the demand we instituted for greater transparency and accountability for national testing like NAPLAN and for the transparency of the MySchool website, but I make no apology for those measures either. We saw on the weekend a list of most-improved schools that included some very surprising names. We only know that because we have NAPLAN and the school transparency measures.

In the end, I have to say that this bill should not be necessary. It should not be necessary to have to hold the states to accounts, but we have seen terrible cuts at state and territory levels, teachers sacked and schools closed and sold off. If the Liberals were truly on a unity ticket with Labor on funding, this bill would not be necessary. It is necessary because, instead of $14.65 billion, we get about one-third of that under this government.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on this private member's bill—a bill which is based on false assumptions and scaremongering from an opposition that has not quite come to terms with the total chaos that was their previous government. What cuts? Do those opposite mean their own $1.2 billion worth of cuts that they made to education before the 2013 election to hide some of their black hole of debt—the very same $1.2 billion that the coalition then reinvested in education after Labor took it away? What cuts?

Those opposite are in denial. They refuse to accept that, because of the debt of $123 thousand million they created, we simply cannot afford the blue-sky promises Labor made but never wrote down in any budget papers. Those opposite still believe in their alternate universe filled with their delusions of false accomplishments.

The previous Gillard-Rudd governments took the 'deal at any cost' approach to education in order to desperately cling on to power instead of acting in the best interests of students. The school funding model Labor promised to some states was by no means equal, let alone realistic. Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory had not reached funding agreements with the Rudd-Gillard government, so Labor impatiently then ripped $1.2 thousand million out of the total funding package. However, this $1.2 billion was then reinvested by the coalition government in the December MYEFO. As these jurisdictions had not reached any agreement with the previous government, the funding they are getting under the coalition government is much better than what they would have received otherwise.

If you look at the projected expenditure of Labor's education funding, it is hard to tell if it is simply an economic joke or a malicious time bomb planted by reckless politicians who knew they would never have to face reality and pay up. Quite simply, a vast majority of the so-called 'promised funding' comes well after the forward estimates, so Labor never had to write it into a budget paper. Yes, they may have written it on pretty fliers with grandiose slogans like 'The Education Revolution' or 'Gillard Youth' along with their infamous 'We Have Delivered a Surplus' brochures; but, quite simply, the funding behind these promises was about as genuine as the former member for Griffith's selfies. What does surprise me, however, is that, for all the boasting those opposite do about how they are the party of education, not once did they stop to think about how best to spend the Commonwealth's education funds, how to actually take action against the steadily falling national school scores.

I would like to point out that in this federation that is Australia school education is a responsibility of the state governments and the federal government, which really has no responsibility over schools, contributes approximately 15 per cent of the total schooling budget for states and territories. Fifteen per cent, not 50. The way those opposite are talking, you would think that the federal government was the sole funder of states' schools.

Additionally, it may come as a shock, but for the last two decades Commonwealth spending on schools has been increasing. Yet still results have dropped. If you look at a graph from the Productivity Commission's Report on government services 2014, it shows that as funding has increased the Program for International Student Assessment scores have decreased in both literacy and numeracy. This is because governments should not just be recklessly throwing money at our education system and hoping for the best, as the previous Labor government did. Instead, as the coalition government is doing through our Students First plan, we should be focusing on the four key areas that evidence shows will make a real difference to students. Those key areas are teacher quality, school autonomy, engaging parents and strengthening the curriculum.

In summary, we have a coalition government which is committing $1.2 billion more to schools than Labor. We have a coalition government which is being honest with states, territories, school students and their parents, showing that funding will continue to increase beyond the forward estimates while still being open to negotiations with the states. The coalition government, instead of just throwing money at a problem and hoping it will go away, is putting students first and investing in teacher quality for a stronger education system and a brighter future for all students. This bill is as much a circus act as the previous government.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you want to see the difference between the two major parties writ large, look at education. Look at high school retention rates, for example. During the 12 years of the Hawke-Keating government they rose from around 40 per cent to close to 80 per cent. Then in the next 12 years, under the Howard government, they essentially stagnated. For 12 years children started school and finished school in 12 years. In the biggest global boom in modern memory, at a time when you really could make a difference, they did not. Retention rates stagnated.

We were elected in 2007 and once again began the hard process of increasing retention rates through the Gonski reform, trade training in schools and a number of other reforms. But now the conservatives are back and it is back to the bad old days. We once again have a government with a laissez faire attitude to education, which simply will not do the hard work when it comes to educating our children.

You can tell by the contempt they showed for parents and schools in the lead-up to the election, the deliberate deception in the statements they made that there was a unity ticket on education, that there would be no cuts to education and that there was not a sliver of light between the two parties. They said that, whatever your school would get under Labor, it would get the same under the Liberals. This was all deliberate deception, done because they knew parents cared about the education of their children. It was done in order to get elected and it is a demonstration of absolute contempt for Australian families. You can tell that by the reality of their approach, the total lack of concern about how federal education dollars are spent or not spent once they leave the federal coffers and go to the states.

The Australian Education Amendment (School Funding Guarantee) Bill 2014 addresses a peculiarity of our state-federal system and one that was addressed in Labor's Gonski agreements with the states—the practice of federal governments giving money to the states and the states saying, 'Thank you very much,' and taking money out of the same area. The federal government puts money into the bucket for education and state governments punch holes in the bottom and siphon money out for other purposes.

That is why when Labor negotiated the Gonski agreements we made extra federal funding conditional on states putting in more money as well. Gonski was about lifting every boat, creating greater transparency in funding between state and federal governments, removing the potential for the blame game, increasing contributions from both levels of government and creating certainty for schools and certainty for states in planning appropriate resources, including teacher numbers and infrastructure.

Now this Abbott government has ripped away all that certainty by removing the obligation of state governments to increase their funding or even to not decrease it. We have already seen the results. We have seen cuts to education budgets in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. In the Northern Territory, there have been $47 million worth of cuts and 130 teachers gone. In Western Australia, already there have been $183 million worth of cuts, with 700 educational professionals gone.

This bill attempts to reinstate the certainty for parents, schools and state governments. It requires the minister to be satisfied that a state or territory will not reduce or has not reduced its education budget before federal school funding is provided to states and territories. This is a no-brainer. Without this safeguard, the federal government simply does not have the power to influence the quality of education.

Labor created the Gonski reforms, for school funding based on need, and we have drafted this bill in the wake of the Liberals' broken promises. Before the election, they said they were on a unity ticket with Labor, that no school would be worse off under their proposals. After the election we saw this Liberal government failing to keep its promises to students, to parents, to teachers and to school communities.

It has been encouraging to see in recent weeks that some states still recognise the Gonski agreement, that it delivered the best opportunity for their children, and we have seen the New South Wales, Victorian, South Australian and ACT governments honour their funding commitments for the fifth year of the Gonski agreement in their budgets. These states have called on Tony Abbott to honour his pre-election promise not to cut education funding. They have called on Tony Abbott to keep his word, and so do we. Passing this bill will go part of the way to meeting those promises.

Debate adjourned.