Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been receiving a steady stream of inquiries and requests from the 57 schools and supporters of schools in my electorate that have been using the school chaplaincy program in one form or the other. It is a tribute to the state Labor government's misinformation stream, including a disgraceful taxpayer-funded electronic campaign, that quite a number of them seem to believe that the school chaplaincy program's demise in South Australia is caused by federal government budget cuts. This is simply not true and the South Australian government is deliberately misleading the public in an attempt to deflect consideration from its own budget and at the same time is trying to hang onto union concessions from the old and now expired program.

It is worth while looking at the origins of the school chaplaincy program to understand how we have come to this point. Originally put in place by the Howard government to provide assistance directly to schools for chaplains, it was not meant to relieve state governments of their responsibilities to provide welfare workers in their schools. Instead, it was to enable schools to engage extra help from the religious sector to help promote family values and provide an avenue for students to engage with adults outside the schooling system and with counsellors who were not part of that system. School counsellors were absolutely prohibited of engaging in religious recruitment.

However the now departed Rudd-Gillard government decided to divert the resources of the program into the unionised mainstream workforce of our schools by allowing access the program to fund secular school welfare workers. Until then, school welfare workers had been the responsibility of the individual school system, either state, Catholic or independent and even though the previous government was willing to spread the program to secular workers, it did not see fit to fund the program past 30 June this year

The 2013 budget showed no funding in the forward estimates past 30 June this year, and so the National School Chaplaincy Program was for all intents and purposes a completed program. This is a very important point. In its pre-election commitment, the coalition committed to restarting the program but in its original format—that is, a program to support school chaplains. The Labor party made no such commitment and they made no commitment to the program in the lead-up to the election last September. For them it was dead and buried.

In May this year the coalition government honoured its election commitment to the word to continue supporting school chaplains through the new program. Under this program the government is providing $243.8 million over four years to 2,900 schools across Australia to assist them to engage the services of a school chaplain. Following the recent High Court decision it became necessary for the Commonwealth to provide funding for program through the states. As such, the finance has been made available to each state to run a National School Chaplaincy Program as per our election commitments. Funding was allocated in the May budget and should have provided a seamless transition from the old program to the new program. All states and territories except the ACT and, unfortunately, my state of South Australia have come on board and accepted the program. When all jurisdictions except the two Labor ones have signed on, it is difficult to believe that this is not just about politics.

I understand that the stated objection of South Australia's Minister for Education, Jennifer Rankine, to the National School Chaplaincy Program is that it will no longer fund school welfare workers. Since when did it become the Commonwealth's role to fund state school welfare workers? Why is she prepared to deny all the other schools chaplains just because she does not like it? For the record, under the old program there were 49 schools in the Grey electorate who had employed a school chaplain. Eight more had elected to employ a school welfare officer. At the moment, they all stand to lose their chaplains, and the eight schools with school welfare workers are denied the opportunity to switch to a chaplaincy service for no justifiable reason.

If Minister Rankine would allow the Commonwealth money to flow, those with school welfare workers would be able to employ school chaplains in their place. Should they do so, chaplaincy services will be required to meet all state and territory legislative policy and other requirements, including adhering to Working with Children Checks and mandatory reporting requirements. Chaplains will also be required to meet minimum qualifications and to respect, accept and be sensitive to other people's views, values and beliefs.

Specific student welfare services will not be provided under this program. The coalition is merely honouring an election commitment. The ALP has been going on about us honouring our commitments, so you would think, that even in this state guise, they would allow us to do so.