Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed, it is important to remember that funding for children with disability should be sector neutral—it should not matter whether it is a government-funded school or whether it is an independently-funded school. Supporting children with disability, indeed, should be sector neutral and, in essence, much of the bill that we are debating here today goes to reinforcing that. Absolutely—as I was saying two weeks ago at 4.30, I think it was, on a Friday afternoon—funding is important, and funding is increasing over the next four years quite significantly. In my home state of Tasmania, the federal government's contribution to government schools over the next four years increases by nearly 46 per cent. So, indeed, from the federal government's point of view, we are doing our bit, remembering that the federal government's contribution is only 15 per cent of all of that funding that goes to the government school sector.

But there are other things that are important in making sure that children get the right sort of education. Teachers are very much a part of what makes great schools. The way that teachers are trained and the capacity for teachers to have the confidence and the competency to enter the classroom and feel that they can impart the knowledge that they have learnt through their training are very important. The whole issue of classroom readiness was highlighted recently. The Australian School Survey has been completed and reported on in the last couple of weeks and it confirms the concerns that many teachers have, particularly young teachers who have left training college and are entering the workforce for the first time. Many do not feel totally in control in terms of being able to confidently impart knowledge onto their students.

We have all seen wonderful teachers in our own experiences and the passion that they bring to their vocation—a vocation for many people that is a calling as much as anything else. But feeling unprepared in their ability to enter the classroom is something that we need to address. This is particularly the case for young teachers. Teacher quality is a critical thing alongside appropriate funding; as is school autonomy. That applies to the capacity of the school to be able to deliver the things that are often unique and relevant to the community where the school is based and the community where the students come from. That extends as much to the capacity of the leaders within that school community, not least of all the principal, to be able to make certain choices that are appropriate to the school environment. The best teachers in any system should be recognised and rewarded in the same way that teachers who are not up to the job—and they are a minority of course—should be appropriately dealt with by principals.

There is nothing more important than schoolchildren and making sure that our kids get the very best opportunities possible. That extends of course to the broader school community and to parental engagement. I was not necessarily engaged as much as I probably should have been over the course of my boys' school life, but my wife certainly did her share to participate and contribute to the schools where they attended over time. Having capacity within the school council and within the parents and friends association to support the school, the teachers and the academic staff is indeed very important. Finally, I welcome the work that is being done on the national curriculum. A strong and relevant curriculum is another component of making schools valuable. (Time expired)

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to contribute to this debate on the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2014, which has four major components. I want to deal in the first instance with the first of those: the support for Indigenous students in boarding schools. The bill will establish a new mechanism to allow the minister to make payments to schools for reasons prescribed by regulation. This will facilitate the payment of $6.8 million in 2014-15 to non-government boarding schools with more than 50 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boarders or more than 50 per cent of boarders who are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. This funding was announced in the budget. Of course, support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students attending boarding school is absolutely consistent with Labor's policies in government to construct new boarding schools and help students from remote communities access boarding school education. I want to go particularly to the issue of boarding schools in my own electorate.

In 2008, the budget allocated $28.9 million for three new boarding facilities in the Northern Territory to provide education support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander secondary students. The Indigenous Land Corporation, the ILC, also committed the contribution of $15 million, bringing the joint investment to $43.9 million. We know that three were to be built. The first was to be in Wadeye in the north-west of my electorate—a large community of about 3½ thousand people where there was a Catholic high school but no boarding facility. So we agreed with the community to build a boarding facility adjacent to the high school to look after the needs of kids not only in that community but also in surrounding communities where there was a large catchment population. That building went ahead. In the end, I think, in the order of about $24 million was spent. It is open and doing its business as it should.

What of the other two? One was to be built in north-east Arnhem Land and another in Central Australia in what is euphemistically called the Warlpiri triangle—that is, the areas where Warlpiri communities predominate: Yuendumu, Lajamanu, Nyirripi and Willowra, and smaller communities in between. What happened was that we were unable to get final agreement around the siting of the one in the Warlpiri triangle, so that was put off. But we did get agreement in north-east Arnhem Land from the Yolngu people of Garrthalala to build a boarding facility there. Prior to the last election, contracts were let for that facility. Then when the Abbott government came into power, they stopped those contracts from proceeding. That meant effectively, despite the rhetoric which comes out of this government, that they had purposely and quite deliberately put a stop on the building of a boarding facility in a remote Aboriginal community dealing with Aboriginal kids in remote outstations of North-East Arnhem Land—quite deliberately. There is no excuse for it because there had been agreement by the communities that this was where they wanted this facility built. It meant that their kids would not have to go to Nhulunbuy or to some other facility in North-East Arnhem Land or, indeed, anywhere else across Australia to attend high school. They were denied access to years 11 and 12 unless they attended a boarding facility. That was to be understood because they come mostly from small homeland communities in North-East Arnhem Land. On 18 October 2012, Senator Scullion said:

Whether building these boarding schools in remote communities is of value or not is a question for another day.

It is not a question for another day; it is a question which he should have addressed then and which he should be addressing now by making sure that facility proceeds. The Yolngu people he met a number of weeks ago when he was there with the Prime Minister would have reaffirmed their desire to have this facility built at Garrthalala. The centre is also aware that a report commissioned by the Labor government in 2010 and conducted by KPMG recommended a boarding facility for remote students in North-East Arnhem Land be established at—where do you think?—Garrthalala. In answer to a question asked by Senator Scullion in a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Workplace Relations on 31 May 2012, the department's response referred to a feasibility study. The answer included:

KPMG assessed seven main options for locating the facility—close to one of each of the five Indigenous communities, in addition to a homeland and non-community location.

The government's extensive discussions and consultation in the region clearly demonstrated a high-level of community buy-in and willingness to invest in the decision of placing the facility at Garrthalala.

The Garrthalala community has a well-documented commitment to education, and a strong desire to host the facility, building upon the small residential school program that it has been running successfully for homeland students for several years. It was this strong support from the local community for education, and the surrounding outstations, together with the secure environment, that led the Government to the decision to proceed with building the boarding facility in Garrthalala.

The key to the siting of this facility is the provision of a safe and secure environment where students can learn free of negative social issues and influences. Based on the report, Garrthalala was clearly the site that offered the best safety and security.

Why is it then that this boarding facility has not been built? How can, on the one hand, the government be arguing for kids going away to boarding facilities, yet when there is a community ready and willing to host a boarding facility for the region, to address the needs of the Yolngu Aboriginal kids of North-East Arnhem Land, they will not allow it to happen. This smacks of hypocrisy. The Prime Minister would have been told about this when he was in North-East Arnhem Land and Senator Scullion would have been told again and again.

We are told that Senator Scullion is to go back to North-East Arnhem Land to report to the North-East Arnhem Land Regional Economic Development Committee as a result of the visit from the Prime Minister. It was to be done by 17 October. Do you think he has done it? My word! Of course not. That I think is a further demonstration of the commitment that this government has, in reality, to those people of North-East Arnhem Land. The government go on about the importance of education and boarding facilities, yet kids are sent to Scotch College or to Adelaide, Melbourne, Darwin or anywhere else, while these people, who have a real hunger for education, are denied the opportunity to educate their kids in their home communities. What does that say about this government?

The Northern Territory is the site for a number of experiments by this government, one of which is the Remote School Attendance Strategy. We know that thus far this strategy has cost $46 million. As a result of that investment, in the first term there was an increase of 11 per cent in school attendance across Australia. In the second term, that dropped to six per cent on the baseline and in term 3, it has remained constant at six per cent. That tells us that the strategy is not working and it is not working for a range of reasons. We know that in some communities—I can name Yuendumu and Santa Teresa, Ali Curung and Thalia—attendance has gone backwards.

Last week, I met some of the school attendance officers and they are committed to doing their work. In some communities clearly they work very effectively. In one community last week school attendance was about 80 per cent but we know that, at the same time that this government is spending $46 million—I understand people in this government have become almost apoplectic at its dismal results, the flat-lining of this data—they have not achieved the outcomes they wanted.

During the last government, the Commonwealth government committed sufficient resources to fund 200 extra teachers for remote Indigenous schools in the Northern Territory. Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, you would be aware of this because I know you were here, that you were listening. Would it surprise you to hear that the Northern Territory is committed to providing only 100 to 170 of those teachers, that 30 teachers are no longer to be put in bush schools? They have been relocated for some other function in headquarters or wherever they may be. Apparently, there is a plan to reduce that number by another 35. So, instead of 200 additional teachers funded by the Commonwealth working in remote communities to address the abysmal outcomes for education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids in the Northern Territory, what are we going to see? We are going to see a reduction already of 30; now there will be another 35 potentially so that 200 becomes 135. That means that almost every significant school in the Northern Territory will lose a teacher, and you have to ask yourself: how fair dinkum can this government be, on the one hand blaming parents—because that is what they are doing about not having the kids go to school—while shifting bucketfuls of money out the backdoor and not providing the teaching resources that these schools require?

The formula does not work. It cannot work. You cannot, on the one hand, demand that you have more kids in the school and if you are lucky to get them there—and in some communities they come—then put additional pressure on the school. There will be kids who have not been to school for three, four or five years and they are put in next to kids who have been going to school regularly. What sort of demands does that place on the school community?

The Northern Territory government—what has it done? It has announced $250 million worth of cuts to education resources in bush schools over the forward estimates, and $50 million thus far. That means support teachers in schools. That means teachers in schools so, while the Commonwealth is blaming parents and trying to get kids into school—a good idea: we all want kids to go to school—these children rock up to some of these schools and cannot get the education they deserve because there aren't the resources. Why aren't there the resources? Because the Northern Territory government has withdrawn them. Don't blame Aboriginal parents for that; blame the Northern Territory government.

There are many ways in which you can look at this, but those of us who have been involved in education in the Northern Territory, as I was—as a teacher and subsequently as an observer and participant in the community—understand what this means. The first opportunity that Aboriginal kids in remote schools had to go to high school was in 2001, because when the Labor government was elected they introduced years 11 and 12 to these major communities—communities of 3,000 people where there was no high school. Now we hear the Northern Territory government is proposing to close them. They are apparently going to send all these kids off to boarding schools somewhere else. You don't have to be Einstein to work out what the results are going to be in many of these instances.

I saw that Fred Chaney put out a statement the other day talking about the new funding arrangement, the IAS funds—150 programs reduced to five; and 1400 organisations bidding for $4.8 billion in funds. Do you know what this includes? This includes bidding for school nutrition programs. This means schools in the Northern Territory who have had a nutrition program now have to bid to have those programs continue. Who in their right mind has thought of this?

The mind boggles—the inanity of what goes on in the public policy space in education within this government and their failure to grasp. They need to pounce on the Northern Territory government, bring them to heel and make sure they do what they should be doing for the communities of the Northern Territory and not doing what they are doing at the moment: selling Aboriginal people down the drain.

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

I rise to speak on the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2014 and in particular will be focusing on the measures to support boarding schools for Indigenous students. I am the member for all of South Australia's remote Indigenous schools: on the APY Lands—Ernabella, Fregon, Indulkana, Amata, Pipalyatjara, Mimili and Nyapari; in the west of the state—Yalata, Oak Valley, Koonibba; and in the north—Coober Pedy, Marree and Oodnadatta. I also have in my electorate a significant number of urbanised Indigenous populations at places like Ceduna, Port Augusta, Whyalla, Port Pirie, Port Lincoln and even Point Pearce on Yorke Peninsula.

In urban areas, while there is plenty more to do, we have come a long way in the last 10 or 20 years and are slowly closing the gap between Indigenous and mainstream Australia. As I said, we have much more to do. There are lots of specialised services in those communities, particularly in the health sector. But in the main, education is mainstreamed, and there are good option for students to, firstly, engage in primary school then secondary school and gain a good quality education as it should be in the local high school or area schools.

In remote Australia, it is different not because the schools we have are bad—in fact there has been a huge amount of money invested in the schooling system and teaching resources over the years—but the whole package is bad. It is just not delivering for those students, despite huge investments, as I have said, in housing and health. Children are born into communities where due to poor hygiene, for instance, most suffer some level of hearing loss by the time they start school.

I remember vividly visiting a community on the APY Lands about two years ago where the principal pointed out that they had recently had hearing tests done on the students. Out of 260, they found three good ears. How difficult must it be when you start school: you can't hear properly and are actually speaking in a different language, and so the gap is there before they start? In fact the teachers in these classrooms now use an audio surround fill-in system where the teacher wears a microphone. There is a speaker in each corner of the classroom just so the students can hear what is going on.

Children in these communities are born into households where no-one works, or at least not regularly, in communities where the only work is in government employment programs or being employed by the government to deliver services—often in the health sector and perhaps in the education sector, normally not at the top level but as assistants in the schools as SSOs and perhaps in environmental programs funded by governments. But it is not the norm to have industry operating in these communities and it is often not the norm to have somebody from that household going off to work each day. Violence, alcohol abuse and sexual abuse are, unfortunately, common—not in every household but in enough that the children can consider such behaviour to be the norm. It becomes the general form of the way that community operates. I have often been into communities and have seen violence occurring in the street and the children standing around watching.

There are many issues, and governments of all persuasions have tried to hard to address them. In those remote communities there are far more police now living on site. There is new housing, health centres, art centres, family centres, youth centres, employment programs, civil works, environmental programs and tourism. But, unfortunately, we are still losing ground. It is one of those great conundrums. When I go into these communities and I speak to the people who are delivering these myriad programs, they will all convince you earnestly—and I believe them—that they think they are doing a good job and are making a real difference, whether it be in education, health or family management. But, in fact, the overall outcomes are getting worse. So we are collectively losing ground.

In the APY Lands, which I mentioned earlier, there are more than 100 organisations and programs operating. Many of them do not know what the other is doing, but most of them are convinced they are doing a good job. But we are not making progress. So what do we do to break this cycle? I see absolutely no answer—and I know the minister concurs with this—but in education; a path to empowerment. I hope an empowered next generation will have the confidence to leave the remote lands and venture into mainstream society and take their place there full of confidence—that they will have, as I think Noel Pearson has said, the confidence and ability to walk in both worlds.

Once again on the APY Lands, about 2½ thousand people live there. They occupy 10 per cent of the state of South Australia on freehold title. It is not the most fertile ground. Most people would consider it to be desert. But it is valuable pastoral land. Probably 50 years ago, 200 or 250 people would have been employed to run the cattle properties—good grazing country. But, now, if those properties were operating properly you would probably need a staff of about 10 to 20—with modern mustering methods, motorbikes, computer and telemetry controlled operating water systems and automatic drafting yards on the watering spots. What this means is that this country can still be very productive but it is unlikely ever to employ hundreds of people to operate those industries.

Apart from that, there is no natural economy. We might get lucky. Perhaps a prospector will discover a major resource project and get it off the ground—but, considering how difficult it would be in that part of the world, it is not highly likely. So, generally, speaking there is no natural economy. As I said, most employment is subsidised by the government in one way or another. Probably the best operating private businesses out there are the art centres, which do provide an income for those who spend the most hours there and get the best at their job—so it is a very good signal—but they do not operate without government support.

So if the inhabitants, the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people, want real jobs for their children, like many parents in the country—like myself and my wife—probably the best option is to get them into a boarding school. It was not something I particularly enjoyed when our children were growing up—to send them away to school at the age of 15. Some have lived back at home in my community for short periods since, but it is highly likely that none of them will choose to settle there. I must say, too, that, as a third-generation farmer, in my family there is a strong feeling of affinity to our land. I do not claim to have the same religiously significant affinity as the Aboriginal communities, but it is certainly a tear for children to move away from their families and their land.

Coming from that point of view, I understand, as much as I can, these issues for those who live in remote Indigenous communities. They do not want their children to leave. But as parents we also had to make the tough decisions and say, 'The best opportunity for you is to go forth in the world and have a go.' In the case of my family, that has meant that three of them have professional qualifications and are spread from Canberra to the Riverland and to Adelaide, and they come home and visit us. I know it is a tough question for those who live on the lands. When I sit down with the elders there—with the women and the men—they say that they would really like their children to be employed and to come back to their communities. But, as I went through before, there is no natural economy.

It also concerns me greatly that so many of the programs of governments generally across Australia have been to maintain these communities in their natural environment. But, as I see the breakdown of culture, with another 20 years of what we have been doing, there will be no culture left to protect. In fact, it is being eroded daily. There is a lack of respect for the elders. Drugs, alcohol and violence are riddling these communities. The opportunity of boarding school not only is an opportunity to get a good education but also provides a circuit breaker. The kids can actually have a look at a different life—a life where they know they are safe; a life where success is the norm; a life where people go to work five days a week and maybe more. That is what these kids need to see. Then they need to think, 'I want a piece of that.' And when each one of them makes a move into the wider world and says, 'I am going to change my life,' I celebrate that as a great outcome. We cannot do that if we do not have good schooling systems, and we cannot get them into secondary school and into boarding schools where they can compete unless we can break the conundrum of getting them to a level at year 5. Once again Noel Pearson says, 'I want the children that go through the Cape York schooling system to be able at the end of year 5 to go into any school in Australia and be able to operate on an even standing with the other children as they approach year 6.' I think that until we can reach that level, we have not made it.

There has been some reference made to the school attendance officers on the lands in the remote communities around Australia. The minister has announced that in 200 communities next year a form of direct instruction, or basic phonetics education, will be introduced. I must say when I went to Cape York, Aurukun and Hope Valley I was greatly impressed with the direct instruction model; it seemed to me it was actually making a measurable and very large difference. If I can see that in my remote communities, I will be very pleased. The member for Lingiari said the school attendance model is not working as well as it should, but if it is six per cent or 11 per cent, that is six per cent or 11 per cent more than we had going last year. From what I have seen on the ground, these programs work where we have the right leadership, and they work less well where we have resistance from within the particular school or poor leadership on the ground for the school-attendance officers. We have to keep working at that. If we have resistant principals or resistant teachers in the school, then perhaps they are the ones who need to go. If we have poor leadership on the ground, let us get rid of the ones we have and find some new ones. Unless we can break this model we are consigning these people to an ever-worsening outcome for their descendants. For me that is simply just not good enough.

I have been to have a look at Wiltja in Adelaide, which is the government boarding school. This extra funding is not aimed at that particular facility at the moment. I must say I am impressed with the boarding school there, where the students from the APY lands in particular, but also those from other remote communities I mentioned earlier, are being well looked after. I do somewhat question whether a boarding school that has a 100 per cent Indigenous enrolment is actually preparing these kids properly for what they are going to find outside the school gate and the boarding house gate. I do like the model that sees students being enrolled in private schools—but they could be government boarding schools if we ran that type of arrangement—where they are mixed. When I say 'mixed' I mean mixed by background, mixed by race. I think the reality of the outside world is that Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians have to work together shoulder to shoulder. I applaud the minister for this move in supporting boarding schools and their ability to engage Indigenous students, and I hope it leads to more construction of boarding schools and higher numbers of students.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to be speaking on the subject matter of education and the Australian Education Amendment bill. I will say at the outset that it is not so much what is in the bill that attracts the attention of members on this side of the House, but the things that are not in the bill and the mess that surrounds it. If there is one thing that has been consistent about this minister and this government's approach to education—whether it is early childhood education or primary, secondary or tertiary education—it is this: they have buggered up everything they have touched. In the 12 short months that they have been in government they have absolutely made a mess of everything that they have touched when it comes to the education sector. I was at my own university—the University of Wollongong, a fine institution—in the Illawarra this week, where they are facing redundancies because of the 20 per cent cut in university funding. You have academics, students and community members up in arms because of the uncertainty surrounding higher education. This has been a critical institution in the Illawarra for giving kids from ordinary working-class backgrounds, like my own, an opportunity in life and a foot on the ladder of opportunity.

It is not so much what is in the bill that attracts our ire, although there are some things that do warrant some attention that are within the legislation—it is the stuff that surrounds it. It is the absolute mess that Minister Pyne has made in his 12 months in the job when it comes to higher education. The first part of the bill attracts our support—the support for Indigenous students in boarding schools, the provisions within the bill that will allow the minister to make payments of up to $6.8 million in 2014-15 to non-government boarding schools that have more than 50 Indigenous boarders or more than 50 per cent of their total population who are Indigenous students. This is something that we support—it is consistent with Labor's policies when in government to construct new boarding schools—particularly to support measures which will assist us in closing the gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians when it comes to their life expectancy. There is bipartisan support for the Closing the Gap targets and bipartisan support when it comes to closing the gap between non-Indigenous and Indigenous life expectancy and mortality rates. But this goes to the issue of closing the gap in education and employment outcomes: ensuring that we have access to early childhood education for all Indigenous students four years old in remote communities by 2013—that is a bipartisan proposition, initiated by Labor; halving the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements; and halving the gap in year 12 retention rates for Indigenous students by 2020. All of these are designed to ensure that Indigenous students are able to enjoy the same life opportunities as non-Indigenous Australians. Sensible measures which are directed at these propositions will enjoy our support, and this part of the legislation does.

The second part of the legislation is a solution to a problem of the government's own making. This is the provision which will change the funding transition rules so that funding is indexed by at least three per cent per annum. Without this change, around 38 schools would face funding cuts in 2015. I stress this point: we would not need to be in parliament today debating this provision if the government had not stuffed it up, if the government had put in place the election promises that they went to the 2013 election with. If they had done what they promised to do, we would not be needing to debate this provision within the House today. It is because the government have broken their pre-election promises that we need to put in place this workaround, this fix-up. Had they honoured their bipartisan commitment to the Gonski reform arrangements, we would not be needing to pass this amendment here today.

The third proposition is about delaying the implementation of the school improvement plans by one year. They are going to be delayed to January 2016. What are the school improvement plans? Quite simply, they are the requirement on schools who are receiving additional funding from the federal government to put in place measures to prove that they are actually addressing those educational outcomes that the funding is in respect of. I have got to say that this is the part where the minister has absolutely jumped the shark. We have a proposition by the minister that he does not believe in command-and-control requirements for school funding systems. So he is essentially tearing up that part of the Gonski school funding agreement and saying, 'We need to start again.' In light of their history on this issue, you really do have to be a little bit cynical about a proposition from a Liberal Party Minister for Education that rejects command-and-control propositions when it comes to school funding by the Commonwealth.

All of us on this side of the House remember the 2004 plan by the then Liberal minister, Brendan Nelson, to tie the requirement for receiving school education funds—the $33 billion in Commonwealth funding—to sticking a flagpole in the schoolyard. That is right: these enemies of command and control were saying, from 2004-05, that, if a school wanted to receive any of its Commonwealth government funding, it had to stick a flagpole in the yard of the school. I have no problems with—in fact I support—the proposition that schools have flagpoles, and I support the provision of flags to schools, as most good members do. But, when you look at the coalition's history, you have got to ask yourself how genuine they are when they say, 'We're not into this command-and-control stuff; we'll just hand money out to schools without any conditions upon it; we won't ask what they're doing with the money.'

These are the guys who started the culture wars when it came to school curriculum. These are the guys that could not find enough opportunities to bag the schoolteachers in the public school system. They required that schools have a flagpole in order to receive Commonwealth government funding, and yet they stand here today and say, 'We need to put this legislation before the House because we do not like those provisions of the Gonski school education plan that require some conditionalities upon the additional funding.' You have got to ask yourself: is this just a ruse for the government to once again back away from what was said before the election about a bipartisan commitment to the Gonski school education plan? We all remember Chris Pyne saying that you could not put a cigarette paper between the Labor Party and the coalition parties when it came to school education funding and the Gonski plan. We know they have torn up the funding agreement. You have got to ask yourself whether this is just another ruse to enable them to completely back away from every and each part of that funding plan.

I know the minister likes to stand up and say they are still honouring their proposition, but they are the only Liberal government in the country which claim that they are honouring the Gonski school education funding agreement. In fact, last week we had the National Party Minister for Education for New South Wales, Adrian Piccoli, say quite clearly that they signed a six-year funding agreement, a contractual arrangement, with the Commonwealth, and they signed it because they could see that this was to the benefit of every student in every school in New South Wales, and they think that the federal education minister, Christopher Pyne, has reneged on that agreement, has torn up the agreement, and they will be taking steps within their power to ensure that it is honoured.

Why is it important? We know that the Gonski school education review was the most comprehensive review of school education in over 40 years. At its core the proposition was this: public or private does not matter; we want to ensure that as a Commonwealth and as state governments we are funding schools on the basis of need. Schools with higher need students, whether they are students from low-SES backgrounds or students from Indigenous backgrounds and whether they are schools with a higher proportion of students with disabilities, are the schools that should attract a greater amount of state and Commonwealth funding, and we will put in place a funding formula to ensure that that occurs.

It does not make sense if the Commonwealth is putting more money in the top of the bucket and state governments are putting a hole in the bottom of the bucket and draining it out for other programs, so it is absolutely critical that you have a joined up response from federal and state governments and from the non-government school sector. That is what Labor managed to do, and it was not easy getting around the table an reaching agreement with the first ministers of all the states and territories around the country. But do it we did with all but one exception, and agreement was reached.

But almost the first act—in fact, one of the quickest retreats from a promise—was this minister, Christopher Pyne, breaking his promise to the Australian people and tearing up the Gonski school education plan and funding agreement with the state and territory ministers. If it were not for that act, the legislation before the House today would not be necessary.

We will not be seen as standing in the way of a provision which is going to provide more funds to Indigenous students who are attending boarding schools, particularly those boarding schools which have a high proportion of Indigenous students. We will not stand in the way of ensuring those independent schools have their funding indexed so they can continue to operate over the next two years without funding cuts. We also will not do anything to stop the rest of the schools receiving their increased funding under Labor's improvements to the school education funding arrangement. We will not do it in a way that lets those opposite get off scot-free. People need to know when they go to the next election which side of politics stands for education in this country; which side of politics can be trusted when it makes a promise in relation to early childhood, primary, secondary, university or TAFE education; which side of politics is truly committed to investing more money in our kids and universities; and which side of politics cannot be trusted to keep their promises, because, every time they have made a promise when it comes to higher education—every time they have made a promise when it comes to school education-they have broken their promises. The people of Australia will not forget that.

The people of Australia will not forget that the Minister for Education cannot be trusted when it comes to education. If he has made a promise on it, you can be guaranteed that, if he is re-elected, he is going to break that promise. The people of Australia need to be and will be reminded of that. They will not forget.

As I said at the outset, the students from my region at the University of Wollongong will not forget that. They are red hot with anger because they know that this government which is cutting funds to schools is also now cutting funds to universities. It is going to mean higher fees for them. It is going to mean fewer academic staff teaching them. It is going to mean a reduction in the number and quality of services. So we support the legislation but not without reservations.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure for me to contribute to the debate on the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2014. It must be confusing for those listening to the presentations made by members with regard to what is being said in the chamber. What I do know is that the passionate response of the member for Lingiari to proposals in this bill reflects his electorate, as did the member for Grey when he spoke very wisely about how this bill affects people in his electorate and took the opportunity to explain to the House how his electorate and Indigenous communities work and where he saw it going. He wanted to break the cycle through education.

Education has been an issue in this House for the whole time that I have been here. It has been contentious. Everybody—each government, each community—has their own view about how education can best be delivered to our generations of children and adults. Having said that, who is right in the chamber? Is it the member for Throsby, who gave the atypical political speech about education? Is it the member for Lingiari, who passionately talked about his electorate and the effects on the Indigenous community? Is it the member for Grey or any other person making a contribution here? Who is right? Certainly the public listening to the debate would not have the faintest idea who is right.

The member for Throsby must have forgotten or have some amnesia with regard to the $2.3 billion they took out of higher education in their last budget before they were defeated. Is that forgotten? Come on; it cannot be. Yes, the nation has been left with a fair amount of debt. This government has to address it in every area.

But I especially wanted to talk about education as it affects you whether or not you are an Indigenous person, whether you are red, yellow, black or white. It does not matter. It means that our kids are important. We not only have to send a message to our children; we have to send a message to their parents about their dedication. The member for Lyons in a candid admission today in his address in this House said he was not heavily involved in his boys' education. He said his wife was. She carried the burden for the family with regard to the education for the boys. I would fit that bill myself. I think that, though I have sat on a number of school boards over the years and contributed locally—my children went to secondary college at Pakenham and have done well—I have to say I was not around a lot. Often the burden is taken up by your partner.

I wanted to find a way to send a message to the whole of my community about the importance of education, and I have to take every opportunity. As this year roller-coasters towards Christmas and the New Year and soon will be into another year and all the thankyous will have been said; and the HSC results would have come out, and the futures would have been written, they think, on just that result—and it is not the truth. That result is not the be all and end all of a life given and life's opportunity. But education creates the opportunities. Not in every case. Not in mine, for sure. I think my education began with the bumps and scratches of life, as I stand here today with more bumps and more scratches. So I wrote:

This Christmas we the people of Gippsland from North, South, East or West, recognise that education is the greatest gift we can give our children. Universal access to learning, the Christmas present that keeps on giving, empowers our children to reach their full potential.

What more can we do to enhance our collective national progress, building a cohesive society based on tolerance and respect, than through the best education for our children our nation can afford.

Life-long learning reduces poverty, creates better jobs and increases the health and well-being of every Australian. As our children are one third of our population and all of our future, it is right and just that we gift in full measure to the next generation. Through the precious commitment of our teachers we claim for our children greater heights and success than we of this generation ever dreamed.

I put that to the House in all the consideration on education, all the blaming of the other side for what they have not done, let us encourage those in this House in tertiary education, in TAFE, in secondary college, in primary school, in early development education. They talked about day care providers being educators now; I think let the kids play. But let not this be a playground in this House. Let this not be a playground. Let us debate sensibly education in this place, in a bipartisan manner that gives the best opportunity for future generations—our children—the best opportunity to reach their full potential we as parliamentarians can possibly give them. I thank the House.

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

I am pleased also to be speaking on education, and I acknowledge the member for McMillan's contribution. Before I start addressing the bill I would like to say one thing in response to him: it would be wonderful if this House could be bipartisan at all times, but the unfortunate truth is that we on this side of the House to not agree with the direction that the government is taking on education. We do not agree with the walking away from the full Gonski reforms, we do not agree in the cuts to early childhood education, and we do not believe that the approach the government is taking to education is going to put our children in the best possible place in the future. It is our duty as members of this place to say so. That is actually what we do here. I would love for us to be able to be bipartisan. We thought we were on Gonski. Immediately prior to the election the opposition of the time, now the government, were saying they supported Gonski in full. We had a moment, we thought, of bipartisan support for what had been tens of thousands of hours of consultation and a program of improvement that had the support of stakeholders all around the country. We thought we had that immediately prior to the election. But immediately after the election the government walked away from its bipartisan commitment to Gonski. The government broke its promise. We are here today debating a bill which exists because the government broke its promise. It exists because the government said one thing before the election and walked away immediately after. If they had kept their promise to implement the Gonski loading for students with disabilities, for example, in 2015 and provide extra resources—a very clear promise—we would not be here today looking at a makeshift, short-term answer to compensate schools for cuts in funding because the government walked away, ran away some would say, from that commitment.

Let us now look at the bill in a bit more detail. The bill does provide extra support for Indigenous students in boarding schools, and that would have to be seen at face value as a very positive thing. Boarding schools play an incredibly important role, particularly for Indigenous students from remote communities. They provide access to curriculum flexibility that students need in order to go on to higher education. So they are incredibly important for remote students.

This new mechanism will allow the minister to make payments to schools for a reason prescribed by regulation and it will facilitate the payment of $6.8 billion this financial year to non-government boarding schools with more than 50 Indigenous borders or more than 50 per cent of boarders who are Indigenous. Again, it must be seen as a positive thing for the students who will actually attend what in most cases are very large private schools such as grammar schools. There are a couple of schools in my electorate that would meet those requirements.

It is consistent with the policies by the previous Labor government, except that we were also constructing new boarding schools to help students from remote communities access boarding school education. Again, nobody in this House could argue against the provision of $6.8 million to the larger boarding schools to assist Indigenous students who are attending school there. From the man who wanted to be the Prime Minister for Indigenous affairs, $6.8 million for Indigenous children who are largely going to large private schools cannot be criticised, but, in light of the half a billion dollars in cuts to Indigenous funding, there is a great deal that needs to be said about this. Closing the Gap needs more than just finding a few of the larger boarding schools. In fact, it needs a great deal more, and what can be criticised other cuts to Indigenous funding that rip away other support that help children prepare for school, do well at school and go on to further education.

Cuts to Indigenous funding at up to well over half a billion dollars and it includes $9.5 million from support for Indigenous languages in schools. So we have lost $9.5 million for support for Indigenous languages, which must be seen as incredibly important also, and we have $6.8 billion going into boarding schools. So, again, you compare what has been cut in order to fund this. The questions must be asked about the wisdom of cutting programs which assist Indigenous children in many other ways.

The government has also ripped $46 million from the Remote Jobs and Communities Program to fund a truancy army in remote Australia. We have lost $46 million from the Remote Jobs and Communities Program, also an incredibly important program. In the case of early childhood, which the member for McMillan also referred to, the previous federal Labor government invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the National Partnership Agreement on Indigenous Early Childhood Development. The purpose of that money was to make sure that young Indigenous children would get the best possible chance at life by establishing 38 children and families centres around the country. We know from all the research that the work that is done in that zero to four age group sets a child up for school. The improvement in a child's capacity to learn is greater than the entire first seven years of primary school. It is more important to the outcomes of education than perhaps any other part of a child's life, and yet the Abbott government has abandoned those centres. It refused to fund them when the partnership expired on 30 June this year, and we know from talking to those centres that many of them face a real prospect of closure.

We have had hundreds of millions of dollars ripped out of early childhood services for Indigenous Australians. Again, what has been cut in order to fund this $6.8 million for Indigenous students in boarding schools? On the subject of Gonski, before the election there was not a cigarette paper—not a sliver of light—between the two parties. There was bipartisan support for Gonski, but the Gonski model provided a special Indigenous loading to ensure that those schools with Indigenous students were properly resourced to provide the best possible education for Indigenous students—and the government, of course, has walked away from that.

Universities are incredibly important. In my electorate of Parramatta, the University of Western Sydney surprised me when I first ran for parliament in 2004. They told me that the number of Indigenous students enrolled at the University of Western Sydney had decreased under the 12 years of the Howard government. Rather than seeing an improvement in the numbers of Indigenous students attending university, we actually saw a decline during those 12 years of the Howard government. But, under the former Labor government, there was a 26 per cent increase in Indigenous students going on to and graduating from university—again, quite a big change in what is a relatively short period of time and, again, we have seen the Abbott government cut the funding from those programs. Where is the actual commitment to Indigenous education? We are seeing hundreds of millions of dollars cut out of Indigenous education by this government. You cannot argue with the positive side of $6.8 million going into boarding schools that house Indigenous students, but we need to look at it from the helicopter view of what else is going.

Also in this bill are some changes to funding for students with disabilities. Under the Gonski model, there were six areas of need that received extra loadings: small schools, remote schools, Indigenous students, students with poor English, disadvantaged schools and students with disabilities. The first five were fully funded; disabilities, though, the sixth one, required extensive consultation and was delayed. If you look at it, states have different approaches and current state models range from $4,000 to $40,000 per student depending on a broad range of factors. So it was an incredibly hard policy area and we wanted time to implement it for 2015. As an interim measure, though, Labor funded the $100 million transition program, which was called More Support for Students with Disabilities. The minister says that the $2.4 million which is going to special independent schools is required to prevent a funding cut because the safety net will disappear. But the safety net that he is talking about is actually that Labor transition program, More Support for Students with Disabilities, which the government have decided not to continue. So they cut the safety net and then, because the safety net is cut, provide an extra $2.4 million to ensure that schools do not go backwards.

How far we have fallen in the debate on education. How far we have fallen from just a year ago, when we were talking about lifting every boat and making sure that every child had a better education. How far we have fallen from standing in this House, looking at providing $2.4 million so that independent schools that deal with children with special needs do not actually go backwards in 2015. By 2015, the Gonski loading for children with disabilities was supposed to be in place, and the government, then in opposition, prior to the last election promised it would be. They promised that in 2015 it would be ready because they would do the work required to implement that loading. Instead, we are standing in this House today voting on a bill which provides $2.4 million to make sure that those schools do not go backwards.

This week is the National Week of Deaf People. Putting aside the debate that I know goes on in my community about whether deafness is a disability, these are young people in the early stages of their lives who need the extra assistance that the Gonski loading would have provided. They needed it; we promised it; the opposition, now the government, promised it—and they have walked away from that.

The member for McMillan called for bipartisanship, which would be wonderful. If we want bipartisanship in this House, there is a very easy way to get it, and that is for the government to honour their election commitments and fully fund Gonski, as they promised to do, and do it in the timetable in which they promised. Then we would revert to the bipartisan position that we were in just over a year ago. That is how long it has been—a year ago, we were in agreement. A year ago, schools were expecting to get their loading. A year ago, schools were making plans. Now they are not and we are in this House looking at ways to ensure that schools do not go backwards. We are looking at a bill that provides $2.4 million to ensure that schools do not go backwards. We are looking at a bill that provides $6.8 million for Indigenous students attending boarding schools, but we are doing that in the context of billions of dollars in reductions of funding to schools because of the decisions that the government have made since they came to office.

I say to this government: we would love bipartisanship. Please come to the table and do for education in Australia what we as a nation need and what our students need. We need an education system which can compete with the world. We do not need to be in here looking at ways to ensure that funding does not go backwards as an interim, bodgied-up measure because you could not keep your election promises.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being just on 1.30 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.