Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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

The government undermining the future of Australian children by attacking schools.

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—

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

Every single member of this parliament should recognise that there is an urgent need for us to invest in school reform. The evidence is compelling and it is overwhelming. Yet we noticed, again, today in question time when the Prime Minister was asked a question about his proposed $30 billion in cuts to our school system he failed in his answer to mention the word 'education' once, to mention the word 'student' once or to mention the words 'school' and 'schooling' once. That is because this is a government that has absolutely no plan for the future of our education system except to inflict the biggest cuts to school funding in this nation's history, which is what has been included in this government's last two budgets.

After the $30 billion cuts to schools, after they dumped their so-called unity ticket on school funding—which you might recall they told the Australian public they were on before the last election—after they trashed the Gonski reforms which they pledged to keep in place, as we head towards the next election, there are reports that the Prime Minister is suddenly scrambling to pull together $7 billion in hush money to mask his government's cuts and try and buy the silence of state governments to cover-up the massive hole in school and hospital funding. Those opposite do not have a solution to school funding. All they have is chaos and all they are looking for is short-term political answers to get them past the next election before they once more break the hearts of everybody who cares about Australia's education system.

I want to remind members of the House why it is so critically important that we invest in reforming our school system. It is not just because I or the Labor Party say so; it is because, after the biggest review of Australia's school system in over 40 years, the evidence is compelling that we need to change. When we look at the international evidence, whether it be PISA or whether it be reports from the OECD, the evidence is compelling. Let us place on the record what is currently happening in Australian schools so that we can front up to the problem and then talk about the solutions that are required.

In Australian schools right now we know that the gap is growing larger and larger between those students and those schools that are performing well and those students and those schools that are falling behind. In fact, the gap in Australia between these two sorts of schools is now wider than the OECD average. Anybody who believes—like every person who sits on this side of the House—that the key to a fair Australia and an equitable society is for every single child at every single school to have a great education and equal access to opportunities knows that we need to close this gap as a matter of urgency.

It is not just about equity. When we look at the skills that are required for the jobs of the future we know that these are the very same areas where all of the international comparisons show that Australia is slipping behind. We know that our international performance is slipping when it comes to maths, when it comes to science and when it comes to the critical STEM topics which we know Australian students will rely upon in the international economy of the future. We know, and the OECD has told us, that if we want to boost Australia's future economic growth we need to urgently address the fact that we need improvement in our schools. All of this evidence is well known. All of this evidence has been discussed and all of this evidence should be accepted by every single member of this parliament.

We do not know just the problems; we also know the solution. Having gone through the biggest review of the Australian school system in over 40 years, we were given a road map for reform. We were given a way that we can bridge the gap, a way that we can ensure that every student in every school gets the support and the funding levels that they need and that that funding is directed towards the programs and policies which we know make a difference. At the last election, those opposite claimed that they were on board when it came to reform. People may recall that the member for Sturt said prior to the last election, 'You can vote Liberal or Labor and you will get exactly the same amount of funding for your school.' If only that were true. The now former Prime Minister said before the last election, 'We are on an absolute unity ticket when it comes to school funding.' If only that had turned out to be true. At the last election, the very last thing that voters saw before they went in to cast their ballots were large signs that were displayed at polling booths. The signs read, 'The Liberals will match Labor's school funding dollar for dollar.' Every single one of these statements turned out to be nothing but empty promises, nothing but tricks in the lead-up to an election. It shows that those opposite do not care about schools. The reality is that every time they stand up and claim that they care about innovation, every time they stand up and claim that they care about future economic growth, every time that they stand up and claim that they care about Australia's international competitiveness, we know that those are nothing more than empty promises and more tricky slogans if they continue with their policy to rip $30 billion from our schools, because everything else collapses if you do not have a quality school education system.

Now we are starting to see some new promises from this government. After ripping up agreements, after ripping money out of school budgets, after attacking education time and again, as we get closer to the election we are starting to hear some new promises coming out of those opposite. We know, for example, that the new education minister has said that we will have a new school funding model in place. Sure, we had reviews, we had experts, we had academics, but the new education minister is going to put in place a new school funding model that he is apparently going to come up with himself. We have heard promises like this before. For example, we heard the former education minister say, 'We are going to have a new funding model which is beginning in 2015.'

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who was he?

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

The member for Sturt promised that when he ripped up Labor's agreements. He said there was going to be a new school funding model beginning in 2015. It did not happen. It did not happen in 2016. In 2017, we are now told, we will have a new school funding model. But only this week, we have now heard from the current education minister, who has made a new promise to the Australian community. The new education minister has now said, 'We expect new funding agreements will exist from 2018 onwards.' This is the mob opposite making it up as they go along. They are now consumed by their own internal chaos; they are now preoccupied with looking over their shoulders at each other, trying to see who is in the camp of the Prime Minister and who is in the camp of the previous Prime Minister. They have absolutely no options on the table when it comes to tax reform and when it comes to policy change so that they can fund things like schools and hospitals. They are making it up as they go along, and every single Australian student will pay the price if this government do not get on board and come back to a so-called unity ticket when it comes to schools.

We on this side of the House are very proud that we will stand up for the reform and the investment that is required for a strong Australian future. We are incredibly proud. I stood alongside the Leader of the Opposition when he announced our 'Your Child. Our Future' policy, ensuring that we will not only fund the rest of the current agreements but also reverse all of the cuts of those opposite over the next 10 years with a $37 billion investment to make sure that every school and every student gets the support that they need.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Where are you going to get the money from?

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

Those opposite interject and ask, 'How are you going to pay for it?' We have just spent all of question time talking about our tax policy and about how we are going to pay for things. We have outlined all of our savings measures so that we can invest in the priorities.

The truth is government is about priorities. We stand here and we say very clearly that education is our No. 1 priority. We know that a strong economy relies upon a strong education system. We know that a fair community relies upon a strong education system. So we are quite up-front about saying that we have made some hard decisions across a number of portfolios because we think it is worth it to make sure that every child in this country gets the opportunity for a great education, no matter what postcode they happen to live in, no matter what school system they happen to be enrolled in. I would say to those opposite, particularly those from regional areas, all of the evidence shows that country students are falling behind at the quickest rate at the moment. Those opposite who are meant to represent those areas might get on board. (Time expired)

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

I listened closely to the shadow education spokesperson during her 10-minute address. She levelled a number of criticisms at the coalition with regard to our schools policy. Most of those I just dismissed, but there was one truth in what she said. She said that we did not deliver on our commitment that we would match dollar for dollar what Labor promised. That is true. We did not match dollar for dollar; we exceeded it by $1.2 billion.

When the Labor Party made their promises and put their commitments forward for the Gonski funding when they were in government, they held a number of negotiations with state governments but neglected to negotiate with Queensland, and they could not get a deal with Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Consequently, those three jurisdictions were $1.2 billion worse off. When we came to government, we made the commitment, on the eve of the election, that we would not only match dollar for dollar what Labor said but put that $1.2 billion back into schools so that Western Australian, Queensland and Northern Territorian schools would also be the beneficiaries of that additional money.

I want to go back to what we said before the election. I was there with the then opposition leader and the then shadow education spokesperson when the announcement was made. It was very clear that we said we would match dollar for dollar the four-year funding commitment over the forward estimates. That is what we promised. We did not promise beyond that. We said that we would commit to the four-year funding commitment and we have done exactly that, plus more.

Look at our funding growth forecasts for school funding, for example: 11.1 per cent, last year's growth; 7.9 per cent, this year's growth; 8.6 per cent, next year's growth; and 6.5 per cent the year after. This means that it is a record level of funding of $69.4 billion going to Australian schools over the four-year period—a record level of funding.

The Labor Party come in here, day in day out, and say that we are cutting funding to schools. I do not know how they can say that when I have just given the figures for the growth rates we are putting in to schools—11.1 per cent growth in year 1; 7.9 per cent growth in year 2; 8.6 per cent growth in year 3; and 6.5 per cent in year 4. That is our commitment to schools. That is the record funding that schools have never before seen. We will continue to invest in schools.

The other point I would make in relation to school funding is that while the funding is important and we will continue to invest in schools, and that funding will continue to grow, it is not the only thing. We know that because when you look at the funding over the last decade, you will see that there has actually been a 44 per cent real increase in funding to schools. But over that period our standards have actually declined both in real terms and in absolute terms compared to other nations.

If you look at our results compared to our OECD competitors, our schools were always in the very top band of performance. For most of those, we have now dropped down to the second band. For example: year 4 reading, we are now 27th in the world; year 4 maths, we are 18th; year 4 science, we are 25th; year 8 maths, we are 12th; year 8 science, we are 12th. Compared to some of the Asian countries that we now increasingly compete with, in some respects we are two or three years behind them at various stages of an individual's schooling by the time a child reaches 15, for example.

Despite all that investment in schools and the fact that we have funding in our schools which is above the OECD average, our standards have actually gone backwards relative to ourselves and certainly relative to other countries. Clearly on that evidence alone, funding is not the only thing. Yes, it is important. Yes, we will continue to invest record amounts, but it is not the only thing.

What all the academics tell us is what really counts is teacher quality, a rigorous curriculum and parental engagement. They are the things which really make a difference. So that is why this government has been so determined to make an impact on those things. Deputy Speaker, as you know, we did a full review of the national curriculum with the aim of having a much more rigorous curriculum, which reaches similar standards to some of our international competitors. You know the efforts that we have made to have higher quality teacher graduates and to have higher quality teaching occurring in our schools. I personally have been concerned in relation to the dropping ATAR scores for entrance into some of the teacher education courses around this country. I think that is something of deep concern to many people, certainly on this side of the chamber. There has been some good action on this front already and there needs to be further action on this front. These are the things which really make a difference to school performance.

It is about having that quality teacher in front of the classroom. We all know that. Every parent knows that, because every parent is so concerned about which teacher they get for their son or daughter. They know that you can have a great year in a school one year and have a less great year the following year even though you are in the same school with the same school principal, with the same curriculum and with the same funding. The difference for that student is the quality of the teacher standing in front of the classroom. We want to see exemplar teachers right across the board, and that is exactly what we are aiming to achieve.

Let me in the last few minutes that I have speak about Labor's policy. The member for Adelaide was very passionate about their policy, where they say that they are going to be investing $33 billion into schools over the next decade. I ask the Labor Party: where is the money going to come from? They say they are going to invest $33 billion in schools, yet we know that they already have a $51 billion black hole. Everybody knows the state of the budget presently—that we are in deficit and we are still trying to pay back the debt which Labor gave to us when we came into government just a couple of years ago. Everybody knows that we have had very significant budget deficits—they were as far as the eye could see when we came to government a couple of years ago—and they know the work that we are doing to get the budget back under control. That requires very disciplined spending restraint and disciplined work to grow the economy and do the types of things that we are doing.

So when we see these types of figures, you shake your head and say, 'Where is Labor going to fund that from?' They have not identified that. Are they going to do it from (a) new taxes or (b) just add it to the credit card bill for the next generation to pay for it? It can only be from one of those two sources. They are the two sources that they went to when they were in government. They whacked everything on the credit card for the next generation to pay for. So the younger people who are in the gallery today are going to be paying for Labor's debt for years to come. The children who are in the gallery up the top at the moment will particularly be paying for Labor's debt for years to come through higher taxes.

That is what they did—and, if they get back into government, that is exactly what they are going to do again. They are going to get the credit card out and they are going to place it all on the credit card and make future generations pay for it. In addition to that, they are going to look for new taxes after new taxes. They have already placed billions of dollars of new taxes on the table and yet have only put about $1 billion of actual savings on the table—one measly billion dollars of savings; yet they have billions of dollars of tax proposals on the table. That is not responsible. If you want to invest in schools, you have to be able to run a good economy. You have to be able to run a budget which is under control. You have to be able to have a growing economy, which is what we aim to do, and you have to have the money to invest in it for our children's future—and that is exactly what this government is doing.

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

I sit here every day and I see Tony Abbott in drag sitting across the other side. There he is, Tony Abbott, in drag, masquerading, while the member for Wentworth talks to us about government policy, when we know the policies are exactly the same as the policies his predecessor, the member for Warringah, had—and that includes policies on education. We need to understand precisely what the government are doing. We know that they are cutting funding from schools in the out years. We know this, because they have said they are going to do it. It is no surprise; we all know it. We know what the impact will be on the education system, on every school and on every student around this country. We know that it will have a dramatic impact and that it will have the worst impact on people who live in remote and rural communities.

I am surprised that the National Party, the coalition partners of the government, are standing back and supporting these proposals, when they know, as I know, that the people with the worst educational outcomes in the country are people in the bush. The people with the worst employment outcomes in the country are people in the bush. The people with the worst health outcomes in the country are people in the bush. What the government are doing is compounding the differential between the country and city by undertaking these cuts. We know that every school in the bush will be negatively impacted by these cuts. Cutting teachers and cutting school expenditure will mean that kids get a poorer outcome. In the Northern Territory alone, $335 million will be ripped out of classrooms, with $179 million being ripped out of classrooms in my own electorate, Lingiari. The people in Lingiari, the bush communities, have the worst educational outcomes in the country. They have the worst health outcomes in the country.

The member for Aston spoke about the importance of quality teaching. We all accept the importance of quality teaching. But, if you hang your hat on the notion that, if you improve teaching quality, you will get the better outcomes you are after, you are kidding yourself—because there are a whole lot of support systems that need to operate which this government will not fund. I went to a community very recently where a seven-year-old girl was identified as having type 2 diabetes. These kids have chronic diseases. We have moving into the education system kids with mental health issues that are not being addressed. This funding cut that is being proposed by the government will compound the difficulties of providing support for those students and support for the very, very good teachers that teach them.

You are not going to improve things by continually cutting funding. As the member for Adelaide pointed out, all you are doing is increasing the growing gap between communities that are worse off and those that are well off. As she said, that gap is wider than the OECD average. We cannot tolerate this rubbish. We in this place need to have a genuine dialogue about how we properly address the concerns of parents and students around the nation regardless of where they live.

The government went to the last election promising people that they could vote Liberal or Labor and they would get exactly the same amount of funding for their school. It is no wonder people do not trust politicians. It is no wonder people have raised questions about the honesty of politicians, when the Leader of the Opposition comes into the chamber and argues against the government and says these things, and the shadow minister asserts the importance of understanding the truth about what the government said when it was in opposition. Understanding the impacts of what they have done in government and masquerading as a government that is actually trying to improve the outcomes, they have doubled the deficit since they have been in government. Is that a problem for the Labor Party? Yes, it is a problem for the Labor Party, because we will inherit it if we are in government.

But we have not made the outlandish claims that this government has made about how they are going to achieve a better outcome. What we know is this: we have identified the savings required for the investments in education which have been announced. We have identified those savings and we have had our expenditure properly costed. We invite the government to demonstrate some authenticity with the Australian people. Do not be dishonest. Tell us the truth and make sure you do the right thing by every Australian child, every Australian parent and every Australian school—something you are not doing.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a pleasure it is to follow the member for Aston in this debate, because, sadly, what we have heard from the member for Adelaide and the member for Lingiari has not been worth following. As a matter of fact, it has been nonsense. It is actually rather problematic, because we are talking about education, and the sad thing about this debate is that Labor thinks that throwing money at a problem is how you fix it. And I say to young Australians, especially young Australian students, that the worrying thing about this is that we are already trying to pay back the legacy that Labor left for you—a budget that is in structural deficit and a large, large amount of debt. Yet if they get back into office you will have to pay back even more. Think about that while you are doing your studies. Labor's legacy for you will be an extra tax burden for you, and that is the sad thing about how they approach everything.

What we want to see from the Labor Party is a proper discussion about how we can further improve education in this nation in a way that does not saddle future generations with large amounts of debt. We as a government are improving education outcomes. We are doing it in a meaningful way and we are doing it in a way that continues to increase funding. I want to go through the MYEFO figures to end the debate about cutting funding to education. This is what we are spending: for 2013-14 to 2014-15, an extra 11.1 per cent; for 2014-15 to 2015-16, an extra 7.9 per cent; for 2015-16 to 2016-17, an additional 8.6 per cent; and for 2016-17 to 2017-18, an extra 6.5 per cent. How can you come into this place and say with a straight face that education funding is being cut when those figures are in the MYEFO? You talk about scare campaigns. Well, this has to be one of the grubbiest, most dishonest scare campaigns that has ever been run. Those MYEFO figures quite clearly show education funding going up: 11.1 per cent, 7.9 per cent, 8.6 per cent and 6.5 per cent. Yet you continue to run a dishonest campaign.

When the member for Adelaide boasted about how much extra money you were going to throw at education there was an interjection from this side. That interjection was: 'How are you going to pay for it?' And the member said: 'We've just outlined in question time how we're going to pay for it. We're going to pay for it through our negative gearing policy and we're going to pay for it through our capital gains tax policy.' How is that going to help to pay for it? As the Prime Minister has incredibly astutely said, Labor's tax policies will make people poorer. And if people are poorer, they will not be earning extra income, they will not be paying extra taxes and therefore we will be going backwards as a nation. How they can come in here, as the member for Adelaide did, and say that Labor's tax plan will help to pay for their extra education funding beggars belief.

When it comes to arithmetic, I am sad to say that those opposite have no credibility. We do, and we want to make sure that we have the budget in a position where we can continue to increase funding in a sensible and methodical way for education. We want to make sure that those 11.1 per cent, 7.9 per cent, 8.6 per cent and 6.5 per cent increases will continue and that we will be able to provide a proper education for future young Australians. We will not use dishonest tactics in this debate. We will use real figures and keep delivering for Australian students.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say to the member for Wannon that Labor's education policy has been very well received by the people I have spoken to since we announced it, including as recently as this week, when I met with the principals of the Primary Principals Association here in Canberra. They made it very, very clear that they welcome this policy, as does every other education commentator whose reports I have read.

Before the election the member for Sturt, who was then the shadow education minister, said, on 29 August:

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

The then opposition leader, just before the election, said:

… no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.

Included in that was 'no cuts to education'. The promises were clear. After promising that there would be no cuts to education, time and again this government cut $30 billion of education funds. And I say again to the member for Wannon that he does not have to listen to this side of parliament to accept the $30 billion of cuts. Every education minister across Australia has acknowledged that there has been $30 billion cut from future education funding in this country. That is a reality that those opposite cannot walk away from as much as they try.

The $30 billion of cuts were particularly bad for South Australia because the cuts were made to years 5 and 6 of Gonski education funding. For my state of South Australia, that meant that we lost most of the Gonski funding. That cut hit the hardest. Not only would South Australia miss out on years 5 and 6 of Gonski education funding but also forward funding increases would then be based on the lower value figure. It is interesting that we hear today that the government is trying to negotiate $7 billion of relief funding prior to the next election. It was $7 billion or thereabouts that was cut from years 5 and 6 of the Gonski education program that was announced prior to the 2013 election. Not surprisingly, we are facing another election in only a few weeks or perhaps a few months.

It has also been said by members opposite time and time again—and we heard it again from the member for Aston—that education funding simply does not matter, that other things affect education outcomes. It is the same line that was used in the USA, where they tried to cut education funding in different places. There was a report put together by the Albert Shanker Institute which looked at whether education funding matters. That report concluded that education funding does matter. Yes, there might be other considerations but education funding makes a difference. If it did not make a difference, why would David Gonski have recommended in his report that funding should be increased for the education sector?

The truth of the matter is that cuts to education funding are another example of the cruelty of this coalition government because most of the funding that was cut, which was Gonski funding, would have gone to disadvantaged families across Australia—families from low-socioeconomic areas, Indigenous communities, schools with high levels of children with a disability or children from overseas with limited English and children in remote communities. These are the communities where education outcomes are well below average, as other members have said and are fully aware of, and these are the communities that would have benefited most had the funding not been cut.

This government has a track record of hitting the most needy in this country the hardest. Contrast that with Labor's 'Your Child. Our Future' policy which was announced recently, a policy that picks up on our 2013 election commitments, which is absolutely clear and which the government that we now have in place tried to link itself to. It is a policy which will reinstate $4.5 billion in education funding over the years 2018-19. It is $37.3 billion of additional funding over the next decade. For my state of South Australia, it means an additional $415 million over years 2018 and 2019.

Labor's plan would mean an additional $2 billion in dedicated support for low-socioeconomic students around this country. We all know that there are children with disabilities across the country. What is concerning is that the number of students currently that have a disability is nearly 200,000 and the number is increasing. The cuts made by this cruel government hit those students the hardest. Those students are the ones who are going to miss out because most of the funding that would have been allocated had we been elected would have gone to the students that needed it the most.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Late on this Thursday afternoon, spectators in the gallery must be listening to this most important of national topics only to hear two sides of politics on completely separate lines of argument. To summarise where we have got to so far, we have had a very clear elaboration by the government of the actual facts of education funding. At the same time, you have heard a very shrill attack from the opposition that we on this side are not meeting their commitments to education and there is a very good reason why—because there is no proof in the pudding like the pudding itself.

When this lot opposite were in government, they were utterly fixated on pink batts and the wacky Green Loans scheme. But when it came to investing in schools, it was mostly school halls. There was not really a great deal of talk about anything other than Gonski reports for long into the future—where they would not be accountable for where that money would come from. That is why the Labor Party, when they are pressed on numbers, moved it all out of the important four-year forward estimates and stacked it in the five-plus years away because they do not want to tell you where the money was ever going to come from—it was five years or more away. Now we are in government, those opposite have these fanciful and elevated figures that were never fundable by any Australian government. Now they say that we are cruel, hard and inconsiderate for not meeting their ephemeral and vacuous promises back when they did not have to tell us where the money was going to come from in the first place.

I will cover the facts and summarise the two coalition speakers before me. The government are funding schools at four per cent—way more than the OECD average of 3.6 per cent. We are growing education funding every year but of course we are not meeting the vacuous and empty promises that Julia Gillard made up just months before her election loss in the hope she would win the election. Those figures of course were never funded—that means that Julia Gillard never told you where the money would come from to achieve those extraordinary increases in school funding. So you know that increases are between eight per cent and 11 per cent. You know that the Commonwealth is doing the bulk of the increase in school funding, not the states. You know that over a generation the contribution into school funding has been enormous and the growth in state school funding has way overshadowed the very tiny increases in independent school funding. That is what the gallery will understand from here.

Now I want a focus on what is a very broadly worded and emotive topic of debate today—that is, 'undermining the future of Australian children by attacking schools'—which basically could cover any topic you choose. I do want to divert to the area of the Safe Schools Coalition, which has been a true talking point this week. It is material produced by the former Labor government that, in the guise of preventing bullying, is basically bringing in a gender and sex education program for state schools around the country. That to me is a far greater attack on the values of Australians because what they want is an end to bullying but they did not ask for this package in particular.

I think it is very important today, without me taking sides, to look at the evidence base behind this program before we can actually, in this debate, work out whether or not we are undermining the futures of children in Australian schools. This is a package that has been developed by one or two academics and the extent of the evidence base behind it—I say to members of the opposition—is some focus groups with teachers. It was very qualitative, feeling related research on whether they liked the package. If you are going to change the curriculum, I would like a bit more than that as evidence. Particularly in these areas of morals, ethics and sexual issues, I think parents are an equal partner in the discussion. Parents have been completely isolated from the collection of that evidence. I think that is unacceptable. Call me a little extreme in this regard for saying that parents need to have some say, or at least an equal and collaborative say, in the education of children.

This coalition director, Sally Richardson, told media recently that this manual has now been picked up by about 350 schools and many of them are secret. It raises a very important libertarian question about whether parents deserve to know what their children are being taught. I think it is completely reasonable that, if you are going to introduce that material, you should be letting your parent body know. I am not insisting on that for history and geography, but I am saying that issues around gender and sexual education should be a matter that parents have a say in. I do not want to see the role of parents completely expropriated by schools, but I would like to think that they are focusing on those important core issues. Where they move into these, it is important to have an open discussion. You do not have the evidence. I do not think that getting 11-year-olds role-playing as queer is evidence based at all. From all the evidence provided, it is extraordinarily thin. I would like to see a way broader group of people involved in developing this material, including psychologists, psychiatrists and paediatricians, who understand what these children actually go through and the services available in this community to protect those children's future.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Shortly after I was preselected and I was running my first campaign in 2010, I was interviewed by the ACT 7.30. One of the questions I was asked in that interview was why I am Labor. I cited a number of reasons why I am Labor to my bootstraps. One of the chief reasons was Labor's commitment to education. Labor has a deep understanding of the transformative powers of education and it puts its money where its mouth is.

How do I know this? How do I know that Labor is deeply committed to and understands the transformative powers of education? It is because my sisters and I are living proof of the transformative powers of education. I come from what I call a working class matriarchy. My great-grandmother left school at 11 and worked as a domestic in the western district of Victoria. My grandmother left school at 13 and was a single mother, like my great-grandmother. She brought up seven kids on her own and worked at three jobs to keep food on the table and to pay the rent in their housing commission house. My mother, as a result of the cycle of disadvantage that my grandmother was in, had to leave school at the age of 15. She loved school, but she was dragged kicking and screaming from school at 15. Thanks to my mother's tenacity, thanks to a great public education and thanks to Labor's investment in education, my sisters and I escaped that cycle of disadvantage, those three generations of disadvantage—my great-grandmother, my grandmother and my mother. It was through those transformative powers of education.

I want and Labor wants every child to have access to those transformative powers of education, no matter what their background, where they live or what their parents earn. I want every child, particularly those experiencing disadvantage, to have access to the potential that is unlocked as a result of a great education.

Through 'Your Child. Our Future' Labor will target the needs of individual students no matter what school they go to—be it a government school, a Catholic school or an independent school. 'Your Child. Our Future' is not just about completing the Gonski reforms. It is a permanent change in our education system. Needs-based funding, which is what is so central about this program, will make sure it reaches the students who will benefit most, including students from low SES backgrounds—we have heard from my colleagues about their experiences of students from low SES backgrounds in their electorates—Indigenous students, students with a disability, students with limited English, students in small schools or in regional or remote and rural areas. This will mean a strong focus on every single child's needs. It will mean more individual attention for students. It will mean better trained teachers. It will mean more targeted resources, better equipped classrooms and more support for students with disability and special learning needs.

The government has spent its entire term putting nothing on the table but savage cuts. Labor, in contrast, has put education at the centre of our priorities through 'Your Child. Our Future'. We will honour the six-year needs-based funding agreement with the states and we will provide long-term certainty for schools by reversing the government school cuts across the next decade. As my colleague has just said, that means a $4.5 billion investment in 2018-19 alone. For the ACT, for the people of my electorate and of the electorate of my colleague the member for Fraser that will mean a $30 million investment.

Our policy has been shaped by extensive research and extensive consultation with parents, teachers, students and academics. Our policy has been shaped by best practice research and models. Our policy puts students and schools at the centre of education. It allows everyone in Australia to realise their potential, no matter how much their parents earn, where they live or their background. Our policy allows every Australian to realise their potential through the transformative powers of education. As we have heard abundantly from my colleague the member for Adelaide and my other colleagues this afternoon, we are putting our money where our mouth is. We are deeply committed to the transformative powers of education.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the obligations that we all have here in this parliament is that when we speak, either from our places as backbenchers or as frontbenchers from the dispatch box, we should tell the truth. Therefore it is very disappointing, and does our profession no good whatsoever, for members of the Labor Party to stand up in this debate one after the other and claim that the coalition is cutting funds to education.

There are no cuts to Commonwealth spending now or in the future. Let us go through the facts. These are the budget papers. Let us look at Commonwealth funding over four years, from MYEFO. From 2013-14 to 2014-15—the last financial year—there is an 11.1 per cent increase. In the current financial year, there is a 7.9 per cent increase. For those of you who do not know, 'increase' means you spend more money! From 2015-16 to 2016-17 there is an 8.6 per cent increase—another one. In the following year, there is a further 6.5 per cent increase. So over those four years there is an increase of 27.3 per cent. As someone who proudly comes from a public school background, I am proud to say that the majority of that increase is actually weighted towards our public schools. The public schools' increase over that four-year period is 36.1 per cent. We are spending record amounts on education.

As for Labor's claim that there are cuts, I rely on no greater source to finalise this issue than the good old ABC Fact Check. The member for Charlton loves to quote ABC Fact Check, so I will read to him what it says about Labor's claim of so-called cuts to education. It says: 'The verdict is that the government did not cut $30 billion from schools in the May budget.' It says that Ms Ellis, the member for Adelaide, is sprouting 'rubbery figures'—very generous words. I know that the word 'lie' is unparliamentary. If I look through the dictionary to find another word, I come up with 'fraudulent', 'hoodwink', 'untruthful', 'misleading', 'deception', 'mendacity' and 'falsehood'. All those words fit Labor's claim that this government has cut spending, when we have increased it to record levels.

What was very frightening in this parliament over the last few hours was what we saw during question time and in the member for Adelaide's speech on this MPI. When asked where the money was coming from she said we were told in question time. Labor's plans to try and fund this extra spending will come from abolishing negative gearing across all asset classes and increasing capital gains tax. What they do not understand is that the taxation revenue they gain from that will actually decrease the economy, destroy opportunity and send government revenue backwards.

If we are to look at what we need to be doing on education, we need to look at what is being taught in our schools. We need to be teaching our kids that wealth is created—that it does not come out of thin air—and how it is created. In history, we need to teach them the failures of central planning and socialism. We should have Venezuela as a case study—the economic policies that members of Labor and the Greens thought so wonderful they wanted to lecture to us about them. We should teach our kids about the importance of market prices and property rights—the importance of having an economic system with incentives in it. Most of all, we need to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit among our schoolkids. Labor's policies will crush that entrepreneurial spirit and they are the complete opposite of what we need to be doing for our children's future.

Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I cannot help but reflect on that contribution from the member for Hughes. He bragged about the power of markets and the importance of price signalling but he is a man who has comprehensively rejected applying a market signal to combat climate change. He is a man who is mired in, at best, inconsistency. I will leave his contribution there—and that is doing a favour to the fine gentlemen opposite. Tempers have been known to run ragged in the chamber, and sometimes we use intemperate rhetoric. I must admit that I am occasionally guilty of that, so I choose my next words very carefully. The coalition's education policy is a crime against our children because it is robbing them of their future.

You need only look at the budget papers. The member for Hughes asked where we got this figure of $30 billion from—did we pluck it out of the air? No, we did not; it was in your own budget papers. The 2014 budget was the tombstone on the careers of the member for Warringah and the former member for North Sydney—although the member for Warringah is like a zombie reaching through the dirt and trying to come back. The 2014 budget papers brag about '$80 billion of savings' across the health and education sectors—those were the exact words. Unfortunately, $30 billion of that is in the education sector. That hit has been extreme. In my own region, that hit has been extreme. There has been nearly $900 million ripped out of Hunter schools. There has been a $162 million impact on the schools in Charlton, almost $3½ million in each school in my area—money that is so desperately needed to give our kids the best start in life.

That is why I say without any attempt at hyperbole, without any attempt at exaggeration, that the coalition is robbing our kids of a future. They are committing a crime against future generations by denying them the best education funding possible. And that is why I am so proud of Labor's policy. I am so proud of a policy that puts needs first. It says: 'We're ending the sectarian debate. We don't care if you go to a Catholic school, a state school, a Christian school an independent school or whatever, we'll fund our students based on need.'

Mr Hawke interjecting—

I do not care if they go to a private school, a Catholic school or a state school. We will fund them on need, and that is the way it should be. I am proud of our policy. I am proud of a policy that only has weightings for five specific categories that increase the needs for those students. I am incredibly proud of our Gonski reforms that will revolutionise education in this country. It is a compact between this generation and future generations. It is a compact that says education is not just a private investment, it is about the public good, and that we advance Australia by investing in our kids' education.

I am also proud of the fact that we will fund it by putting a price signal and changing incentives on things we actually want to reduce in this country. By applying a further price signal on cigarette consumption—the member for Hughes might want to listen to this—we discourage smoking and we also raise revenue to fund education. By changing tax incentives that are skewed toward speculative activity in the housing sector to divert investment into productive investment in new dwellings rather than speculative housing bubbles, not only do we improve housing affordability, not only do we make housing more achievable for our kids, not only do we get rid of an outrageous tax break in the 50 per cent capital gains tax concession that says that gains from capital should be taxed at half the gains from your own labour—an outrageous move put in place by Peter Costello—but we use the funds raised to invest in our kids' future.

That is why I am proud of Labor's policy. That is why I will be campaigning every day on our policies that improve our society and that give our kids the best chance. Those on the other side stand for nothing more than dodgy tax practices and cutting $30 billion from the future of our kids.

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It saddens me a little today to have to respond to this matter of public importance, because my four children, aged between six and 12, and I think every other child of school age in the country, are being used as a political football. I think it is a disgraceful scare campaign that is being run. It is a shame that I have to respond to this but it is an opportunity to speak last here today to tidy up some of the facts.

My sainted wife is a schoolteacher, and I have to say it is possibly the noblest profession and I absolutely support her and every other schoolteacher that I have met. I know they work very hard to educate our children across the country. It really is those schoolteachers and their individual abilities that make all the difference to our children's education.

In response to the member for Canberra: I have a similar situation where my own mother struggled through school. She completed her education by correspondence and she worked enormously hard to enable me to be the first member of my family to graduate from university.

But let us get some facts on the table here. I want to say emphatically that there are no cuts to Commonwealth spending on schools now or in the forward estimates. As we have heard today from previous speakers on this side, the government is investing record levels of funding in Australian schools, with total Commonwealth funding to all schools across Australia of $69.4 billion over the four years to 2018-19. This is an increase of 27 per cent since the 2014-15 year. I want to spell this out in fine detail so that those on the other side understand what 'cut' means and what 'increase' means.

In 2014-15—this is from MYEFO—funding was increased by 11.1 per cent. From 2014-15 to 2015-16 it was increased by 7.9 per cent. From 2015-16 to 2016-17 it will increase by 8.6 per cent. From 2016-17 to 2017-18 it will increase by 6.5 per cent. I know the other side are not that good at arithmetic, but that is very plainly a massive increase in spending. I would also like to say that the Commonwealth funding to government schools is increasing at a much faster rate than it is to the private sector. As mentioned by the previous speaker on this side, government school funding growth was 36.1 per cent over the period 2014 to 2018-19, compared to 23 per cent growth in the non-government sector.

Along with the Commonwealth government, Western Australia recognises the importance of the education system. Our students in Western Australia are the best funded of any state. In 2015 a new student centred funding model was introduced in public schools in Western Australia. The model provides a base level of funding for each student, with additional funding provided for Aboriginality, disability, social disadvantage and English as a second language.

While I am on facts, it is worth repeating, as my colleague did previously, the ABC fact check from 2014. I am a great friend of the ABC and I did take the opportunity to join the Friends of the ABC when they were here in the House yesterday. But the verdict was that the government did not cut $30 billion from schools in the May budget; the $30 billion figure is calculated over a 10-year period starting in 2017. There is too much uncertainty for such a long-term estimate to be a reliable measure of either cuts or savings. Ms Ellis is spouting rubbery figures. I think that sums this whole debate up.

I want to take the opportunity to talk a little bit about some of the great educational outcomes and initiatives that are happening in my electorate of O'Connor. The Clontarf Foundation, which was set up by Gerard Neesham, is a program for young Aboriginal boys but is also now starting to include girls and is—excuse the pun—kicking goals all over my electorate. We have Clontarf programs in my home town of Katanning, in Albany, in the Goldfields and in Esperance. They are doing a great job and encouraging the young Indigenous boys to attend school and meet certain benchmarks so that they can pursue their football dreams. What a wonderful program it is.

Another thing I am noticing across my electorate is the success of the Independent Public Schools system. Introduced by the Western Australian coalition government in 2009, it has been an enormous success. There are over 22 schools in my electorate that have now opted to be in the Independent Public Schools program. (Time expired)

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The discussion has concluded.