Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If I may make some brief remarks to begin with. Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. On behalf of my colleague, the minister Senator Simon Birmingham, I want to make some brief remarks to being this particular appropriation in the education and training portfolio. It is a pleasure to do so in the company of the assistant minister.

Firstly, the whole concept which we are pursuing as a government is that a better educated workforce and population is fundamental to Australia's successful participation in the global economy. It is also fundamental to the realisation of each individual's capacity to aspire to be their best selves, so it serves the individual. It serves the community and it serves the society. It is not just a mercantilist perspective; it is a deep, profound human responsibility. In that respect, the 2016-17 budget within the portfolio is focused on improving student outcomes in literacy, in numeracy and in what is known as the STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and mathematics. STEM is a term that is sometimes used by insiders and it can alienate others, so, wherever possible, I prefer to talk about it as science, technology, engineering and maths, or as the individual components.

It is also about teacher quality reforms—again, something of fundamental importance to the performance of our education system and our capacity to participate and achieve on a global scale to the highest levels. It is about delivering more support for students with disability, allowing those with the greatest need to have additional opportunities which will allow them to aspire to be the best participants they can be within our community. It is about improving our attractiveness as an education destination for international students and assuring the quality, reputation and affordability of our higher education system. In particular, we know that schools will receive more funding from 2018, due to the schools funding measure, which involves indexing school funding with an education specific index rate of 3.56 per cent.

As a government, there is no doubt we inherited education funding arrangements across the board that were not only unsustainable but which also, sadly, entrenched inequality. For that reason, we will push for school funding reforms to remove the inequities of the previous government's approach during the period of the Rudd and Gillard prime ministerships and to provide for a system that is genuinely needs based and affordable. Those are the two indispensable elements which we wish to pursue. In particular, under the schools funding measure, states and territories will receive additional funding to provide students with disability better access to learning. This new funding is in addition to the current students with disability loading provided through the Australian Education Act and will target funding where it is needed most: to support quality education programs and initiatives for students with disability. It will help schools to meet their obligations under the Disability Standards for Education 2005.

I also want to note that in 2017 the Early Learning Languages Australia program trial will be extended nationally to all preschools. This is really a tremendous step forward and something that should be acknowledged. The ELLA program is a series of language-learning interactive applications. It helps children, at the earliest years, to engage in learning languages. We know from around the world that young children are sponges for the study of languages across the spectrum, but it is about speaking to them in the right way. Research shows that learning a language develops children's overall literacy—it does not just assist with the second language, it also helps with the primary language. It strengthens literacy related capabilities, and these are transferable across all learning areas. Language is the building block. It also provides children with a head start towards language study at school. This program will enable children to become more comfortable with different languages early in life so that they stay engaged during their later years. I am happy to deal with other elements of what is a $1.333 billion budget during the course of this consideration in detail.

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

It is a great opportunity for me and for my colleagues to examine the education and training portfolio budget, but I want to start by making a few general comments in response to the Minister representing the Minister for Education and Training. We, of course, on this side, have no objection to the emphasis on STEM—on science, technology, engineering and maths, as you say. It has been a central part of our education policy both in government and in opposition. We are very great supporters of the emphasis on teacher quality. We know that the most important thing you can do to improve standards in our classrooms is to invest in supporting teachers not just in their early years of training but right throughout their professional lives, when teachers seek professional development and career support.

Aside from the areas the minister was talking about where there is such clear agreement, there are also some areas of quite stark disagreement. This portfolio budget shows us where some of those areas of disagreement are. The minister spoke about disability funding. This is a particular failure of this government. After repeated promises by this minister and the previous education minister that the issue of the disability loading for schools would be resolved, we still see no resolution in sight. The minister talked about removing inequities in our schooling system. The only inequity that the minister could be proud of, the only equal opportunity approach that the government is taking, is to cut funding from every school in every system in every state. These portfolio budget papers show a commitment to a continuation of the $29 billion of cuts that we saw in the Abbott-Hockey budget.

Budgets are about choices. They are about priorities. We know that this government has made a choice to prioritise tax cuts for big business, including the four big banks, over properly investing in our children's education. It has made this pointless expenditure on the big end of town a bigger priority than our kids' education at schools, at universities, at preschools and—as my colleague will discuss—in vocational education. If we want to be a high-wage, First World economy with a generous social safety net—as the Prime Minister said again in question time today—then we need to invest in education. OECD evidence and other evidence from the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency and the Economic Society of Australia all show that this investment is the best return we can get.

This appropriations bill entrenches the $29 billion of cuts, including a $3.8 billion cut in years 5 and 6 of Gonski—an average of around $3 million in schools. We would like to know why the government believes that a tax cut for some of the biggest businesses in the country is more important than properly investing in our schools and why the government is not prepared to instead, for example, adopt Labor's negative gearing and capital gains tax policies, which would more than cover any additional costs of the school education funding reforms that we would like to see.

I want to make a few very brief comments on universities before I will, unfortunately, run out of time. This budget cuts more than $2½ billion from universities over four years and $13½ billion over 10 years. Some of that will come from very important areas that ensure higher standards in our universities, such as the $18 million cut by abolishing the highly effective Office of Learning and Teaching, which was created to help improve teaching excellence and innovation and support student retention in our universities. There is also the $152.2 million cut over four years—a cut of 40 per cent by 2019—from the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program. We are absolutely committed to getting more kids who will be the first in their family to attend university or to be able to go to university. These are kids from poorer backgrounds—in particular, from low-SES communities and regional areas. We have seen this work. The Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program has helped. We have seen Indigenous student numbers up by 26 per cent, regional student numbers up by 30 per cent and 36,000 extra kids from low-income families going to university. So why is this government cutting this highly successful Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program, which has helped so many people from disadvantaged backgrounds? After 25 reviews, is another review the best thing that this government can think of for our university sector?

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

I have a question, Minister. Do want to take a number of intervals first, or do you want to take each one as it comes?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would rather deal with them as they come out of respect for the speakers, if that is acceptable. I wish to address probably three issues from the deputy opposition leader and spokesperson in this space. Firstly, in relation to schools funding, overall I think the starting point is that there is a very significant, continued path to growth outlined in this budget in relation to schools funding. Let me make that clear because sometimes it can be lost in the hurly-burly of debate. Each year, we see an increase of approximately $1 billion from 2014 through to 2020. That represents a 29 per cent increase from 2014 to 2020 in real terms. In real terms, there is a 29.8 per cent increase.

For the record, I think it is worthwhile to understand that we went from, in 2014, $13.8 billion of funding to, in 2015, $15 billion of funding; 2016, $16.1 billion; 2017, $17.4 billion of appropriation; 2018, $18.2 billion; 2019, $19.1 billion; and 2020, $20.1 billion. So the fundamental point here is that schools funding increases each year, every year. But, when you bring it altogether, what you see is an increase of 29.8 per cent, not just in nominal terms but in real terms. So in real terms you see a significant increase in the capacity of schools to provide for the needs of students.

One of the fundamental mistakes here is the cargo cult mentality, and that is the notion that funding alone equals better outcomes. What we see when we go to the Quality schools, quality outcomes report is that it is much more than just funding; it is about the combination of the very things which I set out at the beginning and which the Minister for Education and Training and the Prime Minister have talked about in this space throughout the course of the current administration, and that is: literacy, numeracy, standards and teacher training, things which are fundamental to allowing students the ability to achieve and to lay down a foundation stone for their entire educational career. Those are extremely important points, but, going back to the start, it is about increasing each year, every year, the funding but then adding the quality—the whole notion of quality schools, quality outcomes.

Then I want to deal with something which was also raised, which is in relation to funding for students with disability. I think it is extremely valuable for the House to understand that the government is providing more than $5 billion in recurrent funding for students with disability over the period from 2014 to 2017, through a loading. This includes over $1.3 billion in 2016, which increases by $200 million to almost $1.5 billion in 2017. So we see a significant increase in funding which allows for more opportunity for those who are most in need—and I agree with the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that these are the people who are most in need. We all work with schools within our electorates and parents. In my case I was fortunate to be able to work with the Insight school for those with vision impairment, a school which did not exist but, through extraordinary parents who were incredibly committed, we were able to work and to create that sort of opportunity.

I would note that in the 2016 budget the government announced an additional $118 million for schools to support students with disability for the 2016 and 2017 calendar years. These funds will be allocated and informed by the new Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability and will target those schools with the greatest need. I think that that is an extremely important outcome.

Thirdly, I just want to mention—and I will cover this in greater detail later—in relation to higher education that the fundamental point is that funding goes up from $16.6 billion in the financial year just completed to $16.9 billion, then to $17.4 billion in 2017-18; $17.6 billion in 2018-19; and $18.1 billion in 2019-20. So, whether it is schools or higher education, it is about a sustainable upwards trajectory and a focus above all else on quality.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, if you wish you can cover a few at a time rather than one on one.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to ask the Minister representing the Minister for Education and Training why his proposed childcare funding bills leave almost 40 per cent of the families accessing child care worse off and also how he plans to target those children most in need of early childhood intervention programs.

I have some experience in this area. I have worked as a paediatrician, specialising in seeing children with developmental disabilities for over 30 years. In my own electorate of Macarthur, we have a large number of children with developmental needs. We have a large Indigenous population, a large number of single-parent families, a large number of children living below the poverty line, a large number of families suffering from chronic illness and a large number of families with learning difficulties and entrenched educational failure.

Many of the families that I have seen through my work as a paediatrician present to me quite late and they have to wait in the present system for over a year for formal developmental assessment and often have difficulty accessing recurrent funding and engaging with preschools, therapists and other interventional agencies. There is a huge need, and it appears to me that these bills do not target the children most in need with sufficient priority.

There is overwhelming evidence that intervention in the first thousand days of life makes the largest gains in developmental outcomes for these children. However, the government's bills will reduce the ability for these children to access quality child care and do not appear to recognise the needs of the most disadvantaged children. The government is to be applauded, I think, for some of its measures with language intervention in preschools, but the most disadvantaged children often have multisystem requirements. They require lots of therapies and they do not appear to be adequately targeted. I have seen many families with multigenerational educational failure and poverty, and these families need to be targeted for intervention when the children are young—under three years of age. The only way out of this cycle for these children is with education and early intervention.

Mr Hunt, what is this government doing to break the cycle of multigenerational educational failure? Why is there such a delay in implementing the funding? Why do we have to wait until July 2018 to start the funding? Why is there such a complicated plan for intervention? What plans are there to better integrate preschool to school transition for these children and their families with learning difficulties and complex needs? Many families I see are of low income; many of them also see their access to preschool halved. Why is that? Why do we have to wait so long for these children to access care? We know that, if they can get preschool intervention from the age of two or three onwards, their outcomes will be much better.

The Minister for Social Services has trumpeted his reforms to reduce spending, but the money would be much better spent and would give much more value to our society if preschool placement could be made available to children at risk. If we can improve their educational outcomes, their families will also benefit and our social security spending will be much less. Our aim should be for all children to receive quality child care, and that in particular means that everyone should have access. In my experience as a paediatrician astute preschool teachers are the best people to identify the children most at risk of poor developmental outcomes. So we need to get early intervention and early preschool placement for the children most at risk. It is vitally important that this assessment happens before the child is three if the intervention is to be of most benefit.

Many studies have shown that, if we improve developmental outcomes for the children in high risk families, then the whole family will benefit in terms of income, stable housing and a stable family environment. In the 21st century, surely, we can do better to provide quality early childhood support to all of our children, but in particular to those most at risk. This is about equality and access. Education begins at birth. We owe our children the best early childhood education that we can give them. They are our future.

Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to explain how some of the needs based funding actually occurs in the electorate of Gilmore, where they have identified the needs of our children in low socioeconomic, disability and special-needs children and allocate some of those funds in that way. I am going to be asking the minister how we will be continuing that.

One of the best principals in the local area, who has done additional training, has said that funding not only transforms schools but has also transformed the entire community. They have used some of their allocation for a family-support worker, as the homelessness issue was becoming quite significant. We all know that the home environment is one of the ones with the greatest influence. They have done extensive staff training, including trauma training and STEM training, to bring their teachers into the current century. They have changed little classrooms into robotics labs, they have a video production room, and they have a 3D printing room, which has been absolutely fabulous. They have students who have extended themselves into amazing areas with STEM. We have language and literacy development, we have maths games from one end of the playground to another, and the children are all thriving. On Nelson Mandela's birthday last year, the students went and mowed lawns and tidied the yard of a person who had just been discharged from hospital. The community workaround has been making such a difference in the community. The children are learning a completely new set of values. In addition to that, because it is a very low socioeconomic region, they have introduced the idea of Sanctuary Point dollars, which is that when a parent does a couple of hours helping students learn to read or doing some maths, or helping in the library, or even working in the tuckshop, they earn Sanctuary Point dollars. So when that child cannot go to an excursion, they earn Sanctuary Point dollars to help fund that child to go on the excursion. This an amazing way in which they have used the additional funding they have been getting under the current system of needs-based funding. The children love seeing their parents involved in the school, the children's attendance rate has improved and their achievement rate has improved. The school is also supplying 80 breakfasts every day for kids in the school, and it is helping some of them get uniforms. This is the way we get needs-based funding for our children.

I wondered if the minister would be happy to answer a question on how our coalition government's needs-based funding model is assisting our schools, and in particular how this funding is helping local schools in my electorate. Many of them have done language and literacy development. How will our future Commonwealth funding help support the improvement of student outcomes?

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The one thing that this bill, the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2016-2017, makes clear is that in this government's mind we cannot afford to invest in our students—yet apparently we can afford massive tax cuts for big banks and multinational companies. This budget, the first by now Treasurer Morrison, was supposed to be and was described to be a break from the unfair budgets of his predecessor, the former member for North Sydney. Unfortunately, what it shows upon consideration is that the Prime Minister and government have changed in name only. The coalition's agenda to cut from our schools has never been clearer, despite the rhetoric of the minister opposite.

The funding for 2017-18 is based on an education-specific indexation rate of 3.56 per cent. In the portfolio-specific budget statement this is referred to as additional funding, but it is clear these are funding cuts which will have a large impact on the ability of particular schools to meet the needs of students. If the government planned to continue with their move to not properly fund, or to not fund at all, the vital years five and six of needs-based funding, I ask the minister: how can a flat indexation rate bring schools up to the Student Resourcing Standard? In answering this question, perhaps the minister might have regard to Budget Paper No. 1 which, despite his assertions to the contrary, makes clear that education spending is stable in real terms.

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

Minister, thank you for being here. The logical connection between your portfolio and the Minister for Education and Training is obvious. It is also good to have the assistant minister here. My concern is child care. There has been a lot of public debate, even in my electorate, about fraud in family day care in particular. Everyone in this chamber would recognise just how important flexible forms of child care are, and both sides of the chamber have worked to increase those choices for Australians. But the record is not so good on the other side of this chamber, Minister, as you well know, in relation to closing the loopholes in family day care that led to some of the stories that hit the media the last few weeks. In particular, we will be concerned about value for money for the taxpayer, whether is it what we call sharp practices in family day care or genuine fraud—which we have seen in a few cases that have hit the media in the last few weeks. Everyone here would be concerned about value for money for the taxpayer. But above all, we are looking after the wellbeing of the child. In these very difficult spaces to regulate, we have literally hundreds of providers operating thousands of locations. We leave to the state and territory governments the role of both certifying and regulating these practices, obviously bringing into play the challenge of two tiers of government regulation.

It is quite damning though that the previous government, as you would know, Minister, set up a situation where some of these very odious but not illegal practices began to flourish, and child swapping was one of them. I do not need to explain that in too much detail, except to say that, effectively, one exchanges children and claims family day care payments for both. I think this caught in the throat of many Australians, who appreciate just how precious the taxpayer dollar is. For all of the protested commitment to early years that we have heard from speakers on the other side—for goodness sake, a dollar wasted is a dollar never spent on that frontier on the most vulnerable children of all.

It is also worth noting, as you would know, Minister, that in many areas only around two per cent of vulnerable children are in formal day care arrangements, and many fall out of this network completely. So we can work on the quality of the system, but we actually need to connect these vulnerable children, who previous speakers have referred to, to some form of formal day care. It can only be done if the reputation of family day care is untarnished by the practices we have seen.

Closing loopholes is something very close to my heart. It obviously disappoints me that hundreds of millions of dollars can go out the door. Despite all of our best efforts, it took months or years to finally tighten up previous arrangements. I am glad to see that that is now occurring. More specifically—Minister, you will well know this—I know it is okay to say you want to focus on two-year-olds, but we know very well that, under the previous government, none of the Medicare Locals entities took any particular focus on vulnerable children. None of them had it as a KPI and none of those GP superclinics did anything in this space whatsoever.

Minister, I commend you for the fact that we are finally focusing on this area. But just six years ago there were 100,000 kids in family day care and there are now 200,000. They are now claiming twice as many hours and, on average, 40 per cent more in the hourly charge. So we have seen an explosion in family day care that virtually represents the entire increase in day care costs overall. The long day care sector has stayed relatively stable throughout this whole time.

You would agree, Minister, that we need homelike environments where siblings can often stay together, and, in the circumstances of some of the most unusual work environments, family day care is ideal—we appreciate that. But we are also mindful that long day care and family day care have completely different educational requirements. I would be really alarmed if those requirements—such as a diploma minimum or a certificate III minimum—were taking years, not months, to fulfil. There are not many professions where you can go out and say, 'I'm working towards qualification, so let me start providing.' We do that in family day care, so we have to be absolutely certain that they are, in good faith, undertaking their educational requirements, with some view to finishing within two or more years. The federal government should be interested in that quality framework, which was established by the other side of politics and never had an end date.

For those who are going to be cared for in someone's home, my concern is that this explosion in numbers has predominantly been in Sydney and Melbourne in areas with high degrees of poverty and high rates of non-English-speaking backgrounds. That is not quite where I want the most vulnerable children to be if I do not know that family day care is providing the highest possible educational quality, if not equal to long day care.

So, Minister, I would specifically like to know some of the measures that have been taken by the department, pushed by you and the minister, to make sure that these loopholes are closed and that the reputation of family day care is untarnished.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, I was pleased to see that one of the eight additional P-TECH schools announced so far is in the St Patrick's Technical College in Edinburgh North, which is in South Australia. As you would be aware, the college is in an area that will suffer greatly once Holden closes its manufacturing plant. So introducing new pathways from school that are linked to industry partners is a positive step. Minister, how were the schools selected and what criteria was used? Of the remaining four P-TECH schools still to be announced, are there likely to be any in South Australia?

Minister, I would also like to ask questions in relation to Youth Week. Youth Week is not just a celebration of young people; it is also a week that brings much awareness to the wider community about the issues facing young people. As there is no longer a minister for youth representing the three million young people aged 15 to 24, it is vitally important. Can you please confirm that there will be no further federal funding for National Youth Week beyond 2017? I understand that the federal government previously provided funding to the states and territories for National Youth Week activities and then the states and territories would also contribute funding. I would like to ask how much funding was given to each state and territory, and how much do each state and territory contribute?

Minister, with what I believe is the defunding of Youth Week, I would like to ask whether there has been an evaluation of the National Youth Week program to determine its effectiveness. If there was not an evaluation to determine the program, what criteria or evidence was used by government to inform the decision to discontinue the funding? If an evaluation was conducted, what were the key findings of this evaluation?

I would just like to ask about young people who are disengaged from school. A program called Youth Connections was defunded in December 2014. It was a highly successful program. It cost $79 million a year. I would like to know what evaluation the department has done post the Youth Connections closure to address the levels of disengagement among young people and whether the department has seen a correlation between the defunding of that program and Partnership Brokers, another highly successful program that was defunded at that time, and our increasing youth unemployment rate. Thank you.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank all of the previous speakers for their contributions and, where it has taken the form of a question, for their questions. Let me begin with the member for Macarthur. The member for Macarthur sadly has left the chamber but asked a sincere question in relation to early childhood education and care. This is an absolute priority. The support that we give to young children from the most vulnerable backgrounds is extremely vital. It is fundamental to the safety, security and development of those children.

On that front, the government is continuing to support the National Quality Framework by providing the states and territories up to $61.1 million over the three years to 30 June 2018. It is an important initiative and one which I am very pleased that we are supporting. Obviously, beyond that, there is the prospect of further and additional support.

In relation to the member for Gilmore, she asked in particular about her own electorate and the support being provided to schools. I am happy to inform her constituents that she has been tremendously successful in being part of a government that is adding to school support within the electorate of Gilmore over the 2014-17 calendar years. The Australian government will be making available an estimated total funding of $320.5 million for all schools in the electorate of Gilmore. This includes an estimated 28 per cent increase in recurrent funding to the electorate of Gilmore.

I just want to say to the those constituents that the member for Gilmore has helped deliver a 28 per cent increase in schools funding. On average, this equates to $323,000 across government schools and $462,000 across non-government schools. The total funding includes an estimated $157.8 million for government schools and $162.6 million for non-government schools, bearing in mind of course that the states bear primary responsibility for funding the state based schools themselves.

Moving on from that, I want to deal in particular with the member for Scullin. The member for Scullin asked a question about schools funding, and I could not be clearer that we see from 2014 through to 2020 funding go from just under 14 to 15 to 16 to 17 to 18 to 19 to $20 billion per annum, a 29.8 per cent increase in real terms—clear, categorical and unequivocal. That is something that we want to see, and I think it is extremely important.

Moving on from that, the member for Bowman asked very important questions about childcare compliance and, in particular before he left the chamber, the issues in relation to what we are doing. I want to commend the Minister for Education. The actions taken by the department and the authorities on his watch include cracking down to ensure the arrest of 16 people; the seizure of over $8 million; more than 3,100 compliance checks; enforcement action taken against 109 services; hard work to shut the loopholes and stopped around $421 million going to rorters. We have increased compliance checks by 500 per cent during our time in office and we have been using all of the appropriately available intelligence to us to zero in on fraudulent operators. This has become a major area of crackdown.

Finally, I want to deal with the issues raised by the member for Mayo. In particular, the member for Mayo asked about the very creative, constructive and, I believe, successful P-TECH pilot program. She asked in particular about schools—I can refer her to South Australia's St Patrick's Technical College. These sites have all been selected in consultation with different government and state based entities, and the advice is very clear. She asked about how the additional schools will be selected. The remaining five sites will be determined in consultation with state and territory governments, non-government school authorities and industry—the same process used to determine the first round—and there will be a phased approach to pilot implementation. Five sites will commence in 2017, with others starting in 2018 and 2019. I will take the remaining points that she raised and deal with them in my next answer.

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My grandparents and parents are smart, talented and good people, yet I have had vastly more opportunities available to me in my life. That is because I had the good fortune to be born at a time when people like me, kids like me, had higher education available to us. In a time when inequality is increasing and when the opportunities open to people are beginning to depend more and more on the circumstances of their birth, it is imperative that we in this parliament take seriously our obligation to act. Education policy made in this place, therefore, should be aimed at setting the right conditions for opportunity and optimism.

One of the greatest forces there is for dignity and a better life for all is education. If people in this parliament want to act on worsening inequality—and we should—then we should work to make sure that more people have access to education and we should take action to create, in the minds of all kids, aspiration for education and the opportunities that follow. This means education from the cradle to the grave, whether it is parents as first teachers, like when I read Octopus's Garden to my kidsI know there are many people who are much bigger Beatles fans than I am, but I do—or whether it is early childhood, school, vocational or university education throughout our long and changing lives. That is why I am so grateful to the education sector for the work that they do.

I have visited many universities in the past two months and seen their work firsthand. It makes me even more concerned that this Turnbull government is planning measures that will undermine higher education in this country and its competitiveness internationally: cuts to the Commonwealth Grant Scheme that are still in the budget, cuts to the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program and the proposal to allow some course fees to be deregulated. Accordingly, I am grateful for the opportunity to ask some questions of the minister.

Minister, firstly: cutting public funding for universities is bad for Australian students and will make it harder for universities to compete in international markets, so will the government drop its plan to cut the Commonwealth Grant Scheme by 20 per cent? Secondly, how will the government's cuts to the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program of $152 million in the 2016-17 budget affect the enrolment and participation of lower socioeconomic status students, Indigenous students, and regional and remote students? In passing, I note in that regard that I met with some students in Western Australia recently who had had their aspiration to go to university effectively created through outreach programs from universities—kids who lived two days drive or more from a capital city.

Minister, I would also like to ask you when we can expect to see the legislative package for the changes that the government intends to introduce to take effect in 2018. I understand it has been announced that those bills will be introduced in 2017. Can the minister confirm whether that package will be introduced in or before the autumn sitting? Of course, universities, students and others need certainty and, if measures are intended to commence in 2018, there needs to be ample time in advance of that period for the package to be tabled, considered and debated in this parliament so that students, prospective students, universities and others who are stakeholders in the sector will have appropriate opportunities to have input.

Minister, a panel has been established to assess the some 1,200 submissions that your government has received in relation to your higher education options paper. What are the parameters, if any, for that panel? How will that panel's consideration of those submissions be informed? How will that panel report to the minister and on what basis will that panel make recommendations to the minister?

What will be the considerations that are relevant to that panel in assessing those 1,200 submissions, summarising and reporting them to the minister?

The shadow minister for education earlier touched on the fact that there have been some 25 reviews affecting higher education since this government came to office. That is 25 reviews, option papers, discussion papers and the like. How many more reviews, options papers, discussion papers and the like are we to expect before we see some action from this government in relation to higher education?

Finally, in the 2016-17 budget the government announced it will not proceed with its planned fee deregulation program in full, though of course the flagship courses are still in the options paper. The 2016-17 budget estimates this will give rise to savings of $2 billion. The 2014-15 budget did not contain any specific expenses associated with fee deregulation. How is the $2 billion sum calculated in respect of the savings that are intended to be made?

Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the Adult Migrant English Program. I will ask a question of the minister about that program. I am very lucky to represent a highly diverse electorate in Berowra. We have significant Chinese, Indian, Korean, Sri Lankan, Lebanese and Italian communities. Some of those communities are very well established. The Lebanese community has been there for the best part of a century. Some of those communities, like the Indian community, are more recent arrivals to our area, but all of those communities are enriching the nature of the Berowra electorate as they enrich Australia generally.

I have particularly enjoyed the friendship of the leadership of the Chinese community for many years and I particularly acknowledge the work of the Chinese Australian Forum, its past presidents Patrick Voon and Tony Pang and its current president, Kendrick Cheah, who will be known to members opposite. Some years ago the Chinese Australian Forum invited me to a discussion about current issues that faced the Chinese community. One of the key issues that they said faced the community is the issue of social isolation of older Chinese Australian migrants and also of women, particularly stay-at-home mums in communities. This was an issue that was recently drawn again to my attention by Justine Slapp, who runs a tremendous organisation: the Hills District Mums. She has acknowledged the fact that, when children are playing at playgrounds, the Anglo-Australian mums will congregate together, and often the Chinese or Indian grandparents who have responsibility for looking after the children are embarrassed to get involved with and talk to the Anglo-Australian mums because their English is just not high enough quality.

We have had an English-language program for migrants in this country since the 1940s. My family were all here by the 1930s. By 1936 the last part of my family came from Germany. I remember the woman that helped rescue my family and get them out of Germany. I got to know her very well. She told me that she got to learn English by taking the dogs for a walk in the park. If your first language is German, it is actually not that much of a jump to learn English. But, if your first language is one of the Chinese languages—Mandarin or Cantonese—if it is Hindi or one of the other Indian dialects, if it is Arabic, if it is Farsi, if it is many of the other languages that are now spoken by people who have come into Australia in more recent times, it is a much more difficult thing to pick up English. So I think we need to do more to support people whose first language is not English and particularly older people because older people and stay-at-home mums are more likely to be socially isolated. If you have good English, it is a passport to social integration. It is a passport to work opportunities. It is a passport to a better life in Australia generally.

The last census revealed that there are 513,583 people who filled in that census who said that they spoke English not well or not at all. Of those, 253,627 had been in Australia since before 1996. This is an issue that disproportionately affects women: three-fifths of people who responded to the census in that way were women. You have to imagine that that number is under-reported because (a) people would be embarrassed to report that they did not speak good enough English and that, if their English was not good enough, then (b) people would not have been able to adequately fill out the census. In my own constituency the last census revealed that there was something in the order of 3½ thousand people who spoke little or no English. That is why I think it is so important that we have a high-quality Adult Migrant English Program that can help integrate people who have come from a variety of different countries and provide a high-quality Australian experience to people not just in my electorate but right across the country. I think this is a wonderful passport to a great Australian future, to social integration and to better job opportunities. So my question to the minister is: what is the government doing to improve the delivery of services under the Adult Migrant English Program?

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

Given the high level of interest from government members in using this time to ask questions of their own ministers, I am going to have to squeeze two different portfolio topics into this five minutes, so forgive me if I do some speed talking.

I will begin on early childhood education. These budget papers do something pretty extraordinary: they outline how we can spend an additional $3 billion of taxpayer funds to make hundreds of thousands of Australian children and their families worse off. I know that, despite increasing expenditure of taxpayers money, the government's proposed changes make one-in-three families, that is 330,000 families, worse off. The government's proposed changes also leave almost half of all families either worse off or no better off—556,000 Australian families—and over 71,000 families within an income below $65,000 per year worse off.

Perhaps what is worse than all of this is the impact that these reforms have been shown to have on some of the most vulnerable children in Australia. By now the parliament should be clear on what all of the evidence makes very clear: the children who benefit the most from access to quality early childhood education services are those in the two years before school or those children who come from dysfunctional families who are particularly vulnerable. What we do know is that, under the Budget Based Funded Program, Indigenous and mobile services will be placed under serious threat as a result of these changes, as a result of what is in this budget.

This is a government that stands and talks about closing the gap, that stands and talks about needing to invest in education, and that claims to know that this is the greatest way that we can increase opportunities so that Australian children today have greater potential and greater opportunities than the parents and grandparents who came before them. At the very same time, we know that under the Budget Based Funded Program the Indigenous and mobile services that are accessed by 20,000 children in mostly rural and remote communities will be put under threat. Many of the services will not be financially viable and will close as a result of the proposals placed in this budget, and as a result of the Australian taxpayers spending an additional $3 billion at the very same time. My question is: why won't the government listen and change their approach on funding these services when the PC has identified that 15,000 more early education places are needed for Indigenous children, not less?

On early childhood education we also know that, as a result of the measures in the government's budget, they have already ended all professional development programs for early childhood educators. A government that regularly stand up and say that they recognise that teachers are the most important part of our education system, when it comes to our schools, are providing absolutely no ongoing professional development for our early childhood educators. Why won't the government support educators to support our children?

With regard to vocational education, there are a number of reforms that the government has announced. When Labor announced a number of policies earlier this year, in May, the government claimed that they would not work. I ask: what is it that made the government change their mind? The government claimed the policies would not work; the government claimed that they were in the wrong direction. The government claimed that capping student loans to stop rip-offs was the wrong approach—though of course they are now trying to adopt it. Labor announced that we would crack down on brokers. We announced that we would link publicly funded courses to industry need and skills shortages, and that we would require providers to reapply under new standards. What is it that made the government change their mind from May this year, when they opposed many of these very same proposals?

And my question with regard to the budget is: obviously there is no funding contained within the budget for the next national partnership; given the reforms that the government have announced, many of them copied at the last minute, quite hypocritically, how is it that they are going to ensure a sustainable future for the vocational education sector of Australia at the same time as, by their own account, they will be saving billions of dollars from that sector if it is not through the national partnership? How much funding will be provided for the national partnership, and when will this national partnership be negotiated and announced? And will the government ensure that the strong future of TAFE is guaranteed as a result of the upcoming national partnership?

Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a question for the minister around early language learning, which I will get to in a moment. Part of the provision in Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2016-2017 covers an innovative learning program, the Early Learning Languages Australia app, otherwise known as the ELLA app. This is part of the government's measures which have been designed to encourage the ongoing learning and teaching of languages in Australian schools.

I am an enthusiastic advocate for the learning of languages in schools and I am proud to be part of the Turnbull Liberal government that is extending the opportunity to learn a different language to preschool students. I started learning German in primary school. In the small country town where I grew up, Kingston SE, we were lucky to have several German teachers who had travelled from Germany to teach us in their native language. I enjoyed German so much that I continued it through high school, studied it in year 12 and went on exchange to Germany. My sister Belinda also enjoyed German and took the same path, although she was far more talented than me and ended up studying German at university as part of her teaching degree. Belinda and her husband, Josh, who is also a teacher, have just returned to Australia after three years living and teaching in Germany. My niece Gwenyth is fluent in German and English, as she attended preschool there. This is an opportunity that most Australian children do not have unless they are lucky, like my niece Gwenyth, to have parents who have jobs that let them travel the world. Australia, as we know, is an isolated nation, relatively speaking, and we have to travel significant distances to other countries to be surrounded by people who speak a different language all day, every day, in every aspect of their day.

I recently spoke with one of my constituents, Natalie, who is a mother of four, who is a very talented Japanese speaker. One of Natalie's children has displayed a similar proficiency for languages, and I hope that this app may assist parents like Natalie and young children who show a talent for languages at a young age. This is why I am encouraged by the ELLA app, aimed at making language learning engaging and interesting for all young children. In 2015 the Australian government provided $9.8 million to trial ELLA in 41 preschool services. The first step was designed to determine the effectiveness of children learning a language through apps without a proficient language teacher. A total of 35 apps, consisting of seven unique apps for each of the five languages, were developed in Arabic, Chinese, Indonesian, French and Japanese. As noted in the opening statement to this consideration in detail, research shows that learning languages develops capabilities that are transferable across a different range of different literacy related areas. This program is also sure to provide a head start towards language study at school. From a very early age, children will become more comfortable with a different language, which then increases their chance to engage in later years of life. The apps engage children in ways suitable for their age, through playing games and singing songs. You can see how engaging this app is when young children are counting, following recipes and singing in a different language they would not otherwise be familiar with.

I will certainly be promoting the ELLA app to childcare centres and preschools in my electorate such as the GoodStart Early Learning centre in Aberfoyle Park, which I had the pleasure of visiting on Saturday. The ELLA app is attractive, because a Deloitte evaluation of the program showed that 78 per cent of parents had seen their children using words from the language outside of preschool and around 49 per cent of parents said their children were showing interest in the culture of the language they were learning through the ELLA apps at home. Not only are students benefiting but Deloitte found that the app has helped 70 per cent of educators in the pilot program feel more confident about incorporating language in their lessons.

Following Deloitte's evaluation of the 2015 program, the trial was extended to nearly 300 preschool services in 2016. This expanded program has been such a success that the budget will expand the program to all preschools as of next year. I look forward to seeing the rollout of this expanded program in my electorate next year and ask the minister to explain the benefits of this program and the plans to expand it.

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

The member for Lalor is pleased to join my colleagues on this consideration in detail. I have a couple of questions for the minister. As someone who worked in the public education sector at the time of the Gonski review and the way it travelled around the country, I was part of that process. We all know in this room that that review determined that what we needed was a sector blind, needs based approach with a student resource standard set for primary school students at $9,271 and for secondary school students at $12,193. We all know that that is where we began this journey. We all know that the notion of it being sector blind was critical to move beyond what I would have termed the 'education wars' that had gone on under the Howard government for a decade.

I look at and study the data in the electorate of Lalor. Being in Victoria, with a state Labor government committed to transparency, I can actually access the 2017 projected budgets for every state school in the electorate and have done so. There are 30 mainstream public schools in the electorate of Lalor. In 2017, they will educate 27,000 students. What I found in looking at that data was that not one of those 30 schools has yet reached the student resource standard, neither in the primary sector nor in the secondary sector. Although on the ground you can see, because of this transparency, the variation in the needs based loading that is going into those schools, none of them have yet reached the base at which those loadings were supposed to add.

I have stood here and looked at the budget papers and I have heard the education minister say that education spending goes up and up. My question is quite simple. Without years 5 and 6 of Gonski, exactly when in these budget predictions will that SRS be met in every school for every child in this country as was originally promised?

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

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

And the loadings of course on top of that. Which takes me to the disability sector. I bring a question to the chamber today from a concerned constituent, a family member who works in the disability sector and has done so for many many years. Her question is: is this government committed to continuing to not fund the disability loadings that would see families choose mainstream education for their children while continuing to build specialist schools that may in essence be fabulous schools and wonderful? Are we in a space and is it this government's intention that they drive parents of students with disability to a special school rather than provide the funding that is required in the mainstream sector to educate those children in a mainstream setting? This is a critical element because we can replicate special schools in particular suburbs but unless we are going to put one in every neighbourhood then we are discriminating against some sectors of our community who may not live within reach of a special school.

I bear in mind news recently from one of my local special schools, where a student suffering from cerebral palsy who attends this special school was accustomed to being on a bus for a maximum of 40 minutes to and from school as the school picked up students on their way to the special school—obviously highly disabled students with a specifically fitted-out bus and process. That family told me recently of changes that are coming through which mean more students are being required to be taken by that bus. In the first few weeks, their daughter was sitting on the bus for an hour and 20 minutes, rather than 40 minutes, both to and from school. You can imagine that that is going to present all sorts of difficulties for families and for the young people who are involved in that transport. The creation of the funding to ensure that all students with a disability can attend a mainstream school as an option is critical, as it is to ensure that the appropriate funding levels reach our special schools.

The last question I have for the minister is around the retention rates, and around this government's insistence that they continue to raise the amount of money and yet do not calculate increased retention rates into that. We are aiming for a 100 per cent retention rate to year 12; I would think that needs to be in the budget papers.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just to complete the points in relation to the member for Mayo's questions, the primary focus for the government in the youth training area going forwards is through the PaTH program. There are three stages to this program, but overall there are about 120,000 placements to assist young people to gain work, on top of the 500,000 youth jobs that were created in the 18 months prior to the last budget. Stage 1 is about pre-employment skills training, stage 2, as we well know, is internship placement with support for business for 120,000 internships, and stage 3 is the support for wages within employment—again, an absolutely critical step forward.

Let me turn to the member for Griffith's point, primarily about public funding for universities: I will be clear and categorical here that the public funding increases each and every year. To address one of the member's points, I can repeat the words used by the minister that we will not be bringing in full fee deregulation. I have reconfirmed the minister's words, position, and policy framework in anticipation of just this question and reaffirm that to the House with complete confidence. The member asked in particular about the expert panel; the advice is very clear that we will develop the reform proposals, taking account of submissions, with a view to legislating by mid-2017 and implementing reforms from 1 January 2018. That is the work of the expert panel.

In relation to support for the disadvantaged under the Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program: as we go forwards, we see that the government has announced it would re-evaluate the HEPPP as part of the 2016-17 budget. The valuation is underway and being conducted by ACIL Allen in consultation with Wallis Consulting, and we expect it to be completed later this year. Obviously, I will not pre-empt the elements of a review which is being undertaken.

With regard to the very moving points made by the member for Berowra, the Adult Migrant English Program is the government's largest English-language program. It provides English-language training to eligible new migrants and humanitarian entrants. Changes have been introduced—as the point was made by the member—to refocus AMEP towards tailored training. In particular, participants have two streams of training which they will now be entitled to enter. This is within a client's 510-hour entitlement. Firstly, there is a pre-employment English stream, particularly for many members of the Chinese community that he mentioned—extremely important; and secondly, a social English stream for some of the parents and some of the older members of the community, particularly many women, who are isolated. These are extremely important developments and steps going forward.

The member for Adelaide raised issues in relation to early childhood support. It is very clear: the government's package here will increase by $3 billion to a total of $40 billion, the funding being made available over the forward estimates. One million families will benefit through this process, in particular, low-income families, as we make sure that the subsidies disappear—believe it or not—for things such as childhood zumba and advanced yoga lessons. If the opposition has a problem with that, I am sorry.

The member for Boothby raised in particular the early learning and languages or ELLA program. I think that her points go straight to the fact that this is an outstanding program. The government is investing an additional $5.9 million so that from 2017 all preschool services can access the ELLA program. I want to thank her and other members, whether as members, or in her case as a candidate, fought for and managed to achieve this very outcome.

Finally, the member for Lalor wanted to raise the issue of expenditure and disability choice. It is very clear that what we see is an increase each and every year in relation to government expenditure within the education sector. She asks the question which I am delighted to complete and finish: are we committed to choice for families with disabilities? That is a fundamental precept of what we are looking at. Whether it is within mainstream schools or specialist schools, it is ultimately about giving the family the choice.

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I used to say to witnesses, it would be useful if you would answer the question that is actually asked, not the question that you think is being asked. I would like to follow up with some additional questions. I appreciate that the minister said that he would not pre-empt the HEPPP review outcomes; however, the budget has pre-empted the HEPPP review outcomes by budgeting for a $152 million cut to that program, so I ask again: what does the government intend to do in relation to that program; and how will the government's cuts to the equity program affect participation and enrolment by students from low-socioeconomic status backgrounds, Indigenous students and students from regional and remote areas?

Secondly, I ask the minister to commit to ensuring that the legislation for the government's package would be tabled not later than the autumn sittings and I explained the reason for that so prospective students in universities could prepare. The minister answered that the expert panel would report by mid-2017, but of course the expert panel is not the parliament. The government has to get their package through the House of Representatives and through the Senate before university students and prospective students can rely upon it. Look at this government's woeful track record when it comes to higher education changes since they were elected in September 2013. Look at the catastrophic 2014 federal budget that introduced the idea of the $100,000 degrees through fee deregulation that introduced the 20 per cent cut to Commonwealth grants scheme—the 20 per cent cut, that is, to public funding.

If you look at the comprehensive failure of this government to be able to prosecute its case for those changes, you will know that it is not sufficient for the government to tell us when to expect a package to be published. We need to know when it is going to get into the parliament so we can know when the public are going to have an opportunity to have a real say through the representative democracy in this country. That is why it is important for us to know when we can expect the package to be tabled. I do not think there is a person in this country who would say that this government can be relied upon to bring forth a legislative package for higher education changes that could be acceptable to the Australian people through the Australian parliament.

It is almost laughable, given the ridiculous nature of their attempts at higher education changes, to wander into government and say 'What we're going to do everyone—have we got a deal for you. We're going to completely deregulate fees so that people will have a lifetime of debt so that it is possible to have a $100,000-degree.' And guess what? If you happen to go into a lower-paid occupation at the end of your degree and you happen to go and work for a community legal centre instead of a top-tier law firm, then the debts are going to last longer, because not only will it take you longer to pay it off; you will also have the indexation, which will mean you will pay more for the same degree. There was the ridiculousness of that idea that they floated and then, on top of that, they really put the pressure on the university sector to accept this terrible idea to say, 'We're going to give you a cut of 20 per cent to your Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding.' Saying that we are going to cut public funding to universities at the same time as we are insisting on this full fee deregulation is utterly ridiculous. This is an act of economic vandalism to undermine higher education in this country, which the minister well knows. He well knows of the importance to domestic students of having the opportunity to get a fantastic higher education and he also knows the importance of higher education as an export market.

Higher education and international tourism have a symbiotic relationship. Those two sectors combined have an export value almost equal to the export value of iron ore. That is how important those two sectors are to our community and to our economy. It is extremely reckless to think about cutting public funding and therefore making it harder for our universities to remain internationally competitive at a time when Asian universities are beginning to improve their quality, are beginning to really step up the sort of money that goes into higher education in their countries—at a time when our economy needs to diversify.

Everyone in this room and in this parliament knows about the importance of diversifying our economy. We all know about the fact that investment is dropping off in resources. Of course it is; the big projects have largely been built. We are transitioning in our resources to having still a lot of strength, of course, in our resources exports, but needing to diversify our economy and needing to diversify our exports. That means supporting higher education and supporting international tourism. As I said, they are symbiotic. Students come to this country. They learn. They then bring back family members and friends once they find out how fantastic we are.

Finally, I would like to know why there are cuts to the equity program. What are the consequences going to be? What is the basis on which the $2 billion worth of savings for scrapping fee deregulation has been calculated? (Time expired)

Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The people of Berowra have a range of different educational outcomes. There are 16,339 people in my constituency that have certificate-level qualifications, 11,748 that have advanced diploma or diploma-level qualifications, 7,481 people working in technical areas or in trades and 1,731 machinery operators or drivers. The Hornsby TAFE has been educating people in technical and vocational skills for generations, and there have been a range of different private providers that have also been educating people across Sydney in this space. Many of the most successful small business people in my electorate have vocational qualifications and have made good lives out of the high-standard qualifications that they have got over the years. However, in recent years the whole vocational education sector changed, and it changed because of the lack of regulation and the poorly introduced program that the former Labor government brought about. It was a poorly designed, poorly regulated VET FEE-HELP program that has opened the door to rorters, to fly-by-night merchants, to people whose rules are Rafferty's rules—people who are looking to turn a quick buck who are not interested in education, who are not committed to students, who are not committed to the vocational education sector. Students were left without qualification, but they were left with big debts.

We heard from the member for Griffith about concerns about student debts. I am particularly concerned about the students who have undertaken vocational education courses who have no qualification because the completion rates are so inadequate but have very large debts because of Labor's inadequate regulation and poorly introduced VET FEE-HELP scheme. As always, it is the coalition that has to clean up this mess. In 2015 the coalition made a number of changes to the way the scheme was administered, including banning inducements. We know lots about the activities of recruiters in this area. There are stricter requirements on marketing and brokers. They removed barriers to withdrawals. They also introduced provisions to include a freeze on total loan limits at 2015 levels. The ACCC has been taking action against unscrupulous providers in this area—providers who have been able to operate, providers who have been able to charge fees that are well out of whack with what state education authorities have suggested, because of the poor and inadequate regulation bequeathed to us by the previous Labor government.

To give a sense of this, for instance, the Redesigning VET FEE-HELP: discussion paper looked at the New South Wales Smart and Skilled prices for VET FEE-HELP tuition and compared it to average tuition fee per full-time vocational student. In, say, a diploma of marketing, the New South Wales Smart and Skilled qualification price was $5,800, but the diploma of marketing in the average tuition per full-time student was $28,596. This is evidence of people looking to turn a quick buck rather than to actually focus on quality vocational education outcomes.

The completion rates are terrible in this space. Completion rates are in the low 20s. Because Labor completely failed to put in place adequate regulations, because they completely failed to look at this vocational education sector properly, what has essentially happened is that the most disadvantaged people—Indigenous people, people with disabilities—have been preyed upon by people in this space. It is why it is important that something is done in this space. It is why my question today to the minister is: what is the Turnbull government doing to fix the VET FEE-HELP loan scheme mess that the coalition inherited?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that the Education and Training portfolio has, because of the interest of the chamber, eaten into the time of the Industry, Innovation and Science portfolio. I am aware that the relevant minister for the Education and Training portfolio is in the House. Out of respect for that minister, I am happy to take all further questions that have been laid on the table before the chamber by the member for Griffith and the member for Berowra and put them on notice to have them answered. That will allow us to move expeditiously to Industry, Innovation and Science.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Industry, Innovation and Science Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $1,244,888,000

It gives me great pleasure to support this appropriation. The Industry, Innovation and Science portfolio is fundamentally about the jobs of today, the jobs of tomorrow and the jobs of the future. Although there is not a perfect identity between the three pillars of the portfolio—being industry, innovation and science—the fundamental relationship can be based on and viewed through the prism of those three elements.

I think it is very important to make the point, as I have repeatedly since coming into the portfolio, that innovation is absolutely about new firms and start-up firms. A quick analysis we did today shows I have had the fortune to meet with more than 100 different firms, industry organisations, players and critical funders within the sector since coming into the portfolio, including universities and those who are supporting venture capital operations.

It is also about jobs in existing firms such as Dulux, a 100-year-old Australian paint manufacturer which has reinvented itself and tripled its share price in the process by using R&D, by using innovation. It is also about firms such as BlueScope, which have redeveloped fundamental products such as ZINCALUME and COLORBOND. When I visited the BlueScope plant at Port Kembla, the workers explained to me the way in which they had been engaged in innovation and the way in which R&D had directly assisted in the process of creating a thinner coating which was more effective and gave greater properties to ZINCALUME and COLORBOND and, in the process, had improved their product identity, their product quality and, therefore, their sales. This was a classic case of innovation in existing firms being at the heart of the workers being able to maintain their job security. It was a really interesting example. Having BlueScope in my own electorate was a very important insight.

The overarching perspective that I want to give is that this portfolio views its critical terms through looking at the macro-economic, the micro-economic and the innovation and science agenda. Firstly, we know the macro-economic task before the country: bringing the budget back into surplus and assisting us to make our firms more competitive through an internationally competitive corporate tax rate. Secondly, it is about, as we see now, ensuring that there is safety and security in the workplace and that the Australian Building and Construction Commission and the registered organisations bills are about removing intimidation and allowing our businesses to flourish. And thirdly, it is about ensuring that the free trade agreements which we have established—and then others such as with Indonesia, the Middle East, Europe, India and the UK—give our businesses more and further opportunities going forward.

The microeconomic reform squarely sits within the Industry, Innovation and Science portfolio. In particular, we have the six growth centres and a $250 million budget over the forward estimates for that. One of those, in terms of the advanced manufacturing, has a critical role within the Geelong and broader area around Deakin University—and is supported by, and driven by, the member for Corangamite, I have to say, who is a fearless advocate for advanced manufacturing in the growth centre.

Then we have $400 million for the Entrepreneurs' Program—more than $400 million, in fact; it is up to $450 million—which is assisting commercialisation, and over $650 million for the 31 cooperative research centres, which are really treasured national institutions. Going forward, we know the first wave of the Innovation and Science Agenda is underway through the critical science infrastructure such as the Synchrotron, the Square Kilometre Array and the national quantum computing program at UNSW; through the support for young people to come into science with over $100 million of funding for science, technology, engineering and maths and, in particular, is focused on women and the support for new investment.

The second and third waves of the innovation agenda are to be delivered in 2017 and 2018 respectively. They will be about investment and additional public support for critical science infrastructure, and then about our National Business Simplification Initiative as part of the third wave, twinned with support for the great growth of university precincts. That is the agenda going forward.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was an interesting performance. I noticed the minister touched on the ABCC bills, which was one of the last things I expected to hear really. You would have thought the minister might have talked about the catastrophe that is going on in the Australian car industry, which was one of the big contributors to research and development and a big employer of Australians—some 50,000 Australians, many of them in Victoria, of course—

Mr Hunt interjecting—

as the honourable member interjects. But the minister did not talk about that industry, because this government has presided over a catastrophe. It is interesting—I remember the headline very well: 'Hockey dares GM to leave'. I remember that day very well and I remember only about a week ago when the particular section of the line at GMH Elizabeth that manufactured the Cruze—Australia's small car—stopped. There will be no more Cruzes off the line. These are all things that worry Australian workers; these are all things that worry Australian industry. And we worry that the government is in denial. I notice the minister made a speech in the Spencer Gulf, I think, recently where he set out his views. I did read it.

Mr Hunt interjecting—

We might talk about some of that later on. I find it interesting. He says:

As the car sector shows, government grants will not help a business to survive in the long run if it is not competitive.

It is interesting that he talks about competitive forces. I do wonder what role he thinks the Australian dollar played in the demise of the Australian car industry, which was one of the factors that Holden talked about when they announced the closure of the factory.

It would be interesting to know what the government's view is on the movements of the Australian dollar and whether assistance should be given to ride out those conditions or whether he thinks that the cabinet should have considered them in the light that the dollar, when they made the decision not to provide any further assistance to GMH, was about $1.08 and today it is 70-something cents. That is a big difference in the competitiveness of our industries. I can tell you that if we had had a billion dollars worth of investment in the Australian car industry—if the government had facilitated that—we would have currently been exporting our heads off. We are already exporting cars to the United States, but there would have been many, many more exports were the government to have backed GMH in.

From a philosophical point of view, I would be interested to hear the minister's position on that.

I would also be interested to hear if the minister's department or if the government had actually got any estimates of the cost to the whole of government—including income taxes, social security costs, retraining costs—on the closure of the car industry. Has his department done that or thought about that? Has the cabinet done that or thought about that? There seems to be a contribution to the Growth Fund—I think that is what they are calling it—and they are claiming it is $155 million, even though it also includes money from GM Holden and state governments in the figure. I would be interested to know if his department has looked at any of those costs, what those costs might be and, in particular, what the employment options are for employees in that industry. How are the retraining packages going? Are any of those employees being employed in any of the next gen manufacturing opportunities that are coming up from the grants? They would all be interesting answers to hear, to see if the government actually knows what is going on.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to rise in this debate and to put some questions to the minister in relation to what I consider is very significant support, particularly in advanced manufacturing. The member for Wakefield, as he is prone to do, has attempted to rewrite history in relation to the car industry. He has clearly forgotten that in my great city of Geelong it was under the Gillard government in May 2013 that Ford announced it was closing and ending manufacturing in Australia. After 91 years of manufacturing almost half a million vehicles in Geelong, it has been a very emotional time for Ford employees and suppliers, their families and the broader Geelong community. I do want to pay tribute to the incredible contribution that the Ford Motor Company and its workforce have made to our community.

But it is important to reiterate that while this is the end of a manufacturing era, it is not the end of manufacturing for Ford in Geelong. The member for Wakefield has been very misleading in the comments he has made about our car industry. Ford will continue to play a very important role in our community, employing more than 500 people—at the moment it is about 650 people—in the Geelong region at its research and development centre and also at the Lara proving ground. The RDC and the proving ground in Geelong are one of only four global centres of design, innovation, engineering and testing. The RDC and the wonderful workforce of Ford employees are working to design and engineer and test Ford cars for the global Ford market, so it is an absolutely wonderful credit to Ford that they are continuing to make this important investment in our region. It was a great pleasure to visit, with the minister, that Lara proving ground recently and to look at the multimillion dollar investment that Ford is making in that particular area. It is also a great pleasure to reflect on the very important investment we are continuing to make in advanced manufacturing, which is supporting not just the auto market but also advanced manufacturing across the board.

The member for Wakefield mentioned our Growth Fund, and what an amazing fund of $105 million that is. If you have a look at the election commitment that the Labor Party made in the lead-up to the election, it was giving a paltry $7 million—$7 million—for manufacturing in the Geelong region. It was an absolute embarrassment! Our government have not only committed $155 million in total, with $105 million of that coming directly from the Commonwealth, but we also have a number of very important programs under that fund. We delivered the Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund as well as the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre. And, as part of the Growth Fund, we delivered some other very important programs: the Next Generation Manufacturing Investment Program and Automotive Diversification Program. And that program is actually helping wonderful local manufacturers like Backwell-IXL export in excess of $1 million of Ford components. They are doing that for components for the Ford Everest and the Ford Ranger, and those parts are going to Thailand, China, South Africa and Argentina.

Let us consider how we are focused on building our auto manufacturing sector into the future and have a look at Carbon Revolution. It is a company that we should all be celebrating. Clearly it is a company that maybe the member for Wakefield has not heard about. With the support of $5 million through the Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund, it has become a global leader in the manufacture of carbon fibre wheels for the likes of Ford's Shelby, Mustang, GT 350 in the United States, and it is an incredible example of local manufacturing success.

With great pride under difficult circumstances, we are working very hard to support advanced manufacturing. I am keen to ask the minister to outline further ways in which the Turnbull government is investing in our manufacturing and advanced manufacturing sectors with a focus on creating jobs, building a strong economy, including in my electorate of Corangamite and in the broader Geelong region.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just have a few more questions on cars before we move onto other subjects. I would be interested to know what the minister considers to be the future of the automotive industry in Australia, I really would. He has not said terribly been much about it. We know the honourable member clings to her carbon fibre wheels at every chance. We could barely miss it.

Government Member:

A government member interjecting—

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am just saying. You are the one who brought it up with me. I would like to know, for all those blue-collar employees out there who are in the process of losing their jobs, what does the minister see as their future in that automotive industry, if any? Could the minister please outline: are there markets for after-market vehicles that he would consider giving support to? And also has he received any representations from state government industry groups or any other organisation or business regarding the adequacy of the growth fund?

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

This is an opportunity to ask some valuable questions of the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, particularly around collaborations that are developing between our tertiary education sector and industry. There has been a lot of publicity around the global ranking showing that Australia is not high on industry-tertiary education collaboration. Whether that methodology is absolutely watertight or not, we know that countries like the UK rank very highly in that area. We know that that translational work that starts with workplace integrated earning is vital so that the great work being done in our world-class universities actually translates into the commercial sector.

We know how the economic growth that keeps people in jobs is utterly reliant on the work that you are doing, Minister Hunt, and your portfolio. You have got the car keys, effectively the economic engine in your control as well as the front two rows. So asking these questions is pretty critical about where we will be in maybe 10 or 20 years' time.

We have antecedents coming through the education system and we are asking questions about why young women are dropping STEM related subjects of maths and physics. I know both sides of the chamber would be most concerned about young women dropping science as they go from primary to high school. We have high schools that have just a handful of students doing advanced maths C in grade 12, so few students in some of our state high schools that they cannot even employ a teacher to teach it. We are going to see the demise of math for a whole range of reasons but mostly it is the laissez-faire approach, where students can pick what they feel like doing regardless of workplace signals that are often generations down the track. The decisions that are made by students in subject choice do not reflect the workplaces they going into. They do not have absolutely perfect and symmetric knowledge in this respect.

You do not have to go much further, Minister, and you have the teaching faculties around Australia playing absolutely no active role in ensuring that teaching graduates take up STEM related courses and get a major in maths. In Queensland, we have a plethora of 16,000 proud primary school education graduates without a job, and we are producing more. At the same time, we can barely find teachers with a maths major.

That presents a problem that is often not observed by us in this place—that is, the misallocation of maths teaching resources. You will see general statistics saying that about 30 per cent of our children with maths teachers in secondary schools do not have a teacher who has a maths major. There are a whole host of reasons around that, but I will tell you where most of the qualified maths teachers are. They are more likely to get a job in the city, where they want to be, and they are mostly teaching higher SES high schools, low-fee independent schools and private schools. That is where the maths teachers are. They are mostly teaching students who are going on to do professional degrees and who are not going to use their maths very much—people like many of us here. But out in regional Australia—this is the engine room—you are flat out finding those maths teachers, and you move to these perilous statistics that around half of these students do not have a maths teacher teaching them maths. If you come from a regional area of Australia, the proportion of your teachers trained in maths should be of great concern to you.

Minister, you will know that we have plenty of health and physical education teachers—we are not short on those; we have a generation worth of HPE teachers—but the issue here is that you just study what you feel like in your first year of university. When you are busy working your way through your first year of drinking, you are also deciding what area of teaching you are going to go into. There is no driving of these young students into subject areas. There are inadequate rewards for them to go into the areas of STEM. They are hard. These areas have atrophied down to vestigial levels even before those students get to university, and we are paying the price.

How are we paying the price? We just need to look at PISA. We are producing one-third as many students in the top quartile on PISA as the five best education systems in the world and we are producing twice as many in the bottom quintile. We are producing twice as many who are going to struggle and become social and economic issues and a third the number of geniuses in the top quartile—the people who are meant to be driving this fabulous ideas based economy. If you are worried about ideas, creativity and problem solving, I do not really care what you study, but I need to know, Minister, that those degrees absolutely maximise the human capital of Australian students.

At the moment my concern would be whether industry itself feels that it is getting the antecedents that it needs, and the clear message that I am getting is that it is not. Is workplace integrated learning adequately provided for from the industry side of things? Universities talk about long- and short-term placements being few and far between once you move outside of some areas like engineering—they are certainly low in most other STEM-related areas. We have physics departments that are citadels unto themselves. We have STEM that is not being translated across university sectors, and then, ultimately, we have an industry that feels that—despite these fabulous CRCs, with billions of dollars invested—it has no real chance of developing a link with the tertiary education sector.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Federation Committee adjourned at 18:27.