Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I rise today to speak on the motion brought by my colleague and member for Sydney, in relation to schools funding. Before the 2013 election those opposite promised that they would match Labor's funding model 'dollar for dollar'. Who could forget? Australian voters certainly have not. They saw the posters on election day. They heard the solemn commitment from coalition candidates. They assumed that if a Liberal-National government were elected that funding to their schools would be safe. That was an entirely reasonable assumption to make, given the solemn promises that were made.

Sadly, however, we learnt very quickly after the election that the Liberals' definition of matching was, in fact, to rip $30 billion out of our school system and to drive a stake into the heart of Gonski's needs based funding. This means of course fewer teachers, less one-on-one attention for students in schools and, inevitably, leaving students behind. Disadvantaged students and communities will of course suffer the most and, shockingly, the Turnbull government's funding shortfall is equivalent to cutting one in seven teachers across our nation.

The schools I represent in Newcastle will lose a massive $33 million in the next two years alone. It is particularly distressing, because we are just starting to see some of the amazing benefits that the Gonski funding is delivering to schools cross the country—I have had the pleasure of seeing firsthand the benefits of Gonski in my local schools.

Many schools have used that extra funding to provide additional teachers and to have specialised support staff deliver more individual attention to students through tailored learning programs, greater subject choice, extension classes and extra curricular activities to ensure that every child is engaged at school. Students have benefited from smaller classes, intensive literacy and numeracy classes, access to speech pathologists and more support for kids with special learning needs.

All of this of course will be put at risk as those opposite proceed with these senseless cuts. But it is actually schools in the National Party electorates that will feel the pain of these cuts most in their regional electorates, because they in fact are the greatest beneficiaries of Gonski. They have received on average almost three times the boost to education funding compared to their Liberal counterparts, and more than one and a half times the funding received in Labor electorates. Of course, this makes sense because the model directs funding to areas of greatest need and addresses significant underfunding that regional schools have struggled with for years. In fact the Deputy Prime Minister's seat of New England will be amongst the electorates hardest hit, and yet the Deputy Prime Minister has not voiced a whimper of dissent against this plan.

An opposition member: Shame!

Indeed it is shameful, and neither, however, has the Deputy Speaker Mark Coulton, whose electorate of Parkes is the single-greatest beneficiary of Gonski. It is shameful that the Deputy Prime Minister and his national colleagues in this place have sat back mutely and watched as their own government cuts viciously from schools in their own electorates. With their silence, they are selling out their communities and betraying the children and families they are here to represent.

Labor believes that every child in every school deserves the support they need to reach their full potential. While the Prime Minister has turned his back on needs based funding and has even suggested that the Commonwealth should pull out of funding public schools entirely, Labor understands that the best returns are achieved when we invest in schools and kids that need it most.

It is hard to overstate the importance of education—not only as a basic right but as a key economic enabler. Instead of investing in education in the next generation, the Turnbull government is plundering our schools so they can splash $50 billion of precious public money on a tax cut for big business instead. We know that a sizeable chunk of that tax funded corporate gift will end up in the hands of foreign shareholders. We also know that a further $7.4 billion will be gifted to the four big banks.

I suggest that this is an untenable situation. Before the last election, 31 of Australia's top economists backed in the Gonski as the biggest and best investment for our future generations. That is what this government should be doing, not paying its corporate mates instead.

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

I think there is uniform agreement that we want to fund schools as generously as possible but, ultimately, to fund a school, you have to raise the revenue. Obviously, in a post-commodity boom, it is always going to be a little harder than when the money was flowing. I guess the other great indication of passion to a school system is how much you actually fund in the four-year estimates when you are in government. Of course, as we all well know now, Julia Gillard was far more focused on pink batts and the $3.8 billion that went in that direction and instead made all of the school funding that they now refer to into what are called the out years of years 5 and 6. We call them the never-never, when governments can effectively say anything, because they do not have to budget for those amounts. It is a very, very, subtle difference. So, the coalition did commit to Gonski for the four years that a government can. When you talk about out years, you can really put any number you like out there; it really does not matter, because that money must be found in the budget every year, and the reality is Julia Gillard never, ever found that money.

You can have all the views you want, on either side of the chamber, about how much there should be in school funding. What we know is that both sides of politics can wear that merit badge and say, 'We've raised funding for schools way above inflation and way above education inflation, and our schools are now widely recognised as the best resourced and most equitably resourced in the world, bar those in one or two countries.' It is important to keep looking at OECD comparisons. It is not that important in other areas, but in schools we have school students from other parts of the world who are going to university and one day will compete with Australians for jobs. The actual outcomes are quite important, so you do not want to get yourself cornered into a system where you are funding need, because the more you fund need the more you incentivise people to create need. The more you fund outcomes the more you have an incentive to create outcomes. I do not mean to rewrite Labor's textbook on this one, but Labor does not actually know anything about what the difference is between a high-gain and a low-gain school.

Ms Owens interjecting—

It is quite simple—and I know the member for Parramatta is faking a laugh as loudly as she can—but in reality we need to be funding gain in schools. That seems to be fairly relevant. What we do not have at the moment is a system that identifies high-quality educational outcomes and rewards those outcomes, and a system that identifies schools that are struggling and says, 'We can help.' It is one thing to give money based on need, but if half of those schools fix the need and the other half do not, you do not just keep funding need. You have to go to those schools and say, 'What exactly is happening here?' because the additional funding into need is making no difference.

Luckily, again, we can look at Europe, northern Scandinavia and the Asian economies. In most of those examples, your socioeconomic and educational background—your family background—has very little to do with your educational outcomes. You do not need to fund need in those countries because education takes care of it. The very fact that you turn up—you have the dose effect of being exposed to school—

Ms Owens interjecting—

Can we have a mature discussion here, where I respect your point of view, without silly guffaws coming from you, Member for Parramatta? In reality, what we have is an expectation that just because you go to a poor school you should have a poor outcome, and therefore we should fund you because you have more need. In reality, I firmly believe that a school with families from high-need backgrounds can do just as well as families from high-wealth and high-human-capital backgrounds. It can be done, and, in fact, Australia has the largest disparity in educational outcomes related to socioeconomic and educational backgrounds of any country in the world. What it means is that our poor kids are doing very poorly and our wealthy kids are doing very, very well in the state system—I am not talking about two-tier educational systems.

We have all that data from the OECD, and we collect information through TIMSS, PIRLS and a range of other datasets that obviously have not been looked at over here. But in reality we know that we are sitting stagnant—and in some cases slipping—with science and maths, and I am not just talking about PISA. We have a very, very significant problem, and at the same time we have—from none other than the OECD—reports that say additional funding only works in low-funded educational systems. Once you get the systems funded as well as they are in Australia, the Asian economies and northern Europe, the changes in funding do not make much difference. It simply does not make much difference.

We are a nation that can recognise quality and disseminate it. At another time we will go into the significant obstructions that we have in state education systems that do not report on outcomes satisfactorily, do not report on disparities within schools and certainly do not want to put their school leadership under any sort of scrutiny on outcomes. We will slowly get there. I confess that neither side of politics is fully over the hurdle on that one yet, but one day we will recognise quality in our teachers and in our principals. We will reward that and you will see struggling schools increase in their outcomes for the first time.

Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this motion, knowing well the huge difference that needs based funding is making in my area, despite this government's dangerously ham-fisted approach to its implementation, which has included a $30 billion cut. This is despite an election promise to match Labor dollar for dollar. Even with this government's lack of commitment to the Gonski reforms, the funding that has been made available so far is definitely making a real difference. Many schools in Werriwa work with an above average number of disadvantaged children. They have all benefited from the introduction of needs based funding, which has extended the support that they are able to provide to those most in need. This funding has meant that the schools are able to employ extra teachers, teachers' aides, administrative staff and speech pathologists to implement new programs to give students opportunities they did not have before.

At a recent visit to James Busby High School, the member for Sydney and I were able to see firsthand how the funding made available through these reforms is making a difference in the children's lives. The school has employed additional teachers and support staff, enabling students to work in smaller groups with more one-on-one support for those students most in need and bolstering their capacity to improve their literacy and numeracy. The lessons include giving practical advice on why it is important to keep receipts and how to read the receipts and ensure their change is correct. Each of the students has been affected by factors far beyond their control, situations they are often born into. Needs-based funding has opened up for these students opportunities that they would not have previously had, enabling them to improve their literacy and numeracy, where they would have struggled without these funds. The principal at James Busby High School, Olimpia Bartolillo, is a passionate advocate. She is so committed to her students that she has worked at the school for her entire teaching career. Her passion and dedication and the dedication of her team have been clear in the conversations that I have had when visiting the school and have been noted by other community members more broadly.

Lurnea High School is a great example of the benefits that needs-based funding is bringing to my community. 82 per cent of families attending the school are in the lowest quartile of the Family Occupation and Education Index. It already has a long tradition of providing greater opportunities to less advantaged communities in Western Sydney. I know this first hand through the years my sister and I attended there, and more recently my three sons. Keeping with that tradition, Lurnea High has used funding enabled through the Gonski reforms to implement a range of new programs and better resourcing existing ones, which has ensured all students a far wider range of opportunities and that those in need of more focussed assistance have access to it.

I was fortunate enough to return there last week for presentations by the new year 7 cohort. These presentations are the product of a program called the 'Year 7 Transition Innovation', which is to have year 7s start their high school education by completing and presenting a group project. The program is significantly focused on building problem-based learning skills while also encouraging creativity and innovation. The project was to improve the local park, with students asked to create a new space where the community can come and be together. The best groups were chosen to present to an audience that included their parents, Liverpool Councillor Nathan Hagarty, Liverpool Council Social Planner James Flynn and myself. The standard was extremely high and we were all impressed by the creativity on display. In Mr Flynn's words, the ideas and the level of detailed work displayed in the presentations were 'just wow'. The group presentations included many aspects promoting learning, teamwork, critical thinking, practical art and hands-on craft skills, as well as encouraging them to make new friends in a fun environment and fostering a greater sense of community amongst the new cohort.

The implementation of this program has been contingent on the availability of funding through the Gonski reforms. Programs like this are making a real difference at Lurnea and building a greater sense of pride and community amongst students, with a 51 per cent reduction in truancy and a 43 per cent reduction in absenteeism. The impact that this funding is already having is clearly visible. If we follow through on the plan we not only improve academic outcomes as the funding is doing at James Busby we also strengthen our communities through a broader range skills, such as what we see at Lurnea High School. My community wants to see more of this. The government needs to end the uncertainty over this funding and reverse these cuts so that no-one is denied the right of a decent education.

Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise and speak on this topic of school funding, especially in light of some of the comments we are consistently hearing from the opposition in this debate. Those who care about the quality and the standard of debate in Australia, those who have ever wished that politicians might be restricted from saying blatantly untrue things and those who have an interest in sound policy should be listening very, very carefully to the words that the opposition are using with respect to school funding and they ought to be alarmed.

Listening to Labor's lies, one might conclude that the government was actually delivering less school funding than Labor did. It is a fact that this government is delivering record levels of federal government money towards schools. We are delivering more this year than last year, more than any year before and certainly more than Labor provided. And anyone who is inclined to believe the Labor lies should just ask a Labor politician to show them an actual graph of the funding delivered over recent years and they will see very plainly what I am about to say.

The budget papers show very clearly how the federal government's support of schools is growing each and every year. The federal government's contribution to running schools is $16.1 billion this financial year, rising to $20.2 billion in 2020—an increase of over 26 per cent. Now, that is for all school funding as a whole. But let's dive into what I think is the most relevant component of the funding, because I think what matters most sometimes in this debate is how the funding is delivered to government schools.

In my state of Queensland the federal government is helping the state to run state schools to the tune of $1.37 billion in this financial year, rising to $1.79 billion in 2020—an increase of about 33 per cent. And anyone who cares about school funding can go and confirm what I have just said for themselves. These numbers are in the budget papers—people can go straight to the source and checked this out for themselves. The budget is available online—Budget Paper No. 1, statement 5, page 5-49. It shows the government spending, expenses by area under education and under schools. It is all there in black and white. They can see straight away that the funding numbers are going up, not down. They are going up by an amount that is higher than the rate of inflation and population growth combined. It is increasing per student per year in real terms.

Labor's next lie which needs to be called out is that they are trying to say that they would have spent more. They want us to believe that if they promise to spend more then somehow that equates to cuts on our side, even though our funding level is going up and up. The former speaker, my colleague the member for Bowman, already spoke about Labor making promises in the out years, when they do not have to make their promises add up in the budgetary sense. I guess it is a case of 'promises, promises'. Labor promised this extra funding at exactly the same time as they promised our country three economic surpluses, which obviously never happened either.

On the topic of accuracy, I want to say one thing about the name 'Gonski'. On state school fences around Brisbane there are green signs saying that Gonski is making a difference in those schools. In fact, Gonski is not making a difference in those schools, in the sense that Gonski has never actually existed in the state of Queensland. No Gonski agreement was ever made in Queensland, or in most states around Australia for that matter. The kindest interpretation we could use is that the funding agreement with the Queensland government is Gonski inspired. But it is not Gonski funding, and if a local business made a claim like that it would be unlawful under Consumer Law.

For parents, teachers and students who do not know, those signs were printed up by the Queensland Teachers Union, not by the schools. My understanding is that the teachers union offers to host a free barbecue or similar for the teachers at the local school—and who does not want a free barbecue? I fully understand that. But one of the conditions of having that barbecue is that these signs talking about Gonski funding go up in the school when in fact, of course, technically that does not exist.

There is an interesting article in The Sydney Morning Herald today by Ross Gittins. It makes the point that the Gonski report was not really ever about additional funding being a key to improving education. It was about balancing funding at whatever level it was provided on the basis of measured need.

On the topic of school funding Labor are misleading the public. I am calling them out on it today. Anyone who really cares about school funding should support this government for as long as it continues to deliver record funding to local schools and should think twice about a political party like Labor that would seek to mislead and scare, and to drag sound policy into their murky politics.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his forensic examination of the issue!

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

Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you for your impartial analysis of that rather one-sided speech!

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And I call the honourable member for Parramatta.

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

It is a very easy thing to take part of a story and turn something that is actually true in part into something that is untrue. That is just what we have heard from the previous speaker.

Let me talk about Gonski. Gonski was a long time in coming. It was years, actually, of negotiation between stakeholders all around the country in all the different school systems that finally came together and came to a common understanding about what our schools needed if we were going to position Australia and our children in the best possible way for the future. And it was not a four-year funding strategy; it was actually a strategy over six and beyond years. The funding increased year by year, and the major increases were in the fifth and sixth years, because you actually had to train teachers for it.

I know the government is not saying you cannot talk about the outliers—unless it is a tax cut. If it is tax cut for big business, you can talk 10 years quite happily, but apparently not when it comes to school funding—even though this plan was put in place and in the budget, and the opposition, on the day before the election, committed absolutely to funding it in full. So we can have two truths here. The government is funding the first four years, increasing year by year, and therefore they are funding more and more each year. That is true. But it is also true that they committed to funding years 5 and 6 yet they are not funding them. Both things are true. Yes, the funding is going up. It was supposed to—that is what Gonski did. Congratulations for supporting the first four years of Gonski, but no congratulations whatsoever for telling untruths to the Australian people that you were going to fund years 5 and 6 and now you are not. See, it is actually quite simple. You do not get to take part of a story and turn it into a giant untruth. You just do not get to do it and you do not get to carry on about out-years yet you are going to fund 10 years of a tax cut. With tax cuts outlying years are fine but with education they are not—how about some consistency or some truth from this government about something as important as education?

I want to talk about what my great schools are doing with the extra funding they have received through the needs-based incentives which this government is not committed to. I have a school in my electorate called Merrylands High School. It is a fantastic school in an incredibly disadvantaged area. They received some additional needs-based funding. With that funding and targeted literacy and numeracy programs and one-to-one support for students in the upper years, school attendance is up by 5.1 per cent and there has been a 14 per cent increase in the submission of class work but, more importantly, there are more people getting into university now. The number of students receiving university offers in the three years thanks to this program has increased dramatically—in fact, it has doubled. That is a remarkable effect from a relatively small investment through Gonski. That is the sort of program that this government does not support.

I have a wonderful little primary school in the south of my electorate called Holy Family Primary School. It is an incredibly diverse community. They have incredible numbers, with nearly half their students turning up in kindergarten—or preschool as it is called here; wrong state—unable to read at all. They have no reading capacity at all and some of them have incredibly low verbal skills. That is another school which is receiving special needs-based funding to work one-on-one with these children, to develop plans one-on-one, to make sure that these children are school ready and can do the best they can. It is incredibly important funding.

One of the speakers on the other side was ranting about high-gain schools and how you should only fund high-gain schools. Let me tell you: the schools that are high-gain schools are high-gain schools because they were funded. The high-gain schools in Western Sydney—Cabramatta High, Liverpool Public, Girraween Public, Burwood Girls High and Parramatta West Public in my electorate—are in some of the most ethnically diverse communities in the country. They have all received additional funding between $670,000 for the lowest and $2.2 million for the highest and they are all high-gain schools because of the additional funding. This nonsense that we heard over here that you only fund schools after they are high gain—excuse me? That is why I was laughing, Deputy Speaker—because that is one of the silliest things I have ever heard. These schools received extra funding, the kind of funding that you guys are going to cut even though you said you would not. Even though you stood up and said you would not, you are cutting it and you are going to do serious damage to my schools and my community by doing it.

Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her equally impassioned address.

An honourable member: Hear, hear! Forensic!

Forensic, sure! I call the member for Hughes.

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

Thank you, Deputy Speaker, and I look forward to giving a forensic rebuttal of the contribution by the member for Parramatta! Firstly, I must admit it is very disappointing in this parliament to see time and time again Labor members coming in and talking about a cut to education funding. They think that if they can repeat this untruth enough, if they are all trained about it in their speaking notes and if they stand up and go, 'There's this $30 billion cut to school funding,' the public will believe them. But the public is starting to wake up.

We have heard this over and over again. We have heard it with their 'Mediscare' campaign—complete and utter falsehoods. We heard it last week when they rolled out a young gentleman who turned out to be a Labor Party member. They put him up in front of the microphone and he talked about how he was going to have his penalty rates cut. It was going to cost him $100 a day. It turned out that he was a Labor Party member, was working for Coles and had not had a cent cut from penalty rates. Time and time again what we are hearing from the Labor Party is this practice of blatant untruths. It treats our political system poorly and treats all of us, as members of parliament, poorly.

The facts are very clear: there are no cuts, not a single cut. In fact, from 2014—the first time the coalition got to spend money on education—to 2017 there have been no cuts. We are actually spending 38 per cent more in 2017 than the Labor Gillard government did. How can anyone come in and say: 'It's a cut. It's a big cut'? It is 38 per cent more.

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

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

I will take that interjection, because this is the deception that the Labor Party were involved in with education funding. The member for Parramatta said, 'All the spending was in years 5 and 6.' Do you know why, Mr Deputy Speaker? Because when you put the spending in years 5 and 6 you do not have to show where the money comes from. It was a complete and utter con job. They had all the spending backloaded because they did not have a clue where they were getting the money from.

If members of the Labor Party want to come into this parliament and say, 'We want to spend, on top of the 38 per cent the coalition has put in, $30 billion more,' they have to say where the money is coming from. What taxes are they going to increase to fund that $30 billion? If they are not going to increase taxes, what areas of expenditure are they going to cut? We hear this hypocrisy all the time.

The member of the Labor Party who spoke first in the debate tonight talked about betraying our children. What betrays our children are governments that get in, borrow money and spend it just for their own popularity. It is our children who we burden with paying back the interest and eventually paying back the money. Already, on the debt and reckless, politically motivated spending of the previous Labor government, which we saw over six years—and I know the member at the table was not here and was not involved, so we cannot blame him, but many members who were are here—we now have to find $1 billion every single month just to pay the interest bill. That continues to increase, and they want us to go and borrow another $30 billion. If those opposite really want an extra $30 billion in education, they should say where the money is coming in. Do not come into the parliament and mislead people that there is some $30 billion cut when the facts are that we are actually spending 38 per cent more.

The member for Parramatta asked why what she called 'the business tax cuts' are spread over 10 years. This shows the poor understanding of Labor members, how they simply fail to understand business and economics. The reason that those tax cuts are spread out over time is so businesses can plan their investment today, spend the money in the years to come, and know that by the time their investment turns a profit they will be paying a lower tax rate. If we are going to make our country richer and grow the economy, we need to get an internationally competitive tax rate. Ken Henry—not a friend of the coalition, a friend of the Labor Party—said last week that even the modest plan we have to get our corporate tax rate down to 25 per cent is not enough. When Ken Henry says that, it is about time the Labor Party listened, because we have to get this economy moving. If they want to get more money put into education, it is all about getting the economy moving and getting more growth.

Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Federation Chamber adjourned at the19:14