Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I at the outset echo the words of the Leader of the Opposition on the shocking comments from the Deputy Prime Minister.

On the Australian Education Amendment Bill: it is a great shame that we do not have a bipartisan commitment to the funding of our schools in Australia at the moment. The reason is that this conservative government has chosen to go down a different path on the funding of our schools and education. It is also a great shame that those who suffer because of this lack of bipartisanship when it comes to funding our schools are our children. There is no doubt that our children are worse off in terms of accomplishments and achievements, particularly around literacy, numeracy and mathematics at our schools, because of the approach of this government and the fact that we do not have a bipartisan commitment to education in this country.

The previous, Labor, government sought to end the bickering, the division, the constant changes to the way schools were funded when we were in government. We sought to do that by asking one of Australia's leading businessmen to chair an inquiry into education funding in this county, to travel around to talk to students, to parents, to teachers, to principals, to community groups, to academics and to those who work in this field about the best way to fund our schools so that we could lift literacy and numeracy rates, improve mathematics and science accomplishment and, importantly, not forget about those kids who we all see when we visit schools, who find it difficult and have fallen behind and, as a result, fall out of love with education, feel marginalised by the education system and drop out of education completely—unfortunately, for some, at a school-age level, but, importantly, for most at a continuing education level beyond school.

The Gonski panel came up with a series of recommendations. They were not political. They did not favour one side of politics or the other. They were based purely on the needs of kids. And that is the phrase that is often used to describe what that committee did: needs based funding, looking at what the kids need to ensure that they can prosper at school and that all of them, regardless of their background, regardless of their parents' income, regardless of where they live and regardless of their cultural background get the same opportunity to thrive at school and to fall in love with education, to fall in love with the prospect of learning about how the world works, about researching issues and topics, about furthering their horizons from a personal perspective around education.

Those recommendations had widespread support in the sector. They had the support of the teachers unions. They had the support of school principals. They had the support of parents groups. And, most importantly, they had the support of parents in different communities. And of course Labor sought to implement those reforms. We sought to implement a needs based funding model for schools that was sector blind, that put aside past political differences in the way we funded schools, that took out some of the traditional approaches that had been there that had not been working and to fund based purely on need, with a base level of funding and then additional amounts of funding per school based on the number of kids who had disabilities, who were from an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background, who were born overseas, who went to small schools that were struggling, or who were in low-socioeconomic areas.

This was the funding model that Labor introduced, and we fully funded it for the recommended period of six years. We all remember, in the lead-up to the 2013 election, that the then Abbott opposition, through their education spokesperson, the member for Sturt, clearly putting on the record that if you voted for a coalition government there would be no difference from the Labor Party when it came to funding our schools, that we were on a 'unity ticket', in his words—there would be no difference. And then, of course, when Tony Abbott, the member for Warringah, and his team were elected they reneged on that commitment; they misled the Australian public and they went back on that commitment that they made on schools funding, because in their 2014 budget that is exactly what they did: they cut funding for schools. They cut the last two years of that Gonski program, of that needs based funding model, and in doing so undermined what we thought was a final bipartisan approach and commitment to funding our schools. And the result is what we are debating here today. The result is further cuts to school funding in this country that will undermine the educational needs and aspirations of our kids.

When you compare Labor's approach—the needs-based funding model based on the Gonski principles—and this government's approach and the funding that we are debating here today through this bill, the difference is $22 billion over four years. That will make a very big difference to the educational outcomes of our kids in schools across the country.

I have been speaking to school principals and teachers on the ground in the community that I represent about what these cuts will mean. The clear perspective of the principals and teachers—and something that quite often comes back to me—is: 'We can't plan for the future. We can't plan how we are going to deliver growth in the system. We can't plan how we are going to cater for the needs of kids with disabilities who are falling behind and plan for the delivery of resources to get those kids up to speed.' That is principally in the form of teacher aides in classrooms and specialist teachers, particularly around literacy and numeracy and remedial work. The beauty of the Gonski funding was that the additional funding that went to schools for this meant that principals could plan and could employ people to work specifically in those areas. And they were getting results; they were lifting the achievement results of the kids. This cut and these new reforms make that planning almost impossible—and it means that schools will not do it and the kids will once again miss out.

Parents are aware of what this government is doing. Over the last couple of weeks I have received quite a few emails that I have read with interest from parents about their views on what this government is proposing. A couple of weeks ago I met with a single mum from my community whose daughter goes to a local Catholic school. She came to visit me and insisted on having a meeting to talk about what the budget cuts mean for her daughter and her school. After seeing the budget and the massive cuts and having spoken to the administrators of her school, she was beside herself with worry about her daughter's school fees being increased. The school principal had written them a letter and said, 'If these cuts are instituted we will have to put up the school fees.' This is a local Catholic school. In her initial email to me, the mother wrote:

The impact on all Catholic systemic schools following the recent announced proposed changes to Federal Government funding may prevent me from being able to ensure that my daughter is raised with the spiritual guidance and community that ensures her identity as a catholic is nurtured.

She went on to say:

The evidence base shows us that ensuring the identity of our children and young people is nurtured is important to building their resilience and ensuring their wellness in life. I find it very frustrating that funding cuts may result in me being unable to provide my daughter with the spiritual environment best suited to her needs.

I am a sole parent, and I manage a chronic health condition … I am reliance on contract work. I am financially challenged, with education, rent and medical expenses being my primary outlays. I could not afford to pay significantly increased fees.

That is symbolic of the response that I am getting from parents in the community that I represent. Here you have a single mum struggling to cope to make ends meet but found the wherewithal to send her daughter to a good local Catholic to meet with her religious commitments. That is jeopardised because of the government's funding cuts.

As I said earlier, schools are in disarray as a result of the government's proposed $22 billion cut. That is about $2.4 million cut from every school, if you average that out over the country. And $850 million will be cut over the next two years alone from New South Wales public schools. The New South Wales government are up in arms about what this government is proposing with these reforms, because they know that the state of New South Wales is being short changed by the Commonwealth government. Here you have a Liberal state government—which obviously would have been reluctant to criticise their Commonwealth colleagues—that have not held back. They have said that what the Commonwealth government is doing with school funding is undermining the school system in New South Wales.

When we talk about funding for schools, it is also important to discuss what makes a real difference in our classrooms and how we spend that money in the most effect way to educate our children. That is why the states signed up to the original Gonski package—because they saw the benefits that not only the kids got, but the states got as well, in terms of the way that education had been funded in the past.

In relation to what the government is proposing, we are going to see a reduction in the quality of education that children receive. Of course this will make a big difference to kids' aspirations in life and, importantly, whether or not they go on to further education. We need to be encouraging more kids to either take on trades through TAFE and other tertiary education or go to university, because ultimately they end up more productive not only in their own lives, with a better quality of life, but also in terms of the nation.

I have had a look at what these reforms will do the schools in the local community that I represent. The figures show us that under this government schools will be worse off across the board. To name just a few: despite having a rapidly growing local population of young families, Mascot Public School loses $370,000 over the years 2018 and 2019. Maroubra Junction Public School, which has been one of the fastest growing schools over the last few years, because they have been getting great NAPLAN results and great achievements, particularly around remedial reading and literacy programs, is worse off to the tune of $470,000. Randwick Girls High School, one of the great public high schools in the electorate that I represent, is worse off to the tune of $700,000 just in those two years. All up, schools across Kingsford Smith in the years 2018 and 2019 will be $7½ million worse off under this government as a result of this unfair attack on local schools.

With Labor's plan there is a different approach. The biggest planned increases go to schools that need them most, whether they are public, Catholic or independent. In practice that means around 80 per cent extra funding goes to public schools. That is because public schools teach around 80 per cent of Australia's poorest kids, 80 per cent of Australia's Indigenous children, and 70 per cent of kids with a disadvantage and a disability. In contrast, under Malcolm Turnbull's policy, only one in seven public schools will get their fair share of funding. So the contrast could not be more stark. This government is cutting $22 billion from the schools education budget through this bill that we debate today and leaving kids worse off, leaving individual schools worse off and ensuring that kids do not meet their aspirations and their plans for the future. Labor's approach is to adopt the Gonski model of funding so it is needs based and sector blind and importantly, focuses on the needs of kids, with a base level of funding and loadings for disadvantage that see schools properly funded, with funding growing in each of those schools and with teachers getting the resources that they need to make a difference on the ground for kids. The contrast could not be starker.

I said at the beginning that we wanted this approach to be bipartisan. We wanted to take the politics finally out of the way that we funded schools in this country, so that we focused on the needs of the kids. We thought we had that under the previous Labor government, when we instituted the Gonski reforms and when this government, in opposition, pledged that they would support those reforms. They have reneged through this bill, and that is why this bill must be rejected.

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

I rise to speak on the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2017. As we have just heard from my colleague the member for Kingsford Smith, we thought we had a bipartisan agreement on this issue—the education of future generations, no matter whether it be public, private or Catholic. We thought we had agreement on the approach that would be taken to educating generations for the future. This government has reneged on this issue, as it has on so many issues. Now what we are seeing is not just a backtracking on a bipartisan agreement and commitment to education for the future of all Australians but also a cut—a $22.3 billion cut—from Australian schools. What we are seeing is that what that actually means is a $2.5 million cut for each school throughout the country.

This is going to have a significant impact on schools in my electorate—particularly the Catholic schools, but also the public schools. It is going to particularly hurt our public schools because they will receive 50 per cent less funding if this bill is to pass. This bill will result in an inequitable outcome and see a significant number of young Australians disenfranchised and missing opportunities that a high-quality education can provide.

I am living proof of the fact that education is transformative. My sisters and I are living proof of the great enabler, the great opportunity opener and the great transformer that is education, thanks to my mother's commitment to putting us through high school and then through tertiary education and university. It was her commitment to actually see us educated. She was a single mum; my dad left us with $30 in the bank when he left us when I was 11. We did it very tough, but my mother was absolutely determined that we were going to be educated—that we would finish high school and go to university—because she was very starkly aware of the limited opportunities offered to the women in her family as a result of limited education.

My great-grandmother left school at 11 and was a domestic in the Western District. She was a cleaner, for want of a better term, in the domestic district for the wealthy families in the Western District in Victoria. She brought up 13 children on her own. My grandmother was a cleaner and she cleaned three places: a factory, a theatre and a workplace. She brought up seven children on her own in a housing commission house in Preston. My mother left school—dragged, kicking and screaming—at 15. She brought up my sisters and me on her own. As I said, Dad left us with $30 in the bank when I was 11. She was determined that that cycle of disadvantage would not continue—that it would be broken by my sisters and me and our generation—and that education was the only thing that allowed that cycle of disadvantage to be broken.

As I said, I am living proof of education's transformative powers. My middle sister is living proof. She is a scientist and Australia's first female master of wine. She is now making wine and consulting on wine. She has done that all over the world and she is now doing it in Victoria. My little sister is an internationally renowned neurologist. It is education that has basically provided us with those opportunities for these wonderful, rewarding, enriching careers and the opportunity for all of us to give back through our various careers.

Education is the transformer. Education is the silver bullet. Education is the great enabler, full stop. The cuts this government is proposing have the potential to deny the young Australians of the future those opportunities and choices, and deny them the experiences of the transformative powers of education and the opportunities for cycles of disadvantage to be broken.

Labor undertook, as we know, the landmark review into school funding. We introduced the Schooling Resource Standard, which was a sector-blind model that clearly defined the funding all schools needed to deliver a great education. The funding model guaranteed extra funding for kids with poorer outcomes to give them the help they needed. Despite the coalition government's commitment to a bipartisan approach and despite the coalition government's commitment to being on a unity ticket, this is not what the Turnbull government is putting forward with this bill.

The Turnbull government speaks volumes through this bill. The message that is being sent here is that it does not believe in education as the great enabler or as the great transformer. It does not understand how it can change lives and how it is the silver bullet. The Turnbull government does not want to guarantee the rights of every child to receive the best possible education this nation can provide, no matter where they live, no matter what their parents earn or parent earns, no matter what postcode they live in and no matter what their background is. The Turnbull government has turned its back on so many who are doing it tough.

The Turnbull government is proposing changes to the current act that will remove the national targets for Australia. It will remove the national target for Australia to be placed in the top five highest-performing countries by 2025. Why would you do that? Why would you not have that aspiration for your country and the aspiration for every child in our nation to be in a country that is one of the top five highest-performing countries by 2025? It is removing the target for our school system to be considered high quality and highly equitable on the international stage by 2025, and for the lifting of year 12 or equivalent attainment rate to 90 per cent.

The Turnbull government is also looking to remove targets for halving the gap between Indigenous and other students in attaining year 12 or equivalent by 2020 from the baseline in 2006. Finally, the Turnbull government is removing the target for halving the gap between Indigenous and other students in reading, writing and numeracy by 2018 from the baseline in 2008.

The Turnbull government's changes also remove the statements about quality teaching and quality learning from the act. Again, this is perplexing. It was a unity ticket, bipartisan approach, but here is the government removing these statements about the aspiration for quality teaching and quality learning to ensure that teachers have the skills and support they require to improve their performance over time. The Turnbull government is removing statements that Australian schooling will provide a high-quality educational experience with an environment and curriculum that supports all school students to reach their full potential.

The fact that these statements, commitments, aspirations, goals and targets have been removed just underscores again that the government simply does not value education for all. And I am speaking here about all; I am not talking about the top end of town—I am not talking about Shore and I am not talking about Kings or Geelong Grammar; I am talking about Richardson Primary in my electorate, with 25 per cent of its students Indigenous. I am talking about schools in your electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, and schools in all of our electorates, where kids are doing it tough; they are not from wealthy parents. And I am not just talking here of our public schools; I am also talking about Catholic schools—I will come to that shortly.

The Turnbull government's lack of commitment and understanding of education, its lack of valuing of education and it lacks understanding that it is transformative, that it is a silver bullet, is represented in these $22.3 billion cuts. As I said, this means a cut of $2.4 million for every Australian school over the next decade. That is the equivalent of sacking 22,000 teachers.

Under this government's approach, less than 50 per cent of extra funding will go to public schools. Labor was providing 80 per cent of extra funding for public schools, because we know that public schools cater for seven out of 10 kids with a disability, for seven out of 10 kids from a language background other than English, for eight out of 10 Indigenous students, and for around eight out of 10 kids from low-income families.

These are people like me. These are the people who I was when I was a student—when I was a young girl: low-income families and single-income families. Thanks to my mother's commitment and a great public education, I am now proudly representing the people of Canberra. These schools have seven out of 10 kids with disability, seven out of 10 kids from a language background other than English, eight out of 10 Indigenous students and around eight out of 10 kids from low-income families. Under this government, these schools will basically see less than 50 per cent of extra funding. According to the Canberra School Census, released in February 2017, 46,557 students attend public schools in the ACT. That is a lot of students who are going to be affected by this cut.

But, as I said, it is not just the public schools that are going to be disadvantage as a result of the government's cuts. The government's cuts are also penalising Catholic schools, particularly here in Canberra. In Canberra, systemic Catholic schools will feel the brunt of the cuts. As a result, they are going to have to increase their fees or cut teachers at their schools. I recently had the great pleasure of going to St Thomas More's Primary School in Campbell in my electorate with the Leader of the Opposition, the deputy leader and, also, shadow education minister. Under this government's proposed changes, St Thomas More's will lose $214,400 over 10 years, while The King's School, that very prestigious and privileged school in Sydney, will receive additional funding in the multimillions of dollars. How is this fair?

I was also contacted by a parent who has children at St Thomas More's Primary School. They said that St Thomas More's Primary School is a small school with basic facilities. It does, however, have gifted and dedicated teachers who have a deep understanding of each child and how each child learns more effectively. Its school community is close and supportive. You can feel this when you walk into the school. This is one of the schools that has been targeted by the Turnbull government's cuts. The Turnbull government's proposed funding cuts are risking this school's future right now as I speak. It is a critical point in time for the enrolments. It could have a significant impact on enrolments for the future and, also, on the future of the school. The school community has been told that they will see thousands of dollars in increases in school fees. That is just one of many here in Canberra that has been very hard hit by this government.

I received a message from the principal of St Mary MacKillop College. St Mary MacKillop College is a co-ed school. It is the largest school here in Canberra. It is located in the Tuggeranong Valley. According to the principal there, the base funding of all students at MacKillop has been frozen for 10 years, and then it will be cut. This includes students with disabilities. This was confirmed to me over the phone by Minister Birmingham's office. This is a disgrace and is not fair. After 10 years, MacKillop's funding will be cut by $770 per student—a net loss of $4.6 million. So here we have St Thomas More's losing in the vicinity of about $215,000 in 10 years, while The King's School has a multimillion dollar increase in its funding. Here we have St Mary MacKillop College—a very modest school with parents of modest incomes—losing $4.6 million. This is the government on education, despite its commitment to bipartisanship and its commitment to a unity ticket.

This bill speaks volumes about the Turnbull government's commitment to education for all Australians, no matter what their background, no matter what their parents earn, no matter what their circumstances. It is all about funding The King's School at the expense of public education at schools like Richardson Primary School and at the expense of Catholic education in schools like St Thomas More's Primary School. It is all about looking after the big end of town while the rest of us, the disadvantaged and those with disability are underfunded and have their funding cut. (Time expired)

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

The Australian Education Amendment Bill 2017 will be amongst the most important that we will debate in the 45th Parliament. There can be no question about that. I rise to speak to it. I also rise to support the amendments put forward by the member for Sydney which, of course, highlight the inadequacies of this bill and highlight the funding cuts which will be imposed on our schools—Catholic, independent and, of course, our public schools right across the country. It was Neville Wran who once said, many years ago, that there are really three issues before the government. I think it was in a campaign at that time. Those three issues, he said were, jobs, jobs and jobs. For me that is very much what this bill is all about. It is about making sure our young people and the young people of tomorrow secure the education they need to secure for themselves a well paid, secure job in life and all the knock-on consequences or benefits that flow from that.

One of my greatest passions in my 21 years here has been the issue of intergenerational unemployment. Sadly, many of us in our electorates have young people idle, unemployed, who have never known either their parents or grandparents to have worked, who have never really worked to a timetable, have never really had much structure in life, never woken up to an alarm clock like you and I do, something we take very much for granted and accept as part of our daily routine. I have worked with and through and developed various labour market programs designed to intervene with these young people. Some of them have been quite successful over the years; some have been less successful. We all remember the RED scheme, well before my time, which people often described as an exercise in painting rocks white. They took people into work for a short time but provided no longer term training or hope for a job.

We have been more enlightened in recent years, providing training as part of those labour market programs, although less enlightened in more recent years, under the Abbott government in particular, where political populism seemed to become more important than ensuring that within these programs there is a sufficient level of training and, therefore, an opportunity to give young people a better opportunity in life.

We now live in the 21st century, where low-paid, manual jobs, unskilled jobs are becoming less and less a feature of our economy. Of course that will be increasingly the case in future decades. So we ask ourselves what sort of jobs there will be for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. What sort of chance are they going to have to secure a job in that new economy? How are we going to ensure that they have the skills they will need to secure a job in an environment where skills are absolutely necessary?

Let me go back to intergenerational unemployment. We are too close to these debates. We need to go back to our electorates and talk to people one on one. The basic facts of these debate tend to get lost in the big words we use and the nature and high level of the debate and the big numbers that we use around these conversations. The reality is that many people in our communities do not know what Gonski is. They do not know what it does. They sense that it is in part about giving more money to our schools. For me it is very simple: Gonski is about giving the schools the money they need. Let us forget these people who say money does not matter. Have a look at some of the outcomes of some of our very wealthy private schools and some of the outcomes of our public schools and the difference between them and ask yourself, why? It is about money. Money does matter. Gonski is about giving our schools the least amount of money, really, as determined by the resource standard, that they need to do what we want them to do—that is, to give our kids a good education, an education to a standard that assures them an opportunity to secure a good job in life.

I think it must have been towards the end of the 2014 calendar year when I had an amazing experience. At every school presentation day that I attended at the end of that year, I was thanked publicly by the principal in the principal's address. I was thanked by the principal as a member of the parliamentary Labor Party for what we did for their school, for the fact that we gave them the opportunity to intervene with those children whom I have been talking about. That is what Gonski in many senses is: the capacity of a school to identify a child who has come from a difficult background and who has obviously arrived at the school with challenges. Not only does the school identify them; it also puts in place for that child a program which helps them overcome that disadvantage, to put in place an additional teacher or half a teacher or quarter of a teacher—whatever it might be in hours terms—to make sure that child has the best possible chance to overcome that disadvantage. Of course, it is not just about the challenged child. We do not want students with difficulties and the extra resources they draw from teaching staff to become the disadvantage for those who come from a much happier environment, without so many challenges. We want to make sure that schools have the resources to not only do their best for the challenged child, the challenged student, but also ensure that those who come from happier situations have every opportunity to fulfil their aspirations as a student. That is, for me, more than anything else what Gonski is about. Our school teachers, our principals, were thanking me for that—but they are not going to be thanking the Turnbull government for these massive cuts.

This is the other thing that people do not understand. They hear us debating all these big numbers, but it is pretty simple. So let me simplify it for them. After three years, I suppose it has been, of denying the needs based funding system that we put forward under Gonski, the government have now capitulated. They have capitulated and said: 'Okay. We accept that is the model moving forward. That aspect of Gonski is the best thing we can do for our schools and so, axiomatically, we are going to spend more money.' That is welcome. They have accepted the needs based model and they are going to spend more money, after three years of denying that the needs based model was the best way to go and after three years of arguing that they were spending more than enough money. They stand at this dispatch box every question time and say: 'School funding is going up every year, out 10 years.' Of course it is. Imagine if it went backwards? Of course it goes up every year—so does inflation. Schools need more money every year, and so does the school population. Of course it goes up every year, but it was not going up enough. Now, even after their capitulation, it will still not be going up enough—and that is the point. That is what people need to understand. The Prime Minister has capitulated. He has said: 'Okay. I will spend more'—substantially more, actually, but not what the David Gonski's needs based system is demanding. They are spending more, but it is not enough. I say to those who might be listening out there: this is what the debate is all about. Yes, they are going to spend more money, more than they planned, more than they argued they needed to spend over three years, but it is not enough. It is nowhere near enough. In fact, it is $22 billion less over 10 years than they need to, if they are really serious about backing Gonski and Labor's model.

What makes me so passionate about this issue, beyond the obvious, is that those most disadvantaged by this legislation will be our students in rural and regional Australia. I am pleased that the member for Lingiari is here with us. No-one knows that better than him, and he knows better than me that it is even more true for Indigenous students. We are commemorating the anniversary of the 67 referendum, the Bringing them home report, and the Mabo decision. We are standing here, leaders at the dispatch box, commemorating those important events, recommitting ourselves to narrowing the gap and all that goes with it. But it is Indigenous students who are going to be the most disadvantaged by the bill before the House today.

I sent a message to the people of Mallee, Gilmore, Forrest, Corangamite, Grey, Gippsland and Cowper. I asked them to have a look at the speeches of those members who have been in here defending this bill.

Mr Rick Wilson interjecting—

I was not sure whether the member for O'Connor would be speaking. Is the member for O'Conner speaking?

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

I will be.

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

He says he will. I do not think his name is on the speakers' list. Maybe now that I am issuing the challenge he might find the intestinal fortitude to leap to his feet and defend this outrageous bill before the parliament. But I want others, from all of those electorates, to have a look at the speeches of their members, have a close look at those speeches, and see the extent to which they sought to defend this bill. And if they did not defend this bill, that will be even more interesting, because we do not have time to listen to all of them, and I would make an appeal to those residents to let us know what they were saying and to let us know where they thought they were being duplicitous. Have a close look, I say to those residents, at what their members have to say—and of course we will all have a very close look at what the member for O'Connor is now going to say, having been dragged screaming to the debate.

But what about the members for Calare, Capricornia, Murray, Parkes, Flynn, Maranoa, Dawson, Wide Bay, Hinkler, Durack—and O'Connor? We might have him; we might be able to move him—and La Trobe and Farrer, people representing rural and regional communities, the communities that are going to be the most adversely affected by this bill. Not one of them is on the list. And I did not mention the member for Hume. Maybe he has come in here now to make a contribution to this debate. Maybe the member for Hume has just come in to defend this bill, despite the adverse consequences for his local schools.

I was very proud to join the Australian Education Union and our leader and deputy leader and so many members of the federal parliamentary Labor Party in our party room last week, where we held an event to highlight the disadvantage. I was talking there to a high school teacher who was outraged by these funding cuts. He is a leader in the union movement as well. He comes from Armidale High School in the electorate of the Deputy Prime Minister. And guess what? He cannot even secure a meeting with his local member. As the president of the union locally, representing his school and teachers and the families of those students, he cannot even secure a meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister, who no doubt is too busy pork barrelling the APVMA into his electorate rather than worrying about the real issue in New England, and that is that we need to give students the best opportunity to secure a job.

The member for Hume is going to get sucked in to now quoting what is happening with school funding in Armidale. He just highlights the point. Of course school funding is going up, but it is not going up enough, I say to the member for Hume. It is not going up as much as it should. It is not going up as much as David Gonski insisted it must in order to give those students the best opportunities in life. So, I look forward to seeing the member for Hume, who is avoiding speaking on this bill, jumping, leaping to his feet and explaining to the residents of Hume why he is in here voting for a bill that is going to entrench disadvantage in his local electorate. I look forward to that very, very much. (Time expired)

Honourable members interjecting—

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind members on both sides that debating across the chamber does not occur unless it is through the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. And I am hoping that after I call the next member people will quieten down a bit on both sides.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The previous speaker, the member for Hunter, mentioned that it was a really important time to be speaking about this bill, the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2017, in the 43rd Parliament. As it is my first term in parliament, I consider it quite a privilege to be able to speak on such an important bill in an area that I have such a passion for and an interest in.

I mentioned in my first speech that I started my schooling in a Catholic school. I remember that day very well. I was four years old and it was my sister's first day at school. My mother had dragged me along to ensure that my sister got into school on her first day. I went there with my unruly curls and my spindly arms and legs and simply refused to leave the school. I think I chucked what they call a tantrum, although I cannot imagine myself doing that at all! The nuns, taking pity on my mother, sent her to buy me a school uniform and immediately enrolled me in the school at the age of four. So I started my schooling in a Catholic school. I ended my schooling at an Anglican school, Meriden, in Strathfield in Sydney. In between then I attended numerous public schools. So it is safe to say that I have had quite an experience across a broad spectrum of different schools. That experience left a good impression on me, because I finished school and then went on to do four different university degrees and two different TAFE degrees.

So, call me a glutton for punishment, but I like to believe that, like the member for Canberra, education has provided me with opportunities to better myself, to better my life and to provide for my family opportunities that I otherwise would not have been able to provide. That is why I am such a big believer in education and such a big supporter of the schools in my electorate. I think schools are extremely important socialising agents. They are not just about educating our children. When you think about it, school is where you learn to love, it is where you learn to hate and it is where you learn to get on with people. It is where you learn about so many aspects of life—not just education. Schools do indeed perform a very important role in our society.

In my electorate I have some wonderful schools doing those very things: Mercy College, St Anthony's, Kingsway Christian College and Alta-1, which is a care school that caters specifically to young people who have mental health issues or are dealing with drug issues at home, and it does some really amazing work. Those are some of the non-government schools in my electorate. The government schools include Ballajura Community College; Girrawheen Senior High; Kiara College; Ashdale Secondary; Madeley Primary; Carnaby Rise Primary, the newest school in my electorate; and Beechbora and Ballajura primary schools. All of these schools are providing essential services to young people, and I have met with most of them and talked to them about needs based funding and exactly what it means for them.

From having my own children go through school and talking to other parents, you hear a lot of people say things: 'If the child has the aptitude and the talent, they will flourish at any school.' I do not necessarily believe that is true, because I do think that the school itself, and particularly how well funded the school is, makes a difference to a child's education. Every child in Australia has the right to access quality education, education that means something for them. Whether or not they are talented, whether or not they have a scholarly aptitude, every child has the right to a school that looks after that child's needs in the best possible way that it can.

Those on the other side keep telling us—I was aghast to hear this—that their proposal represents an $18 billion injection into schools. Let us look at that a bit more closely. When you rip out $30 billion and then reinstate $8 billion, there is a shortfall of $22 billion. It is very simple maths. I am not a maths genius—never was. It was one of my worst subjects at school, but I can tell you that 30 minus 8 leaves you with 22. That is the difference between what Labor would have funded and what this government has funded.

Let us have a look at a few more details of this proposal. I will give just a little bit of detail before I get into some more points about education. Let us look, first of all, at some of the key changes in this. It is transitioning to a flat Commonwealth contribution of 20 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard for all government schools and 80 per cent for all non-government schools over 10 years. It is removing the ability of the minister to determine an SES score for a group of schools by legislative instrument; instead, the minister will determine the SES score for each individual non-government school. It is changing the disability loading. It is reducing the benefit afforded to non-government primary schools under the capacity-to-contribute calculations, and we still do not know what the impact of this is going to be. It is reducing accountability and Commonwealth levers over non-government schools, removing the requirement for approved authorities to have implementation plans and school improvement frameworks. All of these things do not speak to a more quality schooling and education system but speak to the removal of quality.

As I mentioned earlier, education is fundamental. It is fundamental for the socialisation of our young people. It is fundamental for the whole wellbeing, the holistic wellbeing, of our children. It is not just about learning to read and to write but about growing children into society and giving them the moral standards that they need to determine right from wrong in society. Schools play a really important role in that.

When I go and talk to all the schools in my electorate, I also talk about resilient school communities and about how a school is not just about the students and the teachers and the administrators; it is also about the parents and even the people living in the community as well, and it is about looking at our school as a school community and understanding how critical education is to ensuring that every young Australian has the opportunity to reach their full potential.

That is the reason why Labor undertook the landmark review into school funding. That is why we introduced the Schooling Resource Standard, which was a sector-blind model which clearly defined the funding all schools needed to deliver a great, quality education—the kind of education that our young people deserve. It was a funding model that guaranteed extra funding for kids with poorer outcomes, to give them the extra help they needed. As I said earlier, we can sit there and say it relies on the child's aptitude—that a child with aptitude will flourish no matter what the school. But that is simply not true. Children with high aptitude will flourish in a good education system; so, too, will children with less aptitude, because the role of the school is not just about teaching reading, writing and arithmetic; it is also about socialising young people and looking after them as a holistic individual.

Labor's funding model and the Australian Education Act 2013 enshrined the following objective into Australian law:

All students in all schools are entitled to an excellent education, allowing each student to reach his or her full potential so that he or she can succeed, achieve his or her aspirations, and contribute fully to his or her community, now and in the future.

I believe that that is a very noble objective and one that all sides of government should be proud to fulfil.

But you see, there is a difference between equity and equality, and it seems to be a difference that those opposite just do not understand. Equity refers to having access to education. It means that every young person can go to school—they have a school in their neighbourhood; they are able to go to that school. But equality is something different, particularly substantive equality, because equality gets to the heart of what young people are able to achieve. It gets to the heart of opportunity. Even though I have access to a school—I am able to go to school—equality means that, regardless of my socioeconomic status, regardless of my background, regardless of how much money my parents earn and regardless of whether I go to a Catholic school, a public school or a private school, I have the opportunity to achieve the best outcomes that I possibly can. That is equality—that is substantive equality—and it is very different from equity. Equality, and substantive equality in particular, is at the core of the principle of fairness.

This seems to be something that those opposite do not understand, because they have simply walked away from the targets in the act; they have walked away from the targets that deliver needs based funding to schools and they have walked away from the targets that ensure a schooling resource standard across the board that we can be proud of as Australians and that ensure we can be proud to send our kids to school. They are walking away from the objective in the current act that we ensure that the Australian schooling system provides a high quality and highly equitable education for all students by having regard to national targets. These national targets are important, and the first is for Australia to be placed, by 2025, in the top five highest performing countries based on the performance of school students in reading, mathematics and science. That is a noble target and I am sure one that all parents in Australia, all people in Australia, would be very supportive of. The second the target is for the Australian schooling system to be considered a high quality and highly equitable schooling system by international standards by 2025. The third target is to lift the year 12 or equivalent or certificate II attainment rate to 90 per cent by 2015. The fourth target is to lift the year 12 or equivalent or certificate III attainment rate to 90 per cent by 2020. The fifth target is to at least halve the gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and other students in year 12 or equivalent attainment rates by 2020 from the baseline in 2006, and the sixth target is to halve the gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and other students in reading, writing and numeracy by 2018 from the baseline in 2008.

This government has walked away from those targets—it simply does not value education for all. The changes that have been introduced in this bill represent, as I mentioned earlier, $22 billion in cuts to education. Parents and teachers know that schools will be worse off because of this $22 billion cut. To put it into perspective, it is the equivalent of cutting $2.4 million from every school in Australia over the next decade or, to put it in even more blatant terms, it is like sacking 22,000 teachers. The review of school funding recommended that all government's work together to ensure every child has the best chance to succeed in school and in life, and they said that what matters is the total resources that a school has for each and every child that walks through the school gate every morning and not whether those resources come from the Commonwealth or come from the state. That is why Labor worked with states and territories to ensure that by 2019 every underfunded school would reach their fair level of funding—in 2022 for Victoria. We went to the states and we said to them, 'We will work with you to ensure that each and every child gets the funding they need'. We offered two-thirds of the extra funding needed and locked states into increasing their funding by one-third.

Let us do a little comparison of this government and what Labor proposed. Under what Malcolm Turnbull is proposing, some 85 per cent of public schools will not have reached their fair funding level by 2027—eight years from now. Under their model, less than 50 per cent of extra funding goes to public schools. I will talk a little bit about a couple of the schools in my electorate. Ballajura Community College have a teaching staff of 109. They have nearly 1,500 students, and 37 per cent of their students are in the bottom quarter of the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage—the ICSEA—and the national average is 25 per cent. Girrawheen Senior High School, which is also in my electorate, have 37 staff and 483 students—one teaching staff member for 13 students—and 65 per cent of their students are in the bottom quarter of the ICSEA. (Time expired)

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

I, like many of my colleagues, am a product of a state school education—and a fine one it was. I was raised initially in Rockhampton. My school, Frenchville Primary School, was on the outskirts of Rockhampton. It is a tiny little school so small that, when I drove past it last time, I missed it. I remember it being much bigger. But it is not much bigger than this room, actually; it is a very tiny little school. And then we moved to Brisbane when my father joined the Army, and I went to Somerset primary school and then Everton Park High School, which were both in the middle of public housing estates. They were not wealthy schools by any means—and Everton Park had quite a troublesome reputation at some points—yet they gave me a fantastic education.

I remember some of the circumstances of some of the children I went to school with. I remember one particular young boy who was smart, witty, good looking, physically skilled at sport and skilled in his academic achievements. He got special dispensation to leave school at the age of 14 because his parents could not afford to feed him. So, like quite a few children in the suburb I was in, his schooling was cut short because of the poverty of his parents—and, no doubt, he went out to take a job that did not require skill. Whether he ever achieved the completion of high school, I do not know. When I was going to school, there were many children who left school for that reason.

In my electorate of Parramatta I see children in circumstances where their education may be cut short because of the capacity of their parents. I see children whose education will never be what it should be because of the trauma they have experienced in some dreadful places around the world. We have children of refugees arriving in Australia whose schooling has been incredibly disrupted. We have children who turn up at school without being able to speak English. We have children whose parents do what they think is the right thing and do not teach their young children to speak English; they are afraid their child might learn to speak English with an accent, so they wait until their child goes to school to learn English.

We have many challenges in my electorate. It concerns me that we have a government right now that is hacking away at our capacity as a community to support those children to be the people they can be. They do not understand that there are many children in our community right around this country who actually need the kind of support that the original Gonski model was going to give them. And they have cut that support the way. I thought I first heard this quote in a mosque, but it turns out it was from the Talmud: 'Every blade of grass has an angel bending over it whispering "Grow, grow, grow!"' And so it is for children. You need only watch a tiny child figuring out what to do with their fingers—trying to work out how to move things, how things work, how to run and how jump—to know that 'every child has an angel bending over it whispering "Learn, learn, learn!"' Whether they fulfil that potential as a child and whether they fulfil their potential as they grow up is largely dependent on how well we resource some of the remarkable teachers who work with children to make sure they are the best they can be. Our future depends on education—not just the future of an individual child, but our economy depends on it. And the needs that we will have in our workforce in coming years are such that our education must be extraordinary from the day a child first arrives at school.

It seems that there are two stories in this House at the moment. We have a government saying they are increasing funding to schools and we have an opposition saying it is a $22 billion cut. Those two things cannot actually be true. One of the reasons I know there is a $22.3 billion cut to the education budget is that the government's own documents actually say so. A document that the government produced and put around the press gallery, 'Funding, figures and qualifiers—30 April agreed costs', says 'compared to Labor's arrangements, this represents a saving of $6.3 billion over four years and $22.3 billion over 10 years'. The government's own document says it is a $22.3 billion saving—a cut, effectively. It is a reduction in the amount of money that schools would receive by $22.3 billion.

Given they have already said it in writing, how can they say it is more? It is a nice little trick. Remember that just before the election back in 2013 Tony Abbott said that they would support the Gonski agreement in full but then straight after the election, in 2014, cut $30 billion from schools. The government is basing its new funding after the $30 billion was cut. So they cut $30 billion from schools, then they put a bit back and claimed they have increased it. They do not tell you that. They cut $30 billion, put about $8 billion back and said: 'Wow, look at us. Aren't we great? We deserve a medal. We have just put $8 billion back.' They say they have increased funding, but they cut first and then put it back.

They also say, 'You can't trust Labor's plans because they were beyond the forward estimates.' So is this school funding model, by the way. So is the tax cut that they are giving to big business and multinationals—that is a 10 year plan. That is well beyond the forwards. But to them, if it is a tax cut for big business you can plan 10 years but, for some reason, if it is education, if it is about the future of our children, you cannot, that is fantasy. Tax cuts, certainly—they are absolutely fabulous and you can plan 10 years. Schools? Do not. If it is not possible for governments to plan for 10 years because it extends beyond the forwards then this country is in trouble, because there are a lot of things take more than four years and there are a lot of things that you have to plan longer than four years for. It takes more than four years to train a doctor. It takes more than four years to get the skills in universities to train a doctor. It takes more than four years to build submarines and large boats. It takes more than four years to build an airport. It takes more than four years to educate a child. And it takes more than four years to get schools ready for the kind of work they need to do as our children grow. That is why Labor put in a substantial plan that actually was about the future.

It was a plan based on years of work consulting right across the education sector and it centred on the views of a man called Gonski—a person that the government refers to quite often. In his review, he came up with something that makes a great deal of sense. He pointed out, really, that the states and the Commonwealth together had been funding schools—the Commonwealth giving a bit more and the states a bit less, but no-one was really responsible. It sort of flicked backwards and forwards so we could both blame each other. He said something really simple: it is about the child. He said it is not about who funds it and it is not about whether it is a catholic, private or state school; it is actually about the needs of the child. He set about setting a standard for each child—a basic school resource standard plus a needs based loading, depending on the circumstances of the child.

He came up with this sector-blind needs based funding model which put the child at the centre and said to state and federal governments: 'Go and do your thing. Get together, work it out and make it happen.' That negotiation was hard. It was hard because not all of the states were in the same place. They do not all face the same challenges. There are parts of the Northern Territory, for example, where the children face far greater challenges than they do in my suburb—even though in my suburb there are quite substantial challenges, largely because of family background and history. Gonski said something really quite smart: 'Put the child at the centre, figure out what each child needs, set the school resource standard and add a needs based loading based on the fact that they are in a remote region, their English is poor or they have special needs. Work it out.' Then he set the Commonwealth a task: to work with states to work it out.

And we did, in the most—but not with all states. I will say that up-front. It was a hard negotiation. We said that the funding needed to increase and, if the federal government put in 65 per cent of extra funding, the states had to come up with 35 per cent. There was a hard-headed negotiation where we said, 'We'll put in the bulk of the increase, but you have to do your share.' Again, they were hard negotiations. Some states came on very easily and some states came on with greater difficulty. The deals that we did varied between each state because the circumstances varied. The Prime Minister seems to think that is a bad thing—that every deal you do with every person has to be the same—but that is not the world that we live in. That is not transparency; that is simplistic. Every state was different and there was hard negotiation, but we actually managed to do it.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The member for Parramatta will be given an opportunity at that time to complete her speech.