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

My question is to the Prime Minister. In an eleventh hour meeting last night, the Catholic Education Commission warned the education minister that this Liberal government would wear its cuts to Catholic schools 'like an albatross around its neck'. It said:

In the 50 years we have been dealing with government, we have never had a government not engage with us on major changes to policy.

Isn't it time that the Prime Minister dropped his cuts for good, instead of just postponing them from one party room meeting to the next?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The funding under our plan for Catholic schools nationally will increase on average per student by 3½ per cent over 10 years. The 2017 per student funding on average will be $8,839 and in 2027 it will be $12,493. In New South Wales, which was the subject of an earlier question, the average annual per student increase over the decade will be 3.6 per cent, rising from $8,767 today to $12,522 in 2027. Those are the facts.

As far as the schools in the Broken Bay diocese are concerned, let me be very clear: the federal government's funding goes to the Catholic education office in New South Wales in one lump sum. It is entirely a matter for the Catholic education authorities as to how they distribute it amongst their own schools. That is the fact. What the Commonwealth is doing in the current needs-based funding model is estimating or allocating funds to systems based on an assessment of the needs of each school so that it can be consistent across the board. But in a large system like the Catholic system the money will come in a lump sum—it has never been given to the Broken Bay diocese by the Commonwealth; it has always been given to the Catholic system in New South Wales.

If the Catholic system in New South Wales wants to allocate money in a different way to that which it was derived through the SES system used by the Commonwealth, that is a matter for them. They are completely free to do so—and that is the fact. That is the fact of the matter: the discretion of the Catholic education office is absolutely unchanged. Funding is rising. The proposition is that schools in one part of a state's Catholic system would get less money, then it follows that schools somewhere else must be getting more. You cannot have funding going up by so much every year and then all schools losing. The reality is that funding is increasing and it is up to the Catholic education authorities to allocate it as they see fit. That is the fact.