Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business has indicated to me that he was not advised of the order of rearrangement that was moved by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration and then immediately proceeded on. The point I want to make is that we are talking about bills which are not being opposed by the opposition. They are in the non-controversial section of the program. A modicum of courtesy and regard for the chamber, one would have thought, would have led the government to at least advise the relevant managers of business or whips of the opposition and the minor parties. It seems extraordinary that the government cannot even bring itself to show the chamber the sort of courtesy, if it is going to rearrange the program, to at least let us know before the motion is moved.

I turn now to the substance of this bill. This bill provides funding for three years beyond the current funding quadrennium to enable approval of capital works in advance of funding for the years 2009, 2010 and 2011. These advance approval arrangements have been in place for many years and the opposition will support the bill.

I will go on to say a few things about the substance of the bill. The funding provided for by this bill is for the general capital grants program. The Commonwealth has provided funding for school buildings and capital infrastructure in schools since the 1970s. In 2006 the Commonwealth is providing around $350 million for government and non-government schools, in 2005 price levels, for the general element of the capital grants program.

In relation to government schools, this bill does seek to extend capital funding for government schools for each of the years 2009, 2010 and 2011. It provides $249 million for each of these years, again in 2005 price levels. This is the same annual amount in real terms that the Howard government has allocated for government schools since 1996. The Commonwealth’s contribution from the general capital program is around 22 per cent of total funding for capital works and infrastructure in government schools. This proportion is down from an average Commonwealth capital funding in government schools of 32 per cent over the years 1987 to 1997. So there has been an effective drop in the Commonwealth’s share of funding for capital works—this is essentially for infrastructure, classrooms and school facilities—of 10 per cent, from 32 per cent to 22 per cent, over the period that the Howard government has been in office. The source for this material is Capital matters: an evaluation of the Commonwealth’s Capital Grants Programme for schools, which was produced by the Department of Education, Science and Training in December 1999.

There are real concerns about the quality of capital infrastructure in government schools. Professor Brian Caldwell, a regular consultant for the government and a contributor to the Menzies Research Centre, has researched the state of capital infrastructure in Australia’s government schools. He has concluded that the overall state of facilities in government schools in this country is in decline. The stock of school buildings, in his view, is unsuited to the demands of learning in the 21st century. There has been no increase in real terms in the general capital grants program for government schools since the Howard government came to office in 1996.

The government has provided some additional funding—around $700 million over four years—for government schools for minor school projects under the Investing in Our Schools program. This funding is directed at small-scale projects. We welcome that funding. However, it fails to address the fundamental need for infrastructure renewal in Australian government schools. To do that, partnership is required between the Commonwealth and the states.

The fact is that adequate capital facilities are needed if we are to achieve educational benefits. Research shows that there is a causal link between building quality and design and student outcomes. The research demonstrates that student academic achievement improves with an improved environment and with improved building conditions. Factors such as lighting, air quality, temperature and acoustics have an effect on student behaviour and learning. I am referencing a report, commissioned by the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs in 2002, by Kenn Fisher entitled Building better outcomes: the impact of school infrastructure on student outcomes and behaviour.

Studies show that students in newer buildings achieved academic results that were significantly higher than similar students in older buildings with poorer maintenance, lighting, temperature control and floor coverings. UNESCO research also advises on the effects of unsuitable furniture on student discomfort. This can cause backache, reduced concentration spans and writing difficulties and therefore reduce learning opportunities. I am referring to the UNESCO educational building and furniture program referenced in the Fisher report of 2002. One of the key messages from this research is that governments are underestimating the effects of school design on the performance of students and teachers.

The Howard government has provided an additional $1 billion for minor capital projects in schools, including around $700 million over the 2005 to 2008 period for these projects in government schools. This is very valuable funding for schools and enables communities to get funding of up to $150,000 for such projects as computers, shade structures, musical instruments, furniture, floor coverings and small-scale extensions. These projects have the potential to improve the learning environments of students. But the maximum funding, $150,000, simply cannot deliver on the need for fundamental improvements in school building quality and design in government schools.

Despite the fact that $150,000 is the maximum funding available to a school, to date the average grant appears to be closer to $50,000 than $150,000. This Investing in Our Schools funding program for government schools is due to end in 2007. The bill provides no advance approvals for opportunities for projects under this program. School communities would be greatly helped by early advice on the future of the program. Many valuable projects around the country are in jeopardy because of uncertainty about the program beyond 2008.

I want to now turn briefly to non-government schools. The bill allocates just over $86 million for capital works in non-government schools for 2009, 2010 and 2011. This is down from almost $102 million in 2006 and $90 million in 2008, in 2005 price levels. The Bills Digest explains that this reduction in funding for non-government schools arises from the lapsing of two program elements for those schools. First, the government added to the base funding for non-government schools by around $10 million per year for a number of fixed term elements, such as hostels and technology infrastructure for Indigenous students. That would otherwise have ended after the 1996 election. This funding lapses in 2007.

Second, the government introduced an additional $17 million in capital funding for non-government schools in the Northern Territory in 2004. This funding was provided in recognition of the fact that none of the Catholic systemic schools in the Northern Territory received increases in general recurrent funding when the previous minister announced that Catholic systemic schools would be ‘brought into the SES funding system’ from 2005. In fact, all of the Catholic systemic schools in the Northern Territory had to be categorised as ‘maintained’ or they would have lost funding if they were funded at their assessed SES rate. It says much about the government’s piecemeal and stopgap approach to policy development that its response to the failure of the funding scheme for general recurrent grants for non-government schools in the Northern Territory was to plaster this over with some funding for capital works in those schools. The compensatory funding for capital works in the Northern Territory will in fact end in 2008 and the funding levels for non-government schools are down from $102 million in the current financial year to $86 million in 2009 and beyond.

The opposition wants to place on record some concerns regarding accountability for the capital grants program. To say the least, we consider accountability for this program to be weak. The objectives for the capital grants program are not included in the legislation. There is no legislative provision that requires the program to give priority to educational need—this is left to administrative guidelines and ministerial discretion. It seems to be a bit of a trend in the Howard government to prefer to have things in administrative guidelines and at the minister’s discretion rather than in legislation. Senators might recall that that was one of the criticisms made of the welfare changes to the Social Security Act whereby a number of both protective and rights based mechanisms which had previously been in the legislation were referred to the Australian Social Security Guide or regulation or guidelines. We believe that this matter should be rectified in the legislation for the new funding quadrennium.

Another question the opposition would pose is: where is the evidence that the capital works funded by the Commonwealth are meeting the objectives, especially the priority for educationally disadvantaged students? The latest formal evaluation of the capital grants program appears to be in the 1990 report of the department’s research and evaluation branch. That report concluded that there was an urgent need for a national picture of school infrastructure. In other words, the Howard government did not have enough information about capital needs to make a proper assessment of the program’s impact and to provide a sound basis for future funding decisions.

A further accountability issue is that information on the projects that have been funded and how these meet Commonwealth objectives is neither adequate nor timely. The latest available public report on the schools that have benefited from the Commonwealth capital funding appears to be the department’s report to the parliament on expenditures under section 116 of the States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance) Act 2000 for the 2004 calendar year. But the report on funded projects is vague about how these objectives and priorities were met. The grants provided to the individual schools listed in the report may or may not meet the needs of educationally disadvantaged students, but this cannot be assessed from the information provided by the major accountability report to parliament—nor do we have any information about the educational outcomes that have improved as a consequence of the Commonwealth’s funding. The process is simply less than transparent.

In conclusion, I have indicated that the opposition will support the bill. We will do so to allow funding proposals for capital works in schools in the three years after the current quadrennium. But we emphasise that the bill fails to tackle the issues we have raised previously—the significant capital needs of public schools, the absence of a government commitment to continuing the Investing in Our Schools program beyond 2007, the funding disruptions to elements of the capital grants program for non-government schools, the absence of accountability criteria and arrangements that demonstrate the effectiveness of the Commonwealth’s capital funding for schools. We call on the Howard government to attend to these issues.