Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry) Share this | Hansard source

It probably would be. I noticed that on the list of bills here today there are a series of pieces of legislation being referred to, usually in the conventional form—that is, by a direct description of the bill, for instance: Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Administration) Amendment Bill 2007; Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment (2007 Measures No. 1) Bill 2007; Corporations (NZ Closer Economic Relations) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2007; and Migration Amendment (Statutory Agency) Bill 2007. These are bills that tell us what the legislation is about, whereas this particular bill, the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment (2007 Budget Measures) Bill 2007, has this Orwellian description attached to it, which is increasingly occurring in this department. It is supposed to be some symbol of modernity, but it reduces our legislative program to a propaganda sheet whereby the government seeks to insert a political message into the title of a piece of legislation. Frankly, this is a very retrograde step. I wish to draw to the attention of the chamber that this is happening increasingly within this department, whereby the brave new world has very much come to the Department of Education, Science and Training.

This bill amends provisions relating to the Investing in Our Schools Program and provides funds for other school programs—capital funds for non-government schools and the Literacy, Numeracy and Special Learning Needs Program. Investing in Our Schools provides small targeted capital grants directly to government schools as well as non-government schools. In her second reading speech on this bill, the minister, Ms Bishop, noted that the Investing in Our Schools Program had proved to be very popular. She said the reason for that was that additional funds were to be appropriated. What she failed to mention was that for government schools this is the case, but not for the non-government schools, where there is in fact a new and lower cap that has been placed on the grants that any individual school may receive.

And, while the opposition supports in principle any moves to provide additional funding to schools, which of course this bill does and so we will support it, what needs to be appreciated is the dishonesty of the government’s message here and the way in which it presents this legislation. Of course, there should be a clear appreciation of the higher priority that Labor gives to the importance of education given the significance of education to our national prosperity and the continued security and social cohesion that education helps facilitate. Therefore, it is unfortunate that the minister failed to mention in her second reading speech that the effect of this particular piece of legislation was to lower the cap on grants through Investing in Our Schools for government schools. So the ceiling on grants will be lowered from $150,000 to $100,000. In other words, the government has shifted the goalposts mid-program. It has suddenly told government schools: ‘The application you were preparing for $150,000 in funding—scrap it. Write another one, reducing the amount by a third.’

When the program was announced as part of the coalition’s 2004 election commitments, the then minister for education, Brendan Nelson, indicated in a letter to school principals:

… the maximum amount an individual school community will receive is $150,000 over the next four years.

The same amount, the same specification, was included in the guidelines for the previous rounds of funding for this program, and the advice issued by the Department of Education, Science and Training on its website at that time said schools could apply for several projects up to a $150,000 limit over the life of the program. The guidelines for the second round however, which were released on 19 February this year, indicate that government schools are now only eligible for grants of $100,000. The government has reneged on its commitment as far as government schools are concerned. It has pulled the rug from under government schools despite the commitments it made at the last election. That is why I say there is dishonesty about the way this legislation comes before the parliament and the manner in which the minister has presented this bill.

Government schools that have already received a grant of less than $100,000 will only be able to receive a total of $100,000. It is only the schools that have been lucky enough to receive $150,000 to date—that is, those that have actually been able to bank the cheque—that are able to keep that more generous level of funding. If we compare that to non-government schools, we see that eligibility for grants completely uncapped. There are no restrictions. The sky is the limit. I understand that, in the most recent round of funding, 12 non-government schools received more than $1 million each. While a third of the funding that is available for non-government schools is capped at $75,000 per school—and again I stress that there is no absolute cap—the remaining two-thirds of the funding is for the non-government school sector.

There are quite clearly two sets of rules operating here. We have a situation where government schools have their maximum grant level slashed by one-third to just $100,000 while non-government schools are able to apply for more than $1 million. The minister said that this has proven to be a popular program. I am not surprised that it was popular—if you were one of the 12 schools. Many schools have decided to take advantage of it, but there is no reason why there should be different sets of rules applying for the different sectors. I cannot see any reason at all. I look forward to the minister explaining why it is that such different levels of regulation operate.

If the government’s schools policies were based on fairness, if they were actually based on need, then surely the rules of this program would be the same across the two different sectors—the government sector and the non-government sector. Government schools, surely, would be able to apply for the $1 million grants, as well as the non-government schools. I understand that, for the non-government sector, funds are targeted to the needier schools, but there are at least as many needier schools in the government school system that might benefit from the generous amounts available through this program as there are in the non-government sector. In fact, it might well be argued that there are many more needy students in the government school system than there are in the non-government school system.

As I understand the situation, the government has been far from even-handed in its policy approach to school funding. It has failed dismally on the fairness test; it fails to fund all schools on the basis of need. I contrast this with Labor’s approach, which is predicated on a commitment to fund schools on the basis of fairness and need. My colleague Stephen Smith has made that proposition perfectly clear. Just two days ago Mr Smith, who is the shadow minister for education, made four very clear and unequivocal points about Labor’s new policy direction for schools. Along with Kevin Rudd, he made it clear that Australian voters can expect from a Labor government a policy based on the following principles: a fair investment should be made at all levels of education, including schools and schooling; funding for all schools should be on the basis of need and fairness; Labor will not cut funding to any school; and Labor will not disturb the current AGSRC indexation arrangements for schools funding. Those are the four clear commitments that have been made and they underlie Labor’s policy. We can be confident that, in terms of those principles, we will be able to provide a policy that genuinely recognises a needs basis for the funding of schools. While there are obviously further announcements to be made in the run-up to the forthcoming election, I am confident that, with the propositions that have been outlined, we will be able to demonstrate a much improved allocation of funding to ensure that fairness is the underlying principle of schools funding.

The Prime Minister has recently attacked me on schools-funding policy. He has effectively sought to put words in our mouths and verbal Labor on these matters. Quoting statements that I made in this chamber a few years ago, he said that Labor believes the school policy is an addition, not an alternative, in terms of providing reasonable access to quality schooling. What he failed to point out is that we support the establishment of non-government schools and we take the view that we need to ensure that there is additional choice for parents with regard to the provision of non-government school education to give all parents a choice as to where they send their children. But that choice has to be predicated on the assumption that there are high-quality government schools available to all children in this country. A genuine choice of a government school must be available to all families, rich or poor, whether they live in the country or the city. On that basis there can be the provision of genuine equality of opportunity. It is not a fair and reasonable choice to run down government education—to undermine the quality of public education in this country—and then say that your choice is to go to a private school. That is not genuine choice at all. I am very concerned that the government’s approach on these questions does not provide adequate support to ensure the provision of high-quality public education in this country.

So I urge the government to appreciate that, if we are to provide genuine equality of opportunity in this country, that can only be addressed on the basis of genuine quality in the education provided to all children in this country, no matter where they live. I have a view on what our priorities should be for public education. Seventy per cent of Australians attend public schools in this country. That is the overwhelming majority of Australians. The principles that underlie our commitment to quality ought to be extended to that overwhelming majority. That should be a fundamental principle in the approach taken by the Commonwealth to the different sectors. Yet, quite clearly, you can see that that principle is not followed by this government in terms of this legislation. The principle is not worth the paper it is written on in terms of choice if it is not backed up by a fair policy administrative framework.

While supporting families in their choice of schooling, Labor not only recognises that most Australian children will attend public education but is also committed to ensuring that those families that enjoy the benefits of public education get access to an education of the highest quality. It is the responsibility of any government to guarantee that all children have such access. That is why we say that the Commonwealth government’s approach should be to cooperate and work with the states to ensure that that happens right across the Commonwealth. That is what our education revolution is all about: the provision of a national educational education system—at all levels—to make us the best in the world and to provide the children of this country with the best opportunities that can possibly be provided within the resources that this country has at its disposal.

Let us look at the principles outlined in this bill. The bill has provided additional funding to schools and therefore, of course, we support it. However, the bill reduces the amount of funding available to individual government schools through the Investing in Our Schools Program, and that is a matter of deep concern. It shifts the goalposts for government schools and it is not fair in that regard.

As I have indicated, this program finishes up in 2008. Now, in the year before it finishes, the guidelines the government has put forward for applications have changed. So the government is open to the charge that this program—which is essentially an ephemeral program—was no more than a political stunt announced at the last election, when commitments were made that have been reneged upon two-thirds of the way through this parliamentary term. This was not a cheap stunt: it will have cost $1.2 billion after four years—not an insignificant amount of money.

What concerns me, though, is that the government has sought to misuse this education funding in this way. It is therefore necessary to move a second reading amendment to draw attention to the approach that the government has taken. While the Senate should welcome the additional funding for the Investing in Our Schools Program, I would note that, when making the announcement, the minister was silent on the change of criteria for government schools halfway through the life of the program. The Senate should condemn the government for leaving many government schools ineligible to apply for additional funding by reducing the funding cap from $150,000 to $100,000 and failing to guarantee the future of the Investing in Our Schools Program beyond the current funding round.

I now move the second reading amendment standing in my name, as circulated:

At the end of the motion, add “but, although the Senate welcomes the additional funding for rural, regional and remote non-government schools, it notes the continuing failure of the Government to immediately address the need for additional funding for needy rural, regional and remote government schools”.