Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I am keen to participate in this debate on the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 and the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 but I only become aware of the debate earlier today. I am not one of those who follows education matters closely, but I fear that the government is going to make an enormous blunder that they do not fully appreciate. I am pleased that the minister at the table is Senator McLucas, who comes from Far North Queensland, and I am very pleased that the departmental officials are here because, if I am wrong in what I am about to say, I want them to explain it to the minister so that she can respond in her summing up of the second reading debate.

I want to indicate that unless I and the Catholic Education Commission, particularly in the diocese of Townsville, can be certain that the bills as they stand will not bring huge financial disadvantage to them, then I think the shadow minister will be introducing amendments—which might be all that is able to be done from the Senate. I do want Senator McLucas and the officials to listen very closely to what I am going to say. I know that the officials gave evidence to the Senate Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, and the committee appeared to be satisfied with the assurances by the department that the Catholic Education Commission in Queensland would be better off as a result of this legislation.

I might add that, strangely for me, I am not entering into this debate in a political sense. I am trying to address a wrong that the diocese of Townsville came to see me about and which I passed on to my colleagues who are more intimately involved in education matters. To put the background in place, the diocese of Townsville Catholic system looks after 391 Indigenous students, which is 59 per cent of Indigenous students who attend Catholic schools in Queensland. So, quite clearly, what happens to Catholic education in Brisbane, Rockhampton, Cairns and Toowoomba is not nearly as important as what happens to Catholic schools in the diocese of Townsville, because most of the students are in the Townsville diocese. They are either in Townsville itself, or at Abergowrie College near Ingham, or at Columba College at Charters Towers, or at Good Shepherd College at Mt Isa.

The problem is that this government is trying to change the current system, for reasons which everyone accepts are honourable. The current government says that there are too many buckets of funding for Indigenous students. They say, ‘It is too difficult and complex in an administrative sense, so we want to wipe the slate clean and make it a much simpler arrangement that will look after Indigenous kids. In doing that, we will put in some more money and we will guarantee that no Indigenous kid is worse off.’ That is a laudable goal. But as I understand the current situation, the schools are funded with a per capita grant—the SRA grant. I do not even know what ‘SRA’ stands for, but I am told that SRA is the per capita funding grant which all schools get. Then there are other buckets of money that go to various schools, depending on the different programs that the previous government, in their wisdom and experience, initiated over the years. There is one called ITAS, which I believe is related to homework, and one called RIS, which is another bucket of money. The end result, as I understand it—and I hope the officials will tell me if I am wrong—was that students received money not according to where they went to school, by remoteness or otherwise, but according to by where they came from.

One of the problems with the new arrangement is that, as I understand it, schools in remote areas are allegedly being paid better money—not students from remote areas. The situation that occurs in the Townsville diocese is that the Indigenous students come from remote and very remote parts of North Queensland—the Torres Strait out in the north-west, up in the gulf and the cape country. They are from very remote areas, but the schools are actually situated in almost city areas. The schools are not deemed to be remote and so the funding has fallen. In the old days, everyone would get a payment under the SRA scheme but then these extra buckets of money could be drawn upon for very remote students to assist them in their schooling in boarding schools in Townsville. This applies right throughout.

I understand the officials have indicated to the Catholic Education Commission in Queensland, ‘You will, overall, get more money’—and I think everyone accepts that. The schools in Brisbane will do very well out of this. They will get increased money per student. Some might say that the Catholic Education Commission, within itself, can say to Brisbane schools, ‘You’re getting a bit more than you should have got, but the Townsville ones, where all the problems are, are getting less than they would otherwise have got; so we will take some money off you and shove it up there.’