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

On the same point, I would like to explain to the minister that he said that it goes to the systemic school and that they can spread it around. That causes them difficulties which they should not be put to, but let us avoid that. Minister, this is not a political argument. I am trying to help people. While you say that you do not appoint the principals of these schools and you do not determine their curriculum or whatever, in the Catholic education system in Queensland they can even it across on what is currently their SRA payment. But where the individual school does not go through the Catholic system, they used to get the ITAS and IRS payments, which went directly to the school involved; they did not go through the Catholic system. Now they will go through the system and they might get the payment but all the evidence given to me says they will not.

I am sorry, Senator Milne; you asked a question. I just wanted to make it clear that it did go to individual schools, even within this system, because there were these other buckets of money under the old system. If you want to get rid of the old system, that is fine. You are in government; you do that. But do not make those schools worse off. I think Senator Milne’s understanding—which is not for me to confirm—is that the Catholic education system can broaden out, but not without embarrassment because a school in Brisbane will see the figures and think they are entitled to it and then the Bishop will have to come along and say, ‘Sorry, we are going to take some of this off you and give it to Townsville because it is better.’ In the past they did not have to do that because it went straight to the school involved under these buckets of money. That is the difference. It is related in the legislation. I am sure the government does not intend this to happen. I am positive of that. Why would they? But I am trying to point out to them, in the most helpful way that I can, that there is a problem with their legislation that has been identified by others and that I am trying to help them to fix. The problem is that, in section 69 and others, you talk about the school campuses rather than the school children. That is the problem.

I apologise to Senator Milne. I am pretty certain the minister will not have the answer. In Townsville, at least, there is St Patrick’s on the Strand which is a Sisters of Mercy school; there is the Shalom College, which I think is a Uniting Church school; and, I am sure, St Augustine’s in Cairns; and I think there is a Lutheran church in Cairns. I do not have those figures and I doubt that the minister would have them, but there are many independent schools which are not part of the system. I am saying that even if they are part of the system, it does not really matter for the reasons I have mentioned—but there are quite a number. Shalom College has a lot of Indigenous boarding kids from a long way away. St Patrick’s, I am told, had the biggest number of Indigenous boarding kids of any school in Australia, and it is not a systemic school; it is run by the Sisters of Mercy.