Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Being in the chamber tonight has been quite illuminating. It has shown us that the Abbott government can put a spin on anything. I said earlier today that I think they are living in a parallel universe—and tonight they have clearly demonstrated that they are. You would think that these reforms proposed by the Abbott government to our education system were revolutionary—when they are not. They are practical amendments that need to be made because of the appalling way the Abbott government has handled education.

Let us just remind ourselves of some of the massive mistakes the Abbott government has made in relation to the education of our youngest Australians. This bill is before the Senate tonight because of the Abbott government's broken promises. Those broken promises are the only reason it is here. One of the Abbott government's biggest broken promises was in the area of education. Remember Gonski? Remember those commitments? 'We are on a unity ticket with Labor on the Gonski reforms.' Do you remember when the Prime Minister said, 'It does not matter who you vote for, Labor or Liberal, because we will implement the full Gonski reforms'? Of course it matters who you vote for. Every single time it matters. It mattered at the last election and it will matter at the next election.

The Abbott government simply cannot be trusted on education despite their promises, the apparently cast iron guarantees that the Liberals and their coalition partners, the Nationals, gave us before the last election. So desperate were they to get into government that they lied to Australian voters. The Abbott government lied about its commitment to Gonski. Those reforms, like many other Abbott government commitments, are well and truly gone—make no mistake. That is why this bill is before the Senate. It is because the government did not keep its promise to honour the Gonski amendments.

We now need to consider specific parts of this bill. If the government had simply kept their promise to deliver the full disability loading in 2015, it would not need amendments relating to funding for independent special schools. Where is the government's vision for schools?

I have heard members of the Abbott government say, 'We don't run schools.' Does that mean the Abbott government is abrogating any responsibility it has for ensuring that Australian students have the highest quality education and that their postcode does not determine their school results?

Gonski identified falling standards and a growing gap in achievements, and that growing gap is between well-off students and those from low socioeconomic areas. What has the Abbott government done about this? Absolutely nothing. It is worth repeating some of the unfortunate standout features Gonski found. He found that one in seven 15-year-olds do not have basic literacy skills. How will these young people compete for jobs in the future when at every turn their poor literacy skills are going to prevent them from being successful? How will these students fare under the harsh new regime that the Abbott government wants to introduce for young job seekers of a six-month compulsory period without any funds to support themselves? With poor literacy skills, what education do they enrol in? What jobs will they be able to secure? These young people have been thrown on the scrap heap by the Abbott government—discarded before they have even had a real chance at life, at attaining a decent job at a decent rate of pay. These kids will not get a helping hand if the Abbott government's harsh dole amendments get through the Senate. If this government had a clear vision for school policies for these kids and many others, if they cared about what happened in our classrooms, I would not need to be standing here today defending the Gonski reforms, standing up for students with disability, standing up for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids, and arguing for transparency and accountability in school funding.

In relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boarders in particular, the bill establishes a mechanism which enables the minister to make payments to schools for a reason prescribed by regulation. The government says this will facilitate the payment of around $6.8 million in support for boarding schools for 2014 and 2015, but—and it is a big but—at this stage it has not provided any funding beyond that. This is a move not unique to education—it is typical of how the Abbott government is funding a range of critical support areas for states. We have seen the same funding deal—or no deal—in the area of homelessness funding to the states. The government has chopped about $45 million out of the funding for homeless people, taking all the capital money out. Why? Because they believe it is a state responsibility to provide housing for those who become homeless. The papers on Federation I am sure will spell out that education, health, affordable housing and a raft of other measures are all the responsibility of state governments, who do not have adequate funds to address these very critical areas. That is why the government have not ticked over funding on an ongoing basis—that is why they have just ticked it over for one year. Boarding schools, in the eyes of the Abbott government, are obviously no different from anything else.

I go back to the move to establish a mechanism to enable the minister to direct payments to schools. It will assist schools with more than 50 Aboriginal boarders from remote communities or where more than 50 per cent of boarders are Aboriginal and come from remote communities. Of course Labor supports this—not as a panacea but as one of the many steps, not the only step, that the government must take to close the gap in school education. It is just a tiny step. It is Labor's position that the first focus of government should be to make sure that every school is a great school—not too much of an ask; it is the right of a child to expect that—and that every child should have the resources and support necessary to achieve their best no matter where they live, no matter what their postcode is or what school they attend. That was the central plank of the Gonski reforms and it absolutely applies to schools in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Supporting boarding schools cannot be used as an argument to leave schools in communities behind. In Western Australia, the Barnett government have an appalling record on education—they have ripped millions out of the school system. They have taken away programs that specifically target Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and they have specifically targeted programs for kids with learning disability and slashed and burned those programs. Now, in response to the cut in funding from the Abbott government, the Premier of Western Australia is going to look at closing communities in Western Australia. I wonder whether the Minister for Indigenous Affairs is aware of that? Schools will be closed. Warren Mundine, their own man, has called it an infrastructure apartheid. That is what their own man has called it. And what are they doing? Nothing. So goodness knows what is going to happen in Western Australia if Premier Barnett gets his way and starts closing communities. Those kids might be in a boarding school and suddenly find they have no home to go back to. That is what Premier Barnett has in store for kids from remote communities in Western Australia. Of course it is a big secret about which ones. Make no mistake, the Premier has put that right at the feet of the Abbott government and their own Mr Warren Mundine has called it infrastructure apartheid. Let us see what the Abbott government's response to that is.

Closing the gap in the educational attainment of Aboriginal Australians requires a focus not just on boarding schools but on every single bush school and every classroom in every remote area. Right now the attention needs to be on what Premier Barnett is doing with those communities in Western Australia—he has made it very clear that he intends to close some because of the actions of the Abbott government

Of course, Labor supports those students and those communities that want to use boarding schools, but boarding schools are only a very tiny part of the solution. Labor remains absolutely committed to closing the gap.

Let's have a look at what the bill intends to do in relation to students with disability. This bill also changes the funding transition rules for independent special schools so their funding is indexed by at least three per cent a year—the guaranteed level of indexation under the Gonski reforms. It is not something that is new or fixed up by the Abbott government but what was clearly in the Gonski reforms. It is nothing new. It was already there, part of Labor's plans. It is a change that would not need to be brought to the parliament if the government had kept its promise to fully implement the full Gonski disability loading for 2015 and allocate the additional resources. There are six additional loadings under the Gonski reforms—for small schools, for remote schools, for Aboriginal schools, for students with low English, for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and for students with disability. These loadings, with the exception of the loadings for students with disability,were fully defined—despite the parallel universe language we see from the Abbott government—when the Australian Education Act was introduced. Of course, the Abbott government knew that.Remember their commitment leading up to the election? 'We are on a unity ticket with Labor on the Gonski reforms.' But, obviously, that was never true, because it has not been true since the election.

The full implementation of the loading for students with disability was scheduled for 2015, a nd there was a reason for that. This was to allow time for data collection and for further work with the states and the school systems to make the final disability loading work to give students the resources they need to achieve their best. W e have heard over and over again from those opposite , from the Abbott government , that they want to give principals more say. Labo r ' s plan was to consult , collect the information and speak not just to princip als but to school communities. So , again, empty rhetoric is a ll we hear from those on the other side . This was Labo r ' s plan all along . But they cannot bear to actually say Labor' s Gonski reforms were successful; t hey have to invent their own reasons as to why they need to do something different—give it a new name and say something else about it. But no-one is fooled. Those loadings were there and they were plain for everyone to see.

Definitions of the disabilities that attract extra support vary significantly between states , and so do the average level s of support, which range from around $4,000 in South Australian to $40,000 in Tasmania. W hile that investigative work continued, Labor funded the $100 million per year More Support for Students with Disability program to make sure those students who need the most assistance got the assistance they needed. We ensured that was happening while we continued to finalise the full Gonski disability loading in 2015.

Remember that unity ticket? It does not go away . J ust because you say something different now , it does not mean you did not say it. You said it in the media and you said it over and over. Before the election, this process —just like the Gonsk i school funding reforms—had bi partisan support. But we know now that anything bipartisan, according to the Abbott government, is a dirty word. They are trying to erase that concept of 'bipartisan' from their vocabulary, because they just try to trash and burn everything that went before them and invent it—even if it is just giving a new name—to somehow claim that what they are doing is better or different when, in fact, it is not. The education minister promised:

If elected to government, the Coalition will continue the data collection work that has commenced, which will be used to deliver more funding for people with disability through the 'disability loading' in 2015.

That came from Minister Pyne on his own media release dated 23 August 2013. That promise was clear and straightforward, as was the promise of a unity ticket on Gonski.

However, despite it being a clear commitment, students with disability, along with their parents and carers, have been utterly betrayed by this government. In this year's budget, the government cut the $100 million More Support for Students with Disability program—the program we had put in place to make sure students with disability continued to be supported while we worked out the new loading. It was a safety net, if you like—that is what we put in place for students with disability. But, no, the Abbott government slashed and burned that—'Let's just cut that; it's just money for nothing'—despite that clear commitment. Not only did they cut that but they failed to replace it with the promised additional funds. There was just nothing left in its wake.

At the same time, stakeholders are reporting the government has dropped the ball on the finalisation of the full Gonski loading. And, in the typical fashion of the Abbott government, there has been almost no consultation, because that is not the way they drive their agenda. Consultation leads to transparency, and they do not want to be transparent around what they have done to disability loadings. They want to try and sneak it through, but nobody is fooled. Where they have done consultation, again, in typical Abbott government fashion, it has been rushed and, of course, secretive. That is the style of this government—no transparency and everything done in secret.

This means that neither the promised additional funding nor the promised full Gonski loading for students with disability will be implemented next year. They just will not be; they will be missing in action. On top of that, students with disability will have $100 million in support cut next year.

The Abbott government have been absolutely shameless in pretending black is white, in rewriting history and in sliding away from their very clear commitments to our schools. However, the most heartless of all the broken promises in education is undoubtedly the broken promise to fund the full Gonski disability loading from 2015—and absolutely nothing has been left in its place. Parents of children with disability fought really hard to make sure their kids got a fair go. Kids with disability do need additional support and in some instances they need significant support. They need that helping hand to ensure that the education they receive is of the same high quality that children without a disability receive. All of us who are fair-minded would agree that that is the just and proper thing to do. But the government—the Liberals and the Nationals—simply made those now broken promises, promises they had absolutely no intention of implementing, to get elected and then cut the support for those students with disability in the budget.

Again, Labor will not stand in the way of ensuring funding flows to independent special schools from next year, but we are going to make sure that the Australian community knows exactly what is going on here. There must be no more hoodwinking like when the government cut the additional funding that Labor put in place and then reneged on the commitments it made around disability loading. We will absolutely continue to take the Abbott government to task on its broken promises to students with disability.