Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the MPI this afternoon around the plans that we have seen outlined in papers today to abolish universal access to free public education. I think we all got a shock last night—those of us who were catching up on the news—to see the stories come in around the leaked document—the green paper for the reform of federation—which outlined some pretty outrageous options for the future of education in this country. Those options included: giving states and territories full responsibility for all schools; making states and territories fully responsible for funding public schools, while the federal government funds non-government schools; reducing the Commonwealth involvement in schools; making the federal government the dominant funder of all schools; or withdrawing the federal government entirely from the funding of public education. Anyone who has watched the education funding debate since education funding actually started being a negotiation between the states, territories and the Commonwealth back in the 1960s, would have seen how fraught the area of education funding is, and how difficult it is to resolve issues of who funds what and how much to fund it. But I think the one thing that most Australians agree on is that there is a role for the national government to be involved in the funding of all schools for every child in Australia.

The option that was outlined as one of the ideas in this green paper was that means testing be introduced. I see that in question time today the Prime Minister came out and said that he does not support that, after being a little evasive on the subject this morning. The education minister, Christopher Pyne, came and said that he did not support it, and I note that the Prime Minister has now backed him. I think everyone in this chamber would support the clarification that has been provided today, but, that one issue aside, it would seem at the moment that one of the underlying themes of the Federation reform process is that the Commonwealth removes itself—whether in a funding role or in any kind of responsible role—from the areas of education and health. Indeed, I touched on this in my first speech, which I made last week, when I said that Federation reform should not be used as a way of prosecuting one government's political agenda over others and forcing unreasonable expectations or responsibilities on the states and territories and the smaller governments, which do not have the revenue-raising capacity that the national government does.

Indeed, having been involved in some of the early discussions around Federation reform, I fear that that is exactly what we are seeing happen now. We are seeing a Prime Minister who has a fixed view, and his view is that the Commonwealth should, to use his words, 'get out of education and get out of health,' and leave it to the states and territories. For one, I think that if you ask the average person in the street, they would believe that there is a role for the national government in the areas of health and education, they would expect the national government to be there, and they would expect that the Commonwealth cannot, in a sense, abrogate its responsibility to the citizenry of this country by removing itself from two of the most important areas that any government is involved in.

I do note that the green papers on education, health and tax reform will be released in due time. I am not saying there is no opportunity for Federation reform—I think that there is. But I do not think that it is a reform that is going to be progressed with leaks to the paper and federal ministers ruling the most outrageous initiatives out, but leaving some of the still very significant changes on the table to be agitated over prior to anybody getting the details.

The first budget of this government, the 2014-15 budget, was delivered when I was still Chief Minister of the ACT. I am a previous education minister as well, so I do have a level of detailed knowledge about the funding of the education system and responsibilities between states, territories and the Commonwealth. What we saw in that 2014-15 budget, after being promised no cuts to education in the 2013 campaign, was the removal of $80 billion out of agreements that had been signed in good faith by governments. I signed the paperwork. I believed that that drew the Commonwealth to the table to provide a funding commitment to schools in the ACT for a six-year period. One of the first financial decisions taken by this government was to remove it—$50 billion in health and $30 billion in education.

I attended—I think a week or so after that budget came down—a meeting of all of the first ministers in Australia, bar WA. It did unite across party divides, as all first ministers—apart from Premier Barnett—came together to try to understand what had just happened to the agreements, which we had also provided money for, in my previous role, to bring to the table; to try to understand what was going to happen into those out years; and to make a commitment that we would not let those cuts stand. However, the 2015-16 budget has been handed down and we see that, as those years come into the budget estimates, those cuts remain.

One of the most important things around the agreements reached between state and territory governments and the Commonwealth government—the truly revolutionary aspect of what Prime Minister Gillard actually delivered through those agreements—was the uniting of the education sector on the best way to fund the system, regardless of what system or jurisdiction a child was in, in terms of school make-up—private, independent, Catholic systemic, Catholic congregational or public schools. We were able, through that negotiation process, to unite the sector in what has been, in my experience, a very difficult area to reach agreement on.

We had the advocacy bodies for independent schools, for the Catholic schools, the Australian Education Union and the stakeholders for public schools all coming together. It was not only about funding—and this is something that is always forgotten. It was also around quality teaching, and it was going to the issues that Senator Birmingham outlined around value for the extra money put in; this was recognised in those agreements. It was also about delivering better student outcomes, giving flexibility for principals to make decisions in their schools, and transparency and accountability about where that money goes and what it is being used for. Most of all, it was about a needs based funding system for children so that—regardless of what school your child attends and wherever they attend in Australia—your child gets the level of resourcing that they need to get a great education. That was the true success of that agreement. That is what the state and territory first ministers signed up to, and that is what the Commonwealth said that they would deliver upon. That was removed unilaterally. In fact, we had a COAG meeting a week or two before the 2014-15 budget was handed down, and not one word was said about this massive change to agreements that had just taken two years to negotiate

That is the form. That is where we start. And now, not only do we not have Gonski or the National Education Reform Agreements, which provided a level of funding and some changes across the system that, at that time, we were all committed to implementing, but when we see the green paper it is supposedly going to come out and say, 'You are not even going to have that. We are actually going to look at removing ourselves entirely from this space and leaving it up to the states and territories.' I note the Prime Minister said today that states and territories run the system. I can tell you, if you get Commonwealth funding in those schools it comes with strings attached. You get told how that money is to be spent. If you do not spend it that way you do not get it. So it is not entirely true that the states and territories have all the say. But I look forward to the green paper being released eventually. I look forward to the debate, but I think we should all go in with our eyes open to the fact that there is an agenda that is being pursued through this process that cannot be supported. It cannot be supported in the interests of children's education in this country.