Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

One thing that Minister Birmingham could not do is undo the rotten $17 billion of waste of the Gillard memorial halls. But I tell you what he did do. He got rid of the 27 dirty little deals that Ms Gillard did with various education authorities around Australia. Madam Deputy President, our home state of Western Australia, as usual, was done over the worst by the then Labor government. I will tell you why it was. Where Senator Birmingham will be moving to 80 per cent funding for the Catholic system in WA at the moment, under what were the changes from Ms Gillard it is 67 per cent. It moves up to 80. Which state group did worst under the dirty little Gillard deals? It was Western Australia. Isn't it absolutely amazing. The other instrumentality that did the worst under the 27 dirty deals was the Northern Territory. Do you know one of the common links between WA and the Northern Territory at that time? Senator Smith can remember. They were Liberal governments.

What is Minister Birmingham doing? He is moving to a fair figure across Australia. Senator Collins and others have jumped up and down and talked about the Catholic schools' catholicity. I remind you, Madam Deputy President, I was a member of Catholic Education Western Australia for nine years from the 1980s to the nineties, which allows me to answer the allegations of Senator Farrell. Only late last week, as Senator Smith would expect, I engaged with the head of Catholic Education Western Australia in a very, very robust and useful discussion. Where do you think that sent me? It sent me straight on to Minister Birmingham. Through that dialogue on Friday night, when the rest of you were probably having a beer and a chardonnay, Senator Birmingham, Mr Tim McDonald and I were conversing on the best way forward in terms of consultation and negotiation. That led on Saturday of this very last week to further communication between Senator Birmingham, the CEO for Catholic Education in WA and my good self. As we know—those who are interested and those who want to stop throwing nonsense at Minister Birmingham would know—in fact the negotiating team from national Catholic Education were meeting with Minister Birmingham only yesterday afternoon. So that is the level of consultation we have.

Is everybody happy? No, they are not. Why might they not be happy? Let me go back to the 27 dirty little deals. Some of the states, some of the independent and possibly even some of the Catholic systems appeared to be adversely advantaged or disadvantaged. Minister Birmingham is proposing to achieve within 10 years a situation in which all Catholic and independent school funding will be at 80 per cent and all states' funding through the Commonwealth will be at 20 per cent. You may well ask: who then funds the balance of the states' education? Under the Constitution of Australia, it is the states themselves that do that funding. But let me go back to the 80 per cent for a moment. The Catholics and the independents move up not to 100 per cent but to 90 per cent, principally through fees. It is the case that children in Australia are taught at 90 per cent efficiency by the Catholic and independent schools. In other words, it is 10 per cent cheaper, because they run their schools so much more efficiently.

In the few moments available to me I will go to another excellent component of Minister Birmingham's work on consultation with the sectors. The independent and Catholic schools, through capital funding over the next 10 years, will receive $300 million of extra capital funding for new school-related buildings. There will be $50 million as a catch-up, because the last government did nothing about relativities between 2009 and when they lost government in 2013. Then there will be an added $250 million for new capital for new schools, for extension and expansion of schools.

Yes, it is a fact that, under our Catholic system, co-responsibility—in the case of WA across the state—is one of the finest principles. Whilst the minister is looking at a per student weighting, he has assured me that the overall funding will return to the sector so that co-responsibility funding can continue under his regime. I congratulate him.