Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I said yesterday in taking note of answers in question time that I planned to spend this week focusing on education and, in particular, the way the government is conning the public with its school funding changes. I said then that the Prime Minister, along with his education minister, cannot succeed in this conniving way forever. Eventually they will come unstuck. Their dog of a deal will be revealed for what it is, which is, amongst other things, an attack on low-fee Catholic parish schools and a brutal attack on parental choice. Once you apply the blowtorch to the government's changes, it is obvious that the government does not understand or respect the Catholic education mission. It is clear that the government is prepared to spin untruths to hide its real agenda, which is to take the axe to low-fee Catholic parish schools and to severely disadvantage the hundreds and thousands of Australian families who choose this schooling for their children. This will ultimately cost all taxpayers more.

Indeed, is cost shifting to the states on the agenda too? It certainly would not be the first time. Given that state and territory governments fund 80 per cent of public schools and the government is planning to embed that formula with this funding announcement, one has to question the government's motives in passing all of the cost of education to states and public schools. How well this government learned the lessons of the Goulburn schools' strikes back in July 1962 when six Catholic schools closed and instructed their pupils to enrol the following Monday in the government system, such was the anger and frustration of parents who received no government support at that stage for their children's Catholic education. How might an angry Catholic community respond this time to the government's dismissal of their education choices?

I said in the chamber yesterday that I would be taking us all through the book of Gonski, because it is very clear that Mr Turnbull and Senator Birmingham whilst claiming to have had a conversion on Gonski have in fact done the reverse. While Mr Turnbull and Senator Birmingham puffed their chests and sought to co-opt David Gonski into their conniving, all they succeeded in doing was, firstly, revealing their ignorance of the Gonski recommendations and, secondly, tarnishing Mr Gonski's good name and reputation. The key point to make is this: contrary to what this government is claiming, the Gonski review never recommended that the Commonwealth apply a one-size-fits-all model on school funding; never was that recommended. This is all Mr Birmingham's spin. The simple reason it was never recommended is that it does not achieve a fair system, which again is completely at odds with all the overblown rhetoric that this government has been spurting.

Let's further examine the book of Gonski and see how this government has changed the goalposts of education funding by redefining the Gonski needs based funding model, because that is what this budget is about. This budget's measures in education are about shifting those goalposts—don't anyone be disillusioned about that. Make no mistake, this government's package is not Gonski and it is nothing but a con job to suggest that it is.

There are three major areas where this funding deal is not Gonski. It is in fact directly contrary and directly at odds with what David Gonski called for. One wonders how well briefed he was by what this conniving minister was really up to. We know it took cabinet month upon month upon month of deliberations, but were they really well informed? Listening to Senator Brandis yesterday, you would suspect not. So I will take the time to carefully explain where these announcements are directly at odds with Gonski.

The first one I mentioned just before was this 80-20 role for Commonwealth/state funding. Gonski recommended the direct opposite. The second one is the system-weighted average funding model for school systems with a particularly significant impact on Catholic school systems. Gonski directly recommended the opposite. Thirdly—