Nick Xenophon (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

( It is impossible to overstate the importance of this bill because, whatever the outcome of our consideration, it will have a far-reaching effect on a generation of children and their educational outcomes. It is not hyperbole to say that the future prospects of a generation of children are in our hands. The importance of education cannot be overstated, because education is one of the strongest tools to tackle poverty, reduce welfare dependency and improve health outcomes. Education is about the future of our children and of our nation. My team and I have taken consideration of what is dubbed Gonski 2.0 very seriously. I commend the work that my colleague in the other place, the member for Mayo, Rebekha Sharkie MP, has done on this. She has done a tremendous amount of work. Her diligence and forensic approach to this are to be commended. She has spoken about the bill in the other place and gave the legislation our cautious support, pending satisfactory resolution of our reservations and the outcome of the Senate inquiry. The majority report of that inquiry predictably said it should be passed, but it did set out various concerns with the bill.

Before I discuss in detail how our reservations have been addressed, I want to congratulate the government for its determination to implement a purer form of the Gonski sector-blind needs based funding model. This took courage because, if you level the playing field, inevitably there will be some losers. But if it goes to the neediest schools, those that deserve it the most, then that is a good outcome. For confirmation that the government's model is closer to the original Gonski review's intent we need look no further than the enthusiastic support from members of the original Gonski review expert panel. Who could forget the image of David Gonski standing alongside the Prime Minister on 2 May and saying he supports this package? He was pleased that the government had adopted the recommendations of a needs based funding model. I look forward to the report of his review into how Commonwealth funding should be invested to improve school and student achievement, because outcomes are very important, but we also need to get the funding model right. Ken Boston, a fellow Gonski review expert panel member, went even further to say recently:

It will be a tragedy if the school funding bill is voted down in the Senate … Five years after the release and subsequent emasculation of the Gonski report, Australia has a rare second chance.

Kathryn Greiner, another member of the original Gonski review expert panel, said:

… it would be a disaster for Australian education if this doesn't pass. This is the first time a government in this country has drawn a line in the sand, removed the funding anomalies and got everybody on the same page.

The former Labor government, when trying to implement the Gonski model—this is not a criticism of them—were racked by needing a whole range of different funding deals to get the states on board. There were something like 27 different agreements. The requirement that no school should lose a dollar hobbled the implementation from the beginning and resulted in a distorted model. Instead of a level playing field, the starting point was each sector's then current funding level, which included historical funding anomalies and past deals. It was built on a flawed foundation of inequitable funding. The special deals done during the negotiation to cajole various states into signing up for Gonski sealed its fate as an inequitable model. It was not needs based and sector blind. Arguably it was not Gonski at all but a knock-off brand trying to look the same as the real thing.

I strongly support the intent of the legislation, but that does not mean there was no room for improvement. I mentioned earlier that we had some real reservations, and I want to cover how the negotiations we have had with the government address these. The first was the time frame. In our view a 10-year transition is too long, particularly for jurisdictions that have been underfunded for the past four years. The reduction of the transitional time frame from 10 years to six years is a big development. It goes much further towards bringing these funding anomalies to an end and putting schools on a more level playing field. If we all agree that reaching the SRS is the goal then getting there faster will benefit more children more quickly, particularly those who have already started secondary school.

Our second reservation was that the legislation as originally drafted only required states and territories to maintain their 2017 funding levels plus indexation. This lets states and territories off the hook too easily, so there must be measures—as I understand it, amendments will be tabled that will ensure real accountability on the part of states and territories to reach their share of the SRS by 2023. That will ensure accountability of the new funding model. That is fair, and if the states do not place a priority on appropriately funding their schools then they should be exposed.

The introduction of a national school resourcing body, something that the Australian Greens have long advocated, and I congratulate them for advocating, is also a very welcome addition. We need to have enhanced transparency and accountability, so I strongly support an independent body that can monitor all elements of the needs based funding model and suggest improvements. For example, I support that one of the first tasks is to examine the appropriateness of the current SES determination methodology. I know that the Catholic sector has been concerned about this, and I congratulate Senator Chris Back for his advocacy in this regard.

I have previously stated publicly that this might not be the full Gonski, but it is still the Gonski. At that time I was drawn into the focus on the quantum of funding, not the methodology. My position is now a bit more nuanced. Earlier, I alluded to the fact that Labor's Gonski was not really a Gonski at all, but rather a more expensive knock-off from a flawed methodology. I understand why there has been so much focus on the debate about the quantum of funding and not the methodology, but we can do both. If you scratch beneath the surface, the model that we saw before perpetuated historical funding inequities. The extra funding that Labor promised would have been allocated unfairly.

Labor and the AEU have described this as a $22 billion cut. The $22 billion was Labor's funding promise, but they have not had to follow through on it. My colleague Rebekha Sharkie describes this as comparing apples with imaginary pears. Let us be clear: we are talking about $22 billion worth of imaginary pears. With the compression of the time frame to six years the difference has been reduced to $17 billion of imaginary funding. It is also important to note that the differences in the funding level between Labor's much-lauded years five and six of Gonski and the proposal is less than six per cent.

I am a pragmatist, as are my colleagues. We have a bill in front of us that will provide, in effect, $23 billion of extra funding to our schools over the next 10 years with the compression of getting up to the SRS standard within six years. I am not going to vote against a bill that provides extra funding and addresses the inequities of the failed Gonski implementation previously, given that David Gonski himself and his panel members believe it would be a grave mistake not to pass this bill. If the Labor Party is still committed to providing an extra $22 billion in funding, they can take that to the next election and it can be an election issue.

I will talk about what this means for South Australia in due course in the committee stage. I believe that this is a very welcome bill in terms of the additional funding. I believe that if we knock this off, if we do not vote for this bill, it will lead to fundamental inequities and inequalities in the funding system being perpetuated. This is about getting the methodology right. The fact that David Gonski and the members of his panel are so enthusiastically fact in favour of this legislation is fundamental.

I support this bill, as do my colleagues, with the improvements that we have been able to negotiate. I note that other crossbenchers have been working in good faith to improve this legislation. This bill will also lead to much more increased transparency, which is fundamental. That is something that I will speak about in the committee stages of this bill. In closing, I support the second reading stages of this bill. There are amendments that will even further improve it. This will be a good outcome for students around the country. I do not want to the perfect to be the enemy of the good, because this has very many good elements. It should be passed.