Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Collins and the noisy voices on the Labor Party side decided that just saying no was the best thing. Why have they done that? They have done that because they would much rather play politics with this issue than actually get an agreement and actually get needs based funding. What has become apparent with the Labor Party's handling of school reform is that it has never been, for them, about actually applying needs based funding consistently across Australia. It has been about using that as a political wedge instead. For Labor, it has always been about, 'How much more money can we spend and how do we use that as a political wedge?' Through this debate, they have been exposed. Their hypocrisy has been exposed and the reality that they were never genuine all along has been exposed. For them, it is about buying off different constituencies through special deals and putting in place something that ultimately serves their electoral advantage rather than the advantage of Australian school students.

Our intention is to ensure that there is a real model in place that does deliver for Australian school students—a model that delivers according to their need and treats them consistently. But, importantly, also, it is a model of reform that looks to how it is we can guarantee that education investment also gets the best possible results in the future, because it is really critical that, as we continue to see a growth in funding for schools right around Australia, we also see that that is invested in the best possible way. That is why the Turnbull government was delighted that David Gonski himself agreed to engage and to undertake a further body of work, the review, to achieve excellence in Australian schools—to ensure that the real problems and challenges in our schools are addressed and that the record growing funding that the Turnbull government will provide is actually record growing funding used to best effect of ensuring that our schools get the support they need, but also that they use those dollars as carefully and wisely as is possible to ensure educational advancement of their students in those schools around Australia.

That report will be critical to ensuring that next year states and territories in receipt of the second Gonski report, which identifies evidence based reforms and opportunities to maximise educational excellence in Australia, actually sign on to deliver those types of standards and reforms. We know that teacher quality is an essential component, the most important ingredient of school performance and in-school factors. We equally know that parental engagement is the most important other factor. We need to make sure that with additional funding flowing into the system we lift the quality of teachers, we enhance the engagement of parents, we ensure the relevance of the curriculum, we apply the support that is there to arrest what has been in some cases a stagnation and in others a decline of Australia's overall educational performance, and that this additional funding is used to the best possible effect for the future. I look forward to seeing many different parties engage with that second Gonski review.

I want to reflect on what it is that we are expecting state and territory governments to do as a result of these reforms. Our expectation is that state and territory governments must maintain the funding they have committed into their schools in order for additional funding to flow into the future. We want to make sure that there is no wriggle room for the states or territories to cost-shift, as has been the case previously; that there is certainty in relation to those state and territory governments and making sure that they pull their weight. In recent years we have seen at times that as the federal government has given more to state and territory governments for the neediest public schools in Australia, the states and territories, rather than investing that and ensuring there is additional support, have instead simply withdrawn an element of the funding support that they provide, which has provided no net advantage to those needy schools. We want make sure that if the Commonwealth is doing as we propose and increasing support, then the states and territories maintain their real effort as well. Through the mechanisms in this legislation and through our reforms we will achieve that.

We also want to ensure that states and territories are accountable for whether or not they are putting in fair support for their schools. Our approach of applying the same formula consistently across the country will allow people to hold state and territory governments to account and for those state and territory governments to justify their decisions about relative spending. The estimates are that with the Commonwealth government providing a 20 per cent share of the Schooling Resource Standard across the country consistently, that would see that school resource standing formula met in Western Australia and the ACT, and very nearly met in Tasmania; that South Australia would receive around 95 per cent of that standard; but that some other states and territories would fall short. We are keen to ensure that the transparency of this means that constituent bodies in those states or territories can question their state governments about why it is that they do not invest as much as another state or Territory, and those state governments can explain their rationale and in doing so justify that to their constituencies. For too long now there has been this notion of continually shifting the pressure and the blame onto Canberra in relation to school funding. Our model puts in place something that ensures consistency but also proposes what is a fair share of support from Canberra and then makes clear that is up to the states and territories to take responsibility in their systems, as the Constitution dictates. So by applying that type of approach we are confident that we can ensure state and territory governments themselves also have some accountability for their responsibility in school systems that they have run throughout the history of Federation.

But I want to emphasise to the Senate the government's gratitude for those who have supported entry into the committee stage. I want to emphasise that we are committed—

Progress reported.