David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

I did not speak on the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2017 during the debate on the second reading, so I thought I would take this opportunity, while senators O'Neill and Collins are changing over, to explain my opposition to the government's school funding deal, which is before the Senate. I will speak again in support of my amendment, but I think this initial explanation will be helpful. Einstein said that insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. We all know that paying all teachers more does not improve school education outcomes. We know that governments that spend up big in their first budget don't fix the mess closer to an election. We know that when Liberal governments have adopted Labor-Greens policies they lose Liberal votes but do not pick up Labor-Greens votes. And we know that governments that borrow incessantly eventually cause mass hardship to the people. Yet, on each count, the government school funding deal is making the same mistakes we have seen in the past.

When Labor was in government it was clear that the previous increases in school funding had not improved the quality of school education. Despite this, Labor sent terms of reference to David Gonski that did not require his recommendations to fit within the spending envelope of existing spending. Unsurprisingly, Gonski's recommendations call for increased spending. Labor adopted such spending increases as policy, and Labor legislated for these spending increases in the Australian Education Act 2013. In the 2014 budget the Abbott government instead proposed that from 2018 Commonwealth school funding should be increased in line with the CPI and student numbers. This was a step in the right direction, but the Abbott government never bothered to enact this proposal, so, to this day, Labor's approach remains the law of the land.

The Parliamentary Budget Office has advised me that the existing law requires nearly $20 billion more Commonwealth school funding over the next decade than Abbott's proposed approach. When the Turnbull government proposed to increase Commonwealth school funding, compared to Abbott's approach by $18.6 billion over the next decade, and when Turnbull actually planned to legislate to convert his proposal into law, I was inclined to support Turnbull's legislation.