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

Absolutely, Senator Collins—you have my respect. As for the gentleman behind you, we only ever see him. It has come to pass that the minister has been able to accommodate the requests I have made. Last evening, just in case it was not clear, I rose in this place and spoke and I specifically asked him: are you prepared to have the system weighted average retained for 12 months, will you have an independent inquiry, will you include students with disability in it, will you ensure that the outcome of that inquiry, its report and recommendations, are tabled in this place, and will you please tell me the mechanism that will be used to give effect to it. Today my office and I have had phone calls, we have had emails, we have had everyone—very concerned principals, parents and others. This morning I said my staff, 'Gather together my speech from last night and Minister Birmingham's speech in response.' I have shared that with the ones I have had time to speak to; the ones I have not had time to speak to I have sent a copy. Each and every person has either come back saying, 'Thank you, I now understand the scenario,' or they have not responded and I take that to be acceptance because they were so concerned.

I will be bold enough to say that had I had the opportunity to speak to the minister in earlier days I would have counselled him against putting out the so-called per school tables, and because you know the Kimberley so well, Mr Temporary Chairman Sterle, I will simply use the illustration of Sacred Heart in Broome. If you look at the tables, they apparently got a 49 per cent increase. The entire state of WA's Catholic system is funded in a co-responsibility, but you and I know how many kids' parents will be paying fees at Sacred Heart in Broome—very few. If Sacred Heart's school board said, 'You little beauty, we're going to grab the 49 per cent, we're going to get out of this co-responsibility fund and we are going to use those funds', you, Mr Temporary Chairman, would know better than most people that Sacred Heart Broome would probably last for about two weeks because the cost of running that school is vastly greater than that sum of money. It has not helped that we now have this circumstance under way.

I say this to the archbishops who have communicated with me, and the bishops, the principals, the parents and others: yes there is some damage in terms of the system but it has been the underpinning of Catholic education certainly from the eighties when I went onto the Catholic Education Commission in WA to make sure co-responsibility was about the poorer schools being helped—the schools in the bush, the towns across the Kimberley, across the territory and across North Queensland in which there is no state school, it is only the Catholic school, and they get supported because, again, the fees, while attractive for parents, are negligible. I do not want to see the poorer schools in the Catholic system lost, but it is my understanding—I do not think I am an unintelligent person—that should these amendments pass, should we have this 12 months of system weighted average retained with a true independent review including those with disability, then the Catholic education system and indeed the other systems—the Lutherans and the others involved in education—will be able to rebuild their confidence, knowing that they are protected for the future. I have only made this contribution to put on record that that is what I requested and that has been accepted by the minister.