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

I can indicate—somewhat wryly, I have to say—that Labor will be supporting these amendments. Why I take that approach, I suppose, is that I reflect on the government's response to when we had a six-year transition plan and indeed all of the political statements at the time about how it was not fully funded because the funding was not fully provided in the forward estimates over four years—and here we have pretty much the same type of plan. Labor is going to take the responsible position here and accept the improvements that the crossbench has been able to achieve, but again I highlight that response in comparison to the former response of the current government, when we had the six-year transition plan under Gonski 1. We may be talking different quantum figures here, but the pretence that it involves funding beyond the forward years is again essentially replicated here. It is not as stark as it was when it was over 10 years, and I am not going to waste the Senate's time in getting the detail of what proportion of the funding is in the first four years. That is the sort of argument that this government has pursued in the past, and it is really not a credible policy position. We accept that there has been improvement in the amount of funding that will come forward and we appreciate the progress that the crossbench has been able to make on that particular matter, and for that reason we will be supporting these amendments.

I do have to indicate, though, that we still fundamentally believe—and this is what best characterises the position we are taking on this bill as a whole—that the combined approach recommended in the Gonski review, rather than this minister's confected Commonwealth-only approach, is going to achieve the best long-term outcomes. I agree with Senator Back that it is best, in dealing with states and territories, to apply the carrot rather than the stick. I will not say much more on that now, because we will get to that in further amendments when we are dealing with the bill and what has been proposed to deal with that, but we believe that is a fundamentally wrongheaded approach. We have done what we could to try to convince the government that the nature of their approach with states and territories was not going to be to the long-term benefit of Australian school students, but we understand that for the crossbench any improvement they could get on what the government was prepared to propose is better than what was originally proposed. Only the future will tell us, and the Schools Resourcing Board will help us in the future understand how effective we have been in dealing with the behaviour of states and territories and how they fund school education.

As I said, we still fundamentally believe that the 20 per cent for government schools and the 80 per cent for non-government schools is unfair. The impact of increasing the Commonwealth funding level to some non-government schools cannot be described as fair in any sense of the word. The improvement in funding, for instance, to my high-fee independent school, which will apply almost equally under this six-year transition as under the 10-year transition, is not fair when schools such as my local Catholic parish primary school suffer the cuts that are related to the capacity-to-contribute formula changes. It is not fair. I am not going to go into the various schools, cherrypicking examples; I have given you just my local example.

I have the income and the capacity to now send my youngest child to a high-fee independent school. It just so happens that she is attending that school because it is the best local school that meets her particulars. But I have the income that enables me to pay those sorts of fees. Many children in my local area attend the low-fee Catholic systemic parish school that my children also attended. Their parents do not have the capacity to meet the increased fees that will apply if this Senate approves the changes to the capacity-to-contribute formula. Certainly I could, but many of the other parents of children in that school could not. That school includes students from the refugee community. In Box Hill, South Sudanese students and quite a number of Asian students participate within that parish and that school. Their parents will not be able to meet the increase that will occur unless we remove those provisions from the act.

In dealing with this fundamental shift to 80-20, we note that this faster transition time and the cuts to school funding is still almost $20 billion over 10 years if you use our plan as the status quo. Sure, there has been a lot of discussion about what should be the relevant status quo—the Abbott status quo or the Labor status quo—but that point still remains. Sure, there has been a $5 billion improvement in the overall pool, but these significant cuts to an alternative plan to school funding are still there. This will reduce the quality of education that schools can provide. It will affect New South Wales schools, which have been on a much better plan. Unfortunately, the grief I still feel here is best described by what the Australian Education Union indicated should be the alternative. They said, 'Preserve the existing agreements—continue them on their six-year plan, continue Victoria on its slightly longer plan to a consistent student resource standard and renegotiate with those other states that weren't able to become participating states.' That is what has not happened here.

The 20 per cent low rate for government schools still means that only 85 per cent of government schools will get to their fair funding level. That is the big concern about this shift. Let me say that again: the 20 per cent for government schools embedded in this bill still means that only 85 per cent of government schools will get to their fair funding level. Because we have not been able to see any government modelling, and I gather the minister still has not responded to the Senate's order for production of documents, we cannot properly understand which those schools are. Where are those schools? We are reasonably confident a fair proportion of them are in the Northern Territory. But where is that 15 per cent of public schools that will never reach their student-resourcing standard?

Hopefully the new student resourcing board will be able to enlighten us on some of those issues. We can look at the more appropriate ways to target policy to help those schools get to an appropriate student resource standard. But this plan still does not get many public schools there. Remember, no state or territory has agreed to increase their funding, and we will get to a discussion later about how feasible the arrangements proposed really are. I have characterised them pretty clearly, I think. They are a stick approach rather than a carrot approach, and Labor fundamentally believes that they will not work. Of course, then we have this perverse situation where they may indeed encourage some states to withdraw funding from non-government schools. This may indeed encourage some states to retreat rather than improve their funding.

So, Minister, I have just two questions of you in relation to these amendments. The first is: what does this faster transition mean in terms of the share of the additional funding that will go to public schools? You will have heard the concerns that 80 per cent of the additional funding under Gonski 1.0 went to public schools and only 50 per cent of the Gonski 2.0 additional funding would have gone to public schools. So my question now is: what proportion of the additional funding in—what shall we call it? Perhaps I should consult the crossbench. Will we call this Gonski 2.0+?