Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to speak briefly to these amendments as circulated by the government. These of course relate directly to the issues raised by the Greens in terms of making sure that we do not make Australian kids wait an entire decade to get their school resource standard up to something that is appropriate. We know that kids are struggling in schools right across this country and we know that the bulk of underfunded schools across Australia are public schools. They have waited far too long for the injection of money that has been promised and then unpromised and promised again. It is a relief that we finally have some commitment to bring forward the obligations to ensure that our schools right across the country that are underfunded can start to catch up.

We know that, when the Gonski reforms were originally envisaged, the recommendations of David Gonski and his panel talked a lot about the fact that we had to start putting our schools on an equal footing; we had to put in a lot of effort to get schools that were well behind up to a standard which was acceptable. Of course there are schools that continue to be well and truly overfunded, and the Greens have an amendment that will start to rein in some of that overfunding at a faster rate as well. In conversations with members of the crossbench, with the government and with the opposition I think it is clear that 10 years was too long. I welcome the fact that the government has acknowledged that and I welcome the change as a genuine attempt at a step forward to deal with the inequalities and disadvantages particularly in our public schools across the country. The Greens strongly support this amendment and will be very pleased to see it pass.