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

by leave—I move amendments (13) and (14) on sheet 8155 together:

(13) Schedule 1 , item 43 , page 13 (line 29) , omit " sections 52 and 53 ", substitute " section 52 ".

(14) Schedule 1 , item 43 , page 13 (line 33) , omit " subsection 52(1) ", substitute " section 52 ".

We also oppose schedule 1 in the following terms:

(4) Schedule 1 , item 3 , page 3 (lines 14 and 15) , to be opposed.

(8) Schedule 1 , item 41 , page 13 (lines 24 and 25) , to be opposed.

(10) Schedule 1 , item 42 , page 13 (lines 26 and 27) , to be opposed.

These amendments deal with retaining the minister's ability to set SES for a group of schools and maintaining the existing primary capacity-to-contribute curve. We have canvassed this issue several times already during the debate on this bill, so I will attempt to cover a range of key points fairly quickly to reinforce the discussion that has already occurred. Because the SES scores do not seem to accurately assess the ability of school communities to pay fees and changes to the primary capacity-to-contribute curve, many low-fee systemic schools and indeed catholic schools will be hard hit. The government's bill assumes that primary parents are able to contribute more to fees than is currently the case.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics evidence to the legislation committee inquiry into the bill showed that primary school parents on average earn less and have lower labour force participation rates than secondary school parents. The Catholic Education Commission estimates that around 600 Catholic schools will face a funding cut from 2017 to 2018 alone. This is the cliff that I have referred to. Other changes in this model allow a transition—it was 10 years; it is now six. There is no transition in this shift. The cuts around the ministers arbitrary changes to the capacity-to-contribute arrangements for non-government schools hit straight, hit right up and hit in 2018.

Catholic parish schools have warned that the cuts will force them to raise fees or possibly close existing schools in local communities. Minister Birmingham has presented dodgy figures to try to present this package as increasing funding. These are the so-called fantasy figures that rebased 2017, on the basis of a formula that will never apply to 2017, to try to convince parents that they would get an increase between 2017 and 2018—an outrageous process in public policy administration.

Stephen Elder, the education director of Catholic Education Melbourne, wrote:

When Catholic education first raised concerns with the Turnbull Government's Quality Schools funding package, Minister Birmingham said there was 'a lot of exaggeration' about the impact that it would have on schools …

But according to the education department's own calculations, Catholic schools will see a total loss of $4.6 billion. It is pretty clear—indeed, thanks to Senator Leyonhjelm—that Catholic Education was not exaggerating. I have asked this minister to correct the record from question time when he claimed that there would be an increase in sharer funding for Catholic Education. It is in fact quite the reverse—and starkly so.

Reverend Anthony Fisher, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, said in The Australian Financial Review on 8 May this year:

What's already apparent is that the government's new 'capacity to pay formula'—

and indeed I wish Senator Back was here now, because he appears to have been convinced that this capacity-to-pay formula had not really been raised by Catholic Education, and I do not know what higher level you might want than Archbishop Fisher raising this issue directly in The Financial Review

will force fee rises of over $1000 for a very significant number—at least 78—of the Catholic primary schools in Sydney alone. For some areas of Sydney fees could more than double. Modelling in other states has found the same.

This relates to the point I made earlier in the discussion, that there is really only one education provider other than—well, in fact, this is a unique situation for Catholic Education, because you have state governments operating their systems, Catholic Education systems operating theirs and then somewhat disparate independent schools, most of whom do not operate as systems, delivering education in a way that they do not really operate the funding-estimating model. They do not really understand or do not really have the capacity to quickly gauge the impact. But Catholic Education do, and that is why they were cottoning on to the significance of these changes very early on.

There has been next to no consultation with the Catholic sector about these reforms, just an effort to bully and silence school principals, teachers, parents and educators who are standing up for fair funding—quite the reverse of the contribution the minister made at the very large convention in Perth just ahead of the last election, where he claimed that Catholic Education are not just an appendage to the education system. But now he seems to be trying to conduct surgery and turn them into something else. We value the contribution the Catholic education system makes to Australian education, and we want to preserve it, whereas these amendments, arbitrarily changing the capacity to contribute formula, could seriously damage this unique and valuable element of our education system.

The Department of Education and Training revealed in Senate estimates that the figures on their website from 2017 are based on the new model, as I said earlier, and will never apply to 2017. The figures overinflate the starting point for many Catholic schools. So it is no wonder, when parents started looking at that site and trying to understand how it related to the reality in their school, that Catholic Education very quickly pointed out the farce that was involved in setting up that school funding estimator. It appears that the online calculator includes funding figures for some schools that are wrong by more than $1 million. That is how stark this exercise has been.

The minister and the department have repeatedly been asked to share the actual 2017 figures that systems and schools will actually receive based on the current settings in the act. Senators involved in this debate have heard me ask for figures based on the current settings in the act, which the minister continues to refuse to provide. Despite claiming that they have shared some of this information, the data in the current financial estimator tool has never been shared. They are hiding the actual funding for Catholic schools and systems in 2017, as it will reveal the extent of the cuts—the cliff that happens next year.

The minister should urgently reveal the actual 2017 figures for Catholic schools across the country so that school communities, parents and teachers can accurately assess the impact of this policy. This type of behaviour will not be possible in the future if we get the school resourcing body operating properly, but this is indeed where we are now in respect of this issue.

These amendments will retain the primary capacity-to-contribute curve, as it currently exists in the act. They will deliver the full-monty, so to speak, in terms of preserving existing arrangements, until such time as the review of the SES occurs. And they will keep the system weighted average as it is currently provided for in the act rather than the new arrangements that the government has proposed under more-general provisions, once again, until such time as an SES review is undertaken, and should then be supported.