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

The question that Senator Lambie asked that the minister has not responded to is: what is the budget allocation? It is not a hard question, Minister. Last night you took on notice my question about what the various calls would be on section 69A of the act. You told us that that is where the funding was going to come for this mystery $50 million fund that seems to have assured Senator Back that that is the best he is going to get. But you still have not come back to us about what other calls there are on that provision, and now you have ignored Senator Lambie's question about what the budget allocation is for this resource body. I understand the game here. I know you can ignore my questions. Ultimately public scrutiny will hold you to account for that. But ignoring Senator Lambie's questions in the current circumstances, I find absolutely bizarre. Why would you ignore her quite valid questions about what the budget allocation for this body is? It is not a hard question. The department should be able to tell you the answer to that question.

While we are on that question, let's ask some further questions about the information you gave us last night on this $50 million fund we read about in the press. You told us that the estimate was $46.5 million to assure Senator Back that he would have a moratorium on the existing arrangements that apply to non-government schools. I highlighted last night that that was not the full monty. It was nowhere near the full monty. The $46.5 million is even less, far less, than what the estimate of that figure would have been back in 2013, when I was working with Minister Garrett on these issues. The only way I could understand to justify it—and, on our assessment of your amendments overnight, I think my fears have proven correct—is that you have failed to remove your changes to the capacity-to-contribute arrangements from this bill.

I am going to ask questions which will highlight for all those concerned in this debate that that really is what the fix is. The first question, Minister, is: what would that estimate be under the existing provisions in the act? If you were to preserve the system weighted average arrangements for non-government schools that have access to them—and let's add in those systems that you have possibly deliberately stalled as well while you were thinking about these savings—what would the estimate be then? My suspicion is that the estimate you have given Senator Back, and perhaps other crossbenchers, is based on the provisions in the bill that change the capacity-to-contribute formula in an arbitrary way with no policy justification at all and certainly no policy justification ahead of the review of the SES that is planned to occur.

Let us see what that difference is. The simplest way to highlight that is for the minister to answer the question: if we leave in place all of the funding arrangements that currently apply to non-government schools—the system weighted average, the capacity-to-contribute formula—what would that estimate be then? I would like to understand that change. I understand now it applies for only the 12 months, but what is the impact of that change, state by state? Tell me, as a senator for Victoria, what the change to the capacity-to-contribute formula will mean for Victorian non-government systemic schools. Tell Senator Lambie what your unilateral change to the capacity-to-contribute formula, with no policy justification, will mean for Tasmanian non-government systemic schools.

Do not try to pretend this is all just Catholic rent-seeking, because it is not. Most states have schools, such as Lutheran schools, operating in very poor rural communities. They have schools, such as Anglican schools and a range of low-fee accessible schools, serving the interests of educating disadvantaged students. Minister, you may not have had much exposure to these schools, but that is why the Gonski review made special arrangements for the non-government schools that are what we call sole providers. These are the schools that exist in the Northern Territory—as an example—providing education to Indigenous kids. The Gonski review recommended that those schools receive full public funding.

The Gonski review then said there are other low-fee systemic schools that also deserve to be protected in ongoing funding arrangements—the sorts of schools that Senator Lambie has talked about from her own personal experience, the schools that are available to Australian families when their circumstances are down and out, the schools that not only provide access to education for those students but reside within a community parish environment that provides support and assistance to those families. These are the very schools that are compromised by your unilateral change to the capacity-to-contribute formula.

I am in a parish where the schools are further up the capacity-to-contribute curve. I am in a parish where, on the whole, the SES ranking would regard students as coming from families that could perhaps afford to pay a little bit more. But I have families from my own parish—as I said last night, I have had, for me, the unique experience of receiving emails from parents in my own parish who do not know me because I do not get an opportunity to participate as I might if I were not a federal member of parliament—lobbying me on this issue. And they are not talking about their own personal circumstances and capacity to contribute. They are talking about Senator Back's comments about their values and about co-responsibility. These families want to be there to assist others. Some of them want to pay fees higher than they might otherwise so that their school community can cross-subsidise the Australian families that, at that point in time, need that extra hand, need that extra help. This is what your unilateral change to the capacity-to-contribute formula is going to destroy unless you fix it.

I can ask the minister, till the cows come home, to quantify that impact, in order to display to the Australian public at large that the minister is failing to respond to legitimate questions about what that impact is and that he is failing to respond to a Senate order for production of documents that would allow us to understand what impact modelling might have occurred. To date, he has failed to do so. Indeed, the crossbench, in supporting him here, has failed to allow the Senate committee legislation process to do a proper review to scrutinise these changes. Perhaps, if I had been busier operating in a completely different portfolio area, he might have succeeded in hiding these issues.

Well, you cannot, Minister. This may have become, to use a phrase used by one of the witnesses that the government has been verballing in this process—I think it was Mr Pratt, from the principals, who eventually retreated to, 'This is just so wickedly complex,' and he is right—'wickedly complex'. What you have set up in this bill is wickedly complex, but, fortunately, some of us know enough about this very complex issue to be able to expose what the real deal is.

The minister might like to say that Catholic parents are whingeing, Catholic educators are scaremongering and the Catholic education system is rent seeking—very, very sad behaviour from this government—but the facts will speak for themselves. And if, at the end of the day, you manage to convince the crossbench that they should support this stuff then ultimately their behaviour will be exposed too, because it will be on the record, even if the minister persists in not answering the question, which, on the whole, probably about 80 per cent of the time, has been his response so far.

If the minister needs more time to answer these questions about the capacity-to-contribute formula then let's allow that time. His own department's submission to the legislation inquiry indicated that, in terms of timing, this could be dealt with in the first few weeks of next session. I do not know what the political imperative, which Senator Birmingham has convinced the crossbench of, is, other than the raw politics of what has been occurring in the media overnight. In advance of any vote here, the Prime Minister has had a win, and maybe he has managed to shore up his leadership. Then again some of the other commentators are highlighting that this is such a dog's breakfast and such a bad deal that it is going to come back to bite them. I agree: this will, if it is passed, come back to bite the government, the crossbench and indeed the National Party, for just rolling into this. I am appalled that the deputy leader, Barnaby Joyce, of all people in the cabinet, has allowed this to occur. In this place, Senator Canavan, also in cabinet, has allowed this to occur. This is appalling. I have heard other cabinet ministers described as having said: 'Oh, I was not there at the time.' That excuse is just not credible. It is not credible at all. We know these matters were considered by cabinet over many months. It would be irresponsible and—to pick up Senator McAllister's point before—quite reckless for any minister to suggest to his constituents: 'No, I am not responsible for this. It is all too late. There is nothing I can do.'

Senator Williams implied a moment ago in an interjection that there were not any questions. There were questions. The minister has them and he is not answering them, and that is what I am reflecting on at the moment. I have asked for the state-by-state impact of this 12-month moratorium. I have asked what that impact would be, unlike the dodgy figures he provided us yesterday, were we to—as an amendment that we are moving subsequently—retain the existing capacity to contribute provisions in the act. In the remainder of my time here, let me make clear to people what those provisions do. Last night, I was referring to the Gonski review and the advice that it gave government at the time about how to shape the capacity-to-contribute arrangements. The factors they referred to there were quite important. We had to balance those arrangements so that they allowed schools of all different types of characters to continue to operate, in particular, low-fee, systemic, non-government schools, because this panel understood how education is currently being delivered. It is those schools that are compromised by the unilateral shift the minister has made.

We had the department at one point suggest—to give Mr Cook credit, we clarified this point later—that there is nothing in this bill that deals with fees. Capacity to contribute is a hard concept to get your head around. The Gonski review described it as the 'anticipated private contribution'. The anticipated private contribution is essentially the fees you would expect parents to pay. What this government is doing under the provisions in the bill is unilaterally changing that assessment. I have a range of questions, Minister, about the impact of the shift of that curve at the various levels of the SES. (Time expired)