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

I just want to draw the chamber's attention to the issue before us, which is an amendment I moved last night in relation to the establishment of the independent resources body. I have subsequently circulated a secondary amendment to that amendment, after discussions with the government and others. I just want to draw senators' attention to the fact that that has been circulated. We heard from the minister last night that the government was willing to accept points (1) and (2) of my first amendment on sheet 8177. I would like to draw the chamber's attention to the amendment to that amendment on sheet 8179. This point goes to the naming and shaming powers of an independent resources body. We need the ability for an independent body to shine a light on what is going on.

We have just agreed, through over eight weeks of a very heated debate in relation to schools funding, that there needs to be an injection of money into our public, independent and various other school systems. We want that money to be spent on a needs basis. I think all of us, across all sides, regardless of what political colours we wear, have come to a point—and this is one of the things we should reflect on in a positive light at the end of this debate, hopefully sometime this evening—where all sides are now committed to spending government money on a needs basis. That is, schools that are in need of extra money and support get it; students who need extra money because of various loadings get it; and we ensure that public money is being spent in the best way in order to get educational outcomes, and that means helping to lift those schools that are below their resource standard up faster and quicker.

If we agree that needs based funding is the principle, we must put in place the ability to ensure that that is what is going on. If we are going to hand a cheque to a school system, hand a cheque from the federal government to a state or a territory, then this chamber has a responsibility to make sure that the money gets spent in the way we have asked for. We need to make sure that there is public transparency. A lot of the debate that has been carried out over the last couple of weeks and months in relation to this funding issue has been about the immense lack of transparency that surrounds the spending of public money throughout our various school systems.

We want to make sure that transparency is at the heart of the distribution of funds. The minister has previously spoken—we have heard him many times, I would almost suggest ad nauseam—over and over again about 27 different deals, which means that it is difficult, impossible, to understand really how that money is being spent and why and on what basis. They are getting rid of the 27 different deals—okay; that is step 1. Step 2 is to make sure that we know how that money is being spent. If you want money to go to the poorest schools, let us make sure that it happens.

We know there are schools in all of our states, whether they are in the private school systems or the public school systems, that get more money than others. We know that state governments tend to prop up their most prestigious state governments at the expense of those in poorer and less affluent suburbs. That is the truth. State governments and territory governments will not want to admit it, but that is what happens. We have seen it happen for decades. In the Catholic school system we have seen poorer Catholic schools lose out at the expense of money going towards more wealthy Catholic schools. We have seen issues of a lack of transparency and openness in the independent school sector. This is Australian taxpayers' money. They deserve to know how it is being spent, when it is being spent and whether it is being spent in line not just with the expectations of the parliament but also of the goodwill of the taxpayer.

It is hard to argue against needs based funding. It is impossible to argue against it if you actually believe in investing in education and that education is the most fundamental foundation of giving every Australian child the best opportunity to thrive and be able to achieve. If we believe needs based funding is an important principle, we must give the power to this body to report that that is what is going on—or, indeed, report that it is not. We should not be afraid to give an independent body like this the power to name and shame. If the government is not prepared to do that, I call into question whether they really want transparency at all. We have been talking about this for months. David Gonski and the original Gonski panel advocated this strongly. Let's put in place a body that actually shines a light, acts as a watchdog and ensures that the enormous amount of money that is about to flow to our public and private school sectors is spent where it needs to be spent.