Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I'm sure these are wonderful spaces in an amazing learning environment. But that's my problem and why I'm here fighting. When did we stop wanting that for all children so that all students around the country are able to learn in and access beautiful spaces that enrich their education and help broaden their interests? Let's compare that with some of the public schools in this country. One public school in Victoria has 61 demountables—I will say that again: 61 demountables. Another in Melbourne's north-east has 49. This means that instead of building infrastructure governments are saddling state schools with temporary demountables and not anything that's long-term, efficient or appropriate, let alone beautiful and lovely to be in. This means for these students there is no permanent six-storey heritage building with different build-outs. No, instead, they have demountables that get unbearably hot in summer and unbearably cold in winter. I can tell you, having taught in several classrooms like that in Queensland throughout my public school teaching career, that I can confirm that they are absolutely not conducive to young people maximising their learning. I taught in classrooms on the cape that flood every time it rains, and I've taught in classrooms riddled with asbestos that have to be cleared every time there is a bump or a knock on the wall that means they're unsafe.

How can we accept this? How can we ask parent and students to accept this? That is why this motion is so important. It is so critical for us to not shy away from the fights and stickiness in these debates. I'm here because I believe the fight we must be having and that Labor must be having is looking at why some schools can lavish such excess on their students, and why others—kids in public schools—are forced to struggle for the minimum. When did this become the Australian norm? It's completely obvious by now that the system is rigged. The mirage of choice that was pioneered by the Howard and the Gillard governments and other coalition governments has completely poisoned the well of egalitarian schooling in Australia. No longer is it about choice. The true choice is whether or not your parents have the financial choice to send you to a private or a public school.

The biggest determinant of how well a young person does in the education system in this country is their parents' bank balance. And that's a fact.

Instead of expanding and exploring what our public system could be and the ways that it could be shaped differently, we've just ripped that up and we're only dishing out the good stuff to the kids whose families can afford it. This is setting us up to lock an immovable type of inequality into our education system. Instead of broadening the horizons about what we can achieve in our public system, private schools are becoming reliant on the millions and millions of dollars of public money that they expect to receive to keep the wheels turning. While public schools around this country fight for basic amenities, the government continues to pour money into the private sector. We know that public school funding in Australia is well below the OECD average. When do we call this a crisis? Underfunding means one teacher for dozens of kids. It means kids not getting the support that they need. Eighty-five per cent of young people in this country with additional needs are in public schools. It means broken laptops—if you're lucky enough to have them—and out-of-date textbooks, and it is teachers and parents who are making up the shortfall.

Above all, underfunding means kids slipping through the cracks. If we're going to keep wringing our hands about the outcomes of our students and how they continue to fall, then we need to fund our public schools to the bare minimum. Not funding our public schools to 100 per cent of the SRS means failing. It means not setting those kids up for success, and it means widening inequality in this country. That's why I moved this disallowance, and that's why I ask that the Senate support this motion and that the government work with us to ensure that public schools are not falling down around students' heads or riddled with asbestos or leaking or flooding before giving even more money to private schools.