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

Is it any wonder that we find ourselves in the mess that we're in? From both Labor and the coalition we've just heard all the excuses as to why our schools aren't fully funded. We've been talking about this for over a decade, and this has meant that we've stopped talking about what it actually is that means we can do good things in our schools. We've been talking about money for 12 years, and where do we find ourselves? We find ourselves with teachers leaving en masse; classrooms in disrepair; more and more kids unable to go to school, with 40 per cent of kids having experienced some sort of 'school can't' in the last 12 months; and completion rates falling. And this has happened under both the government's and the coalition's watch.

Senator Sheldon said to cast your mind back. Well, let's cast our minds back to when the Gonski report was handed down. That review said we need sector-blind, needs based funding. And the first words that came out of the education minister's mouth were, 'Julia Gillard said no private school will be worse off,' effectively undoing Gonski from the get-go.

Senator Henderson says that the Commonwealth is meeting its share. Why do we keep insisting on trying to convince the Australian public that there is some immutable law that the 20-80 split in both directions is something that can't be changed? It's an arbitrary number that John Howard came up with which enabled the federal government, the arm of government that has the most cash, to fund the sector with the least number of students in it and with the least amount of need, while the states are left to fund the public schools, which have the majority of students and around 80 to 85 per cent of kids with the highest need. It's a magic number. They pulled it out of the air. And it's not even a cap. Go and ask the drafters in the Table Office. It's an arbitrary default number; if they can't agree, it defaults to that. Year upon year we've had both Labor and coalition ministers telling us that we've got this issue of a cap, when the cap is not even real.

I'll tell you what's real. We have an education system in this country that has bought into the global education reform movement. Pasi Sahlberg calls it the germ, and it is a germ. We are focused on data and numbers, and we've forgotten about what school is about. It's about young people. How many of you have gone out lately and asked a young person what they think about school? A report in the UK a couple of years ago said that most young people, particularly those in high school, said that it's something they had to endure.

People in this chamber laugh. Well, you keep laughing. I've been a teacher for 30 years and I have never seen the public education system like it is now. We are on the edge of having a system that crumbles under the weight of successive governments' inaction.

And, yes, the extra funding that has been given to the NT is welcome, and the agreement that WA has made is welcome. But the minister still refuses to rule out getting rid of Morrison's loophole. You want to bang on and accuse a coalition of underfunding schools, but why are you hanging onto a loophole that he instigated?

Yes, I'm angry! I've worked in a system that successive governments have not funded properly. Senator Tyrrell is right: teachers and parents and kids are sick of you arguing. Time is running out. Stop arguing over arbitrary numbers, get the deals done and fund our schools. (Time expired)