Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

This morning, I met Sarah from Don College, my old school. Don College is a public senior secondary school in Devonport. Sarah told me that her younger brother desperately needs support, but the school doesn't have any support staff. She also told me that when her maths teacher broke her hip her relief teachers weren't even maths teachers. Don College also has no wi-fi, and they couldn't have a school camp because they simply didn't have the money. Meanwhile, when the government announced $30 million for school infrastructure upgrades, some of that money went to Tasmania's most expensive private schools. What is wrong with this picture?

The Gonski report was released in 2012. It laid out a plan for needs based funding. The more in need the kids were, the more government funding that school would get. The Gonski report also recommended that governments reduce payments to over-funded schools that didn't need them and redirect funds on a needs based model. As Gonski put it at the time:

… differences in educational outcomes should not be the result of differences in wealth, income, power or possessions …

Gonski's family came from humble beginnings. He knew what difference a good education made. The report's key recommendation was the schooling resource standard, the SRS—a base rate of funding per student with additional loading for disadvantage. The SRS would determine the required funding needed for each school, but, a decade on, most public schools are yet to reach their full funding, and more funding has gone to the less needy schools.

In 2010, Prime Minister Julia Gillard insisted that your postcode shouldn't determine how well you do in life. But, in 2024, apparently it still does. On average, our poorest kids are three years behind the kids from our wealthy households. Gonski was a Labor reform, and the education minister Jason Clare has vowed to fix the funding gap. The states are close to giving their 75 per cent of funding together, but now the government is offering only 22.5 per cent. Just do the right thing and lift another 2.5 per cent and give them their 25 per cent. That is what they are asking for.

While private schools are getting taxpayer dollars to build libraries that look like castles—that's a true story; believe me that is a true story—and sport centres with Olympic swimming pools, the demountables that are at Don College were there when I was there. We won't say how many years ago, but it was many years ago. I'm telling you that this is really not fair.

Our poorest kids are now starting to slip even lower because we are not funding those public schools, and there is a significant difference between those rich schools and our public schools. We have a serious class problem in this country. We seriously do. And if it means taking some funding off the rich and giving to the poor then maybe it's about time we did that. I'm sorry, but I don't want these kids, the most disadvantaged out there, missing out any more. It is not fair. I've absolutely had a gut full of class in this country!