Lisa Darmanin (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the urgency motion on education brought forward by Senator Tyrrell. I'm really glad that Senator Tyrrell has brought this topic before the Senate, because a quality education truly sets our young people up for the best possible start in life. It is absolutely an issue of national importance. Now more than ever, we must focus on equipping the next generation with the skills they need to succeed. Sadly, 10 years of the coalition government were absolutely terrible for students, teachers and families across this country. That's because more than $20 billion was ripped out of our public schools, as already highlighted by Senator Stewart, and no surprises who was sitting on the Expenditure Review Committee at that time—none other than Peter Dutton. The coalition failed our students. Attendance rates declined, high school completion rates fell, teacher shortages grew and the gap between rich and poor widened. In contrast, Labor value education because it opens the doors of opportunity, which is why we are committed to building a better and fairer education system that prepares students for the modern world.

Our children deserve the chance to develop the skills they need to succeed, as Senator Tyrrell outlined, and the building blocks of this are, of course, solid literacy and numeracy foundations. How are we going to do this? The Albanese government's Better and Fairer Schools Agreement is a significant step towards this. It ties funding to important reforms designed to lift student outcomes. Among those reforms are essential measures to improve numeracy and literacy. For instance, we're introducing the year 1 phonics check and an early years numeracy check to identify as early as possible students who need additional support. Senator Tyrrell outlined an example from Burnie where improvements in maths education were evidenced. The Albanese government believe in evidence based teaching, and we are backing that up with targeted, intensive interventions like small group or catch-up tutoring for students who fall behind. These are proven methods that work, and they're aimed at ensuring no student gets left behind.

These are critical reforms to enable our young people, when they go into the world, to make their own way and to be as prepared as they can be to make fiscally responsible decisions, but none of this can happen without our teachers. Teachers are the backbone of our education system, and they do one of the most important jobs in the world. I am reminded of this by my husband, Luke, who, as a teacher at a secondary school in northern Melbourne, has this year been teaching many year 12 students to prepare them for their futures. That's why our reforms also include initiatives to attract and retain teachers, particularly experienced ones, by rewarding their hard work and incentivising them to work in schools that need the most support.

These reforms aren't just about lifting up individual students; they're about lifting up the whole system. We're setting clear targets, like getting more students out of the lowest NAPLAN bands and into the higher levels for numeracy and reading. There are reforms to assist young people in making fiscally responsible decisions—skills that are required for all young people, as Senator Tyrrell has rightly identified. We're focusing on improving school attendance because school is where the learning happens, and we're committed to ensuring the proportion of First Nations students completing year 12 goes up, as part of our dedication to closing the gap. This isn't just talk.

These reforms are backed by real funding commitments. Western Australia and the Northern Territory have already signed up to the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement. In the Northern Territory, this means their schools will go from being the lowest funded in the country to some of the best funded. Over the next five years, their schools will be nearly $1 billion better off. In Western Australia, the agreement means every student will attend a fully funded school by the first day of term in 2026. That's the kind of transformative funding we want to see in every state and territory.

The Australian government have put $16 billion on the table to close the funding gap and drive these reforms, but we can't do this alone. The Commonwealth are ready to contribute, but we need the states and territories to step up and meet us halfway. From day one of being in government, education has been a key priority, and we are taking real action in a way that balances ambition with responsibility.