Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank all senators for their contributions to this debate. The Better and Fairer Schools (Funding and Reform) Bill 2024 is an important bill. It will increase funding for public schools across the country by changing the Commonwealth contribution to the Schooling Resource Standard for government schools.

This bill ties funding to reform under the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement. These reforms will help Australian students catch up, keep up and finish school. It also ties funding to practical things like phonics checks, numeracy checks, evidence based teaching and catch-up tutoring to identify students who need additional support and to make sure they get it.

Under the current settings, the Commonwealth government provides 80 per cent of SRS funding for non-government schools and the state and territory governments provide the other 20 per cent. For public schools it's the reverse; the Commonwealth provides 20 per cent of the SRS funding and the states and territories are supposed to provide at least another 75 per cent. That means there is a five per cent gap. At the last election we promised to work with the states and territories to get all schools on a path to 100 per cent of the SRS and fill that five per cent gap.

What this means is both the Commonwealth government and the states and territories contributing more.

To lift the Commonwealth contribution for public schools, we have to amend the Australian Education Act. At the moment, the way the Australian Education Act works is that the Commonwealth government can provide a maximum of 20 per cent funding of the Schooling Resource Standard, that standard that David Gonski—

Debate interrupted.