Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will just speak briefly to the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006. This is order of business No. 15, which is rather lower down than No. 6 or No. 7, which is how the order was originally planned. We got a tiny bit of warning that the order would change, and I suspect our other Democrat speaker may be down here shortly. I take the opportunity to note that this is a non-controversial piece of legislation and there are no amendments that seek to modify or improve it in any way.

Often the area of schools is not given adequate attention. There is a lot of understandable focus on higher education and skills development in general and often not sufficient focus on schools in general and some of the policy issues there. In that respect, the prospect of legislation that seeks to improve that situation is something that should be welcomed.

I want to take the opportunity to emphasise that across the board we could do better at examining ways to put more focus on schools—and, indeed, as has been mentioned, preschools and early childhood areas. A related matter is the inquiries in the Senate at the moment about adequacy of government support, for example, in the disability area. There is no doubt that one of the key areas where we are not doing well enough across the board—and this is not a partisan comment; I think it applies across the board—is in using an adequate level of resourcing for young students with what are colloquially called special needs and ensuring that they are properly assisted. If that extra assistance is provided at very early stages, there is no doubt that it can have significant benefit down the track.

Of course, the counter to that is that, where assistance is not provided, there is significant loss down the track. I use by way of example the condition of autism and autism spectrum disorders such as Asperger’s. There is now plenty of evidence that extra intervention and assistance in those very early years in schooling for children can make a very big difference down the track. It costs a little extra money and it does require more individual attention that actually addresses the specific needs and the development situation of individual children. That is always going to mean a little extra expense, but I think that benefit not just for that child but for their family and society as a whole is very much worth the extra amount. So I certainly take this opportunity to urge all of us to look at ways to give that extra support in childhood education and schooling for, for example, children that diagnose with autism spectrum related characteristics, because there is plenty of evidence that that sort of intensive intervention and assistance, while keeping children in the broader school community, bears enormous fruit for them.

Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The so-called Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006 essentially provides funding to support capital works in Australian schools. The bill extends the funding under the general capital works program for 2009, 2010 and 2011. These advance approval arrangements have been in place for many years and allow for longer term planning and scheduling of works. The Democrats will support the bill. While the funding for capital works is inadequate and the distribution of that funding across schools is inequitable and lacking in planning, we are clearly in no position to change that with this legislation.

In our view, schools should be provided with the resources they need to deliver a quality education, and this should be a priority for all parties and levels of government. If the quality of the school environment is a measure of the value a society places on its children and its commitment to giving them the best possible start in life, then I am afraid to say that Australia is still sadly lacking. In a world that properly values education and its children, all children would be learning in modern, comfortable buildings that enhance the learning experience—and that means adequate heat in winter, adequate cooling in summer, comfortable furniture, areas to read and play, access to state-of-the-art technology, and good playing fields and sports facilities if children are to be kept physically active. Of course, that is not the current situation for a lot of Australian children.

Unfortunately, many schools are desperately in need of funding to bring the physical environment in which children are supposed to be learning up to an acceptable standard. For instance, Victoria’s public schools have accumulated $268 million in maintenance bills, with 14 schools recording repairs needing a total of more than $1 million. I visited many schools in Victoria and elsewhere and I have seen that reality for myself. I have seen portable classrooms with leaking roofs, broken windows, and floors, walls and ceilings in need of repair. There are still schools that do not have basic indoor multipurpose recreation facilities with gym equipment and the like.

Schools have been chronically underfunded, but of course we do not really know by how much. The latest formal evaluation of the capital grants program was way back in 1999. Seven years is a long time to allow this to go unassessed. But, even back in 1999, the department’s own report, Capital matters, stated that there was an urgent need for a national picture of school infrastructure. We still do not have that national picture. We desperately need an audit of capital works at schools in this country—a national audit of all school buildings and facilities which will give us the information that the government needs to properly make policy.

There are huge differences in the environments of schools across the country. There are the very wealthy private schools, the very well resourced government schools and the schools that were built in the sixties that really should be demolished. There are children in so-called portable classrooms that are not going anywhere and have not gone anywhere for 25 years.

Whether a government school gets money for building works often depends on its ability to raise its own money and the quality of the grant application which is made. There is no entitlement to a standard of facilities. There is no agreed listing of priority schools so that schools might know when their work is coming. It is entirely ad hoc—certainly in Victoria, and I know this to be the case in other states as well—and it is unsatisfactory. The federal government, for all of its involvement in schooling and all of its finger pointing at the states, is unwilling to take this action to see that we know just what the capital works funding is for and whether it is adequate.

Some government schools in Victoria are getting swimming pools, and they are to be funded by the private sector and made available to the general public after hours. I do not object to that concept, but what is the policy and how does it deliver equity? Is it just an experiment for a handful of schools to see how it goes and maybe one day all Victorian schools will have a swimming pool? I do not know. There is never any talk about that kind of approach. There is no sense of universality. Are all schools entitled to pools or not? Are all schools entitled to gym facilities or not? We do not have that conversation in this country.

The money for capital works is not granted in the knowledge of an audit of which schools need it first and of what it should be spent on. The process is not grounded in standards—there are no standards for what should be in a school—and it is not grounded in fairness. As I said, there are huge differences in the resources available to schools within and between the government and non-government sectors. While the federal government might like to try and lay the blame for inadequate facilities at the feet of state governments, Commonwealth funding as a percentage of the total capital works spending has fallen since this government came to office. It has actually gone down. Can you imagine that in this day and age we would be reducing the amount of money which is available to schools?

The Commonwealth provides around 30 per cent of the total funding for capital works in government schools, but there has been no real increase since 1996, as I said. This bill only provides $249 million for capital works in 2005 prices, and that is the same amount in real terms as the government allocated for government schools in 1996. It is about $110 for each of the 2.2 million students in government schools across Australia—and we all know what $110 buys these days. Does anyone really believe that this is an adequate amount to meet the obvious needs in so many government schools?

It is not good enough, I think, to trumpet the mantra of choice, as this government is so fond of doing, and suggest that parents pay to send their children to a better resourced school. Many parents do not have that choice, whether for reasons of distance or finances. As a result of that, we have children learning in classrooms that are either too hot or too cold, are uncomfortable and do not have adequate lighting or air quality or computing facilities.

Of course, this capital funding is not the only money the federal government provides for capital works; I acknowledge that. There are also funding opportunities through small-scale projects—the so-called Investing in Our Schools program. While any funding is welcome, this has only been available since 2005 and there is no guarantee from the government yet that it will extend past 2007. Again, only a handful of schools are really going to benefit. And, of course, there is the maximum upper limit of $150,000 for these grants, making it suitable for very small scale projects but not much else.

This government has been very eager in recent times to make its mark on state schools. It has tied extra funding to flagpoles and insisted on meaningless testing. It tediously wages campaigns against teaching methods, against report cards, against teaching standards and against teachers. It has been quick to criticise curriculum in history and geography. Now, according to Minister Bishop, the government wants to take over all of the curriculum.

While they have been quick to talk up the inadequacy of state education at any opportunity and they managed to hold a history summit and apparently had a review of the SES funding process—not that anyone was actually able to contribute to that or find out what the results of it were—the government have not been able to coordinate any sort of response to the infrastructure needs of schools. There has been no summit; there has been no review; there has been no benchmark developed to say what a minimum standard should be for any school, whether government or private; there has been no audit; and there is no understanding of which schools are up to the mark and which are not. There certainly has not been any sort of plan developed to fund schools to meet basic infrastructure standards.

This is a slapdash, mediocre approach that will continue to condemn children to dilapidated schools and substandard resources. It will stop children from having the high-quality educational spaces that should be the right of every single child. This government has lots of money; it clearly has a lot to say about our schools. We think it is time this government put its money where its mouth is and made a serious effort to upgrade the physical quality of our schools.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006. Before I turn to the substance of the bill, I want to put on record the opposition’s concern about the actions of the government today. We are debating non-controversial legislation, legislation that by agreement has been placed in the non-controversial area of our timetable. One would have thought that, even if the government does not want to treat this chamber with the appropriate courtesy, it could at least do so on non-controversial bills, given that there is agreement on the passage of them. Yet what we had was the parliamentary secretary moving a rearrangement and immediately proceeding to debate the two bills that were first off in that rearrangement, despite the fact that that significantly differed from what had been previously agreed. The government is entitled to do that, but I want to emphasise to the chamber that certainly the Manager of Opposition Business had no prior warning of that rearrangement. He was not advised. I do not know if other parties were, but certainly the opposition were not.

Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We weren’t either.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand from the interjection from Senator Murray that the Democrats equally were not advised.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You were.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business has indicated to me that he was not advised of the order of rearrangement that was moved by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration and then immediately proceeded on. The point I want to make is that we are talking about bills which are not being opposed by the opposition. They are in the non-controversial section of the program. A modicum of courtesy and regard for the chamber, one would have thought, would have led the government to at least advise the relevant managers of business or whips of the opposition and the minor parties. It seems extraordinary that the government cannot even bring itself to show the chamber the sort of courtesy, if it is going to rearrange the program, to at least let us know before the motion is moved.

I turn now to the substance of this bill. This bill provides funding for three years beyond the current funding quadrennium to enable approval of capital works in advance of funding for the years 2009, 2010 and 2011. These advance approval arrangements have been in place for many years and the opposition will support the bill.

I will go on to say a few things about the substance of the bill. The funding provided for by this bill is for the general capital grants program. The Commonwealth has provided funding for school buildings and capital infrastructure in schools since the 1970s. In 2006 the Commonwealth is providing around $350 million for government and non-government schools, in 2005 price levels, for the general element of the capital grants program.

In relation to government schools, this bill does seek to extend capital funding for government schools for each of the years 2009, 2010 and 2011. It provides $249 million for each of these years, again in 2005 price levels. This is the same annual amount in real terms that the Howard government has allocated for government schools since 1996. The Commonwealth’s contribution from the general capital program is around 22 per cent of total funding for capital works and infrastructure in government schools. This proportion is down from an average Commonwealth capital funding in government schools of 32 per cent over the years 1987 to 1997. So there has been an effective drop in the Commonwealth’s share of funding for capital works—this is essentially for infrastructure, classrooms and school facilities—of 10 per cent, from 32 per cent to 22 per cent, over the period that the Howard government has been in office. The source for this material is Capital matters: an evaluation of the Commonwealth’s Capital Grants Programme for schools, which was produced by the Department of Education, Science and Training in December 1999.

There are real concerns about the quality of capital infrastructure in government schools. Professor Brian Caldwell, a regular consultant for the government and a contributor to the Menzies Research Centre, has researched the state of capital infrastructure in Australia’s government schools. He has concluded that the overall state of facilities in government schools in this country is in decline. The stock of school buildings, in his view, is unsuited to the demands of learning in the 21st century. There has been no increase in real terms in the general capital grants program for government schools since the Howard government came to office in 1996.

The government has provided some additional funding—around $700 million over four years—for government schools for minor school projects under the Investing in Our Schools program. This funding is directed at small-scale projects. We welcome that funding. However, it fails to address the fundamental need for infrastructure renewal in Australian government schools. To do that, partnership is required between the Commonwealth and the states.

The fact is that adequate capital facilities are needed if we are to achieve educational benefits. Research shows that there is a causal link between building quality and design and student outcomes. The research demonstrates that student academic achievement improves with an improved environment and with improved building conditions. Factors such as lighting, air quality, temperature and acoustics have an effect on student behaviour and learning. I am referencing a report, commissioned by the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs in 2002, by Kenn Fisher entitled Building better outcomes: the impact of school infrastructure on student outcomes and behaviour.

Studies show that students in newer buildings achieved academic results that were significantly higher than similar students in older buildings with poorer maintenance, lighting, temperature control and floor coverings. UNESCO research also advises on the effects of unsuitable furniture on student discomfort. This can cause backache, reduced concentration spans and writing difficulties and therefore reduce learning opportunities. I am referring to the UNESCO educational building and furniture program referenced in the Fisher report of 2002. One of the key messages from this research is that governments are underestimating the effects of school design on the performance of students and teachers.

The Howard government has provided an additional $1 billion for minor capital projects in schools, including around $700 million over the 2005 to 2008 period for these projects in government schools. This is very valuable funding for schools and enables communities to get funding of up to $150,000 for such projects as computers, shade structures, musical instruments, furniture, floor coverings and small-scale extensions. These projects have the potential to improve the learning environments of students. But the maximum funding, $150,000, simply cannot deliver on the need for fundamental improvements in school building quality and design in government schools.

Despite the fact that $150,000 is the maximum funding available to a school, to date the average grant appears to be closer to $50,000 than $150,000. This Investing in Our Schools funding program for government schools is due to end in 2007. The bill provides no advance approvals for opportunities for projects under this program. School communities would be greatly helped by early advice on the future of the program. Many valuable projects around the country are in jeopardy because of uncertainty about the program beyond 2008.

I want to now turn briefly to non-government schools. The bill allocates just over $86 million for capital works in non-government schools for 2009, 2010 and 2011. This is down from almost $102 million in 2006 and $90 million in 2008, in 2005 price levels. The Bills Digest explains that this reduction in funding for non-government schools arises from the lapsing of two program elements for those schools. First, the government added to the base funding for non-government schools by around $10 million per year for a number of fixed term elements, such as hostels and technology infrastructure for Indigenous students. That would otherwise have ended after the 1996 election. This funding lapses in 2007.

Second, the government introduced an additional $17 million in capital funding for non-government schools in the Northern Territory in 2004. This funding was provided in recognition of the fact that none of the Catholic systemic schools in the Northern Territory received increases in general recurrent funding when the previous minister announced that Catholic systemic schools would be ‘brought into the SES funding system’ from 2005. In fact, all of the Catholic systemic schools in the Northern Territory had to be categorised as ‘maintained’ or they would have lost funding if they were funded at their assessed SES rate. It says much about the government’s piecemeal and stopgap approach to policy development that its response to the failure of the funding scheme for general recurrent grants for non-government schools in the Northern Territory was to plaster this over with some funding for capital works in those schools. The compensatory funding for capital works in the Northern Territory will in fact end in 2008 and the funding levels for non-government schools are down from $102 million in the current financial year to $86 million in 2009 and beyond.

The opposition wants to place on record some concerns regarding accountability for the capital grants program. To say the least, we consider accountability for this program to be weak. The objectives for the capital grants program are not included in the legislation. There is no legislative provision that requires the program to give priority to educational need—this is left to administrative guidelines and ministerial discretion. It seems to be a bit of a trend in the Howard government to prefer to have things in administrative guidelines and at the minister’s discretion rather than in legislation. Senators might recall that that was one of the criticisms made of the welfare changes to the Social Security Act whereby a number of both protective and rights based mechanisms which had previously been in the legislation were referred to the Australian Social Security Guide or regulation or guidelines. We believe that this matter should be rectified in the legislation for the new funding quadrennium.

Another question the opposition would pose is: where is the evidence that the capital works funded by the Commonwealth are meeting the objectives, especially the priority for educationally disadvantaged students? The latest formal evaluation of the capital grants program appears to be in the 1990 report of the department’s research and evaluation branch. That report concluded that there was an urgent need for a national picture of school infrastructure. In other words, the Howard government did not have enough information about capital needs to make a proper assessment of the program’s impact and to provide a sound basis for future funding decisions.

A further accountability issue is that information on the projects that have been funded and how these meet Commonwealth objectives is neither adequate nor timely. The latest available public report on the schools that have benefited from the Commonwealth capital funding appears to be the department’s report to the parliament on expenditures under section 116 of the States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance) Act 2000 for the 2004 calendar year. But the report on funded projects is vague about how these objectives and priorities were met. The grants provided to the individual schools listed in the report may or may not meet the needs of educationally disadvantaged students, but this cannot be assessed from the information provided by the major accountability report to parliament—nor do we have any information about the educational outcomes that have improved as a consequence of the Commonwealth’s funding. The process is simply less than transparent.

In conclusion, I have indicated that the opposition will support the bill. We will do so to allow funding proposals for capital works in schools in the three years after the current quadrennium. But we emphasise that the bill fails to tackle the issues we have raised previously—the significant capital needs of public schools, the absence of a government commitment to continuing the Investing in Our Schools program beyond 2007, the funding disruptions to elements of the capital grants program for non-government schools, the absence of accountability criteria and arrangements that demonstrate the effectiveness of the Commonwealth’s capital funding for schools. We call on the Howard government to attend to these issues.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Senator Wong has just indicated, the opposition will be supporting the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006. We do so because of the traditional view that you do not stop money being spent on education, despite the fact that this piece of legislation is described in terms which are quite contrary to what is contained in the bill. We note that, increasingly, the use of Orwellian expressions in titles to try to disguise the intentions of government is becoming all too apparent.

This legislation seeks to provide additional moneys to the government and non-government education sectors. Senator Wong has outlined our concerns about the accountability provisions, the uncertainty of the funding formulas and the manner in which funding is allocated, and the impact that the failure of the government to fulfil its responsibilities to the people of Australia has on the learning environment. These concerns about the government’s educational programs have been expressed in this chamber on many occasions.

I am particularly concerned about the effect of the capital program on the learning environment. If my memory serves me correctly, from my reading of the statistics—insofar as they are available—for all the targeted equity groups, which we used to hear something of in education circles, there has in fact been a decline in educational outcomes. I understand that there is very little in this bill to ensure that there is an improvement in the capital programs that are available to students in this country who suffer acute disadvantage—and that troubles me. It troubles me particularly in the context where this morning we heard on the news a further report from the Hanover Group in Victoria concerning the state of homelessness in this country. Today and every other day in this country, some 100,000 people are homeless—100,000 people in this country are homeless every night. Of those 100,000 people, 10,000 are children under the age of 12.

We have heard a lot this week about poverty, and ACOSS is trying to draw to the attention of the parliament the impact of poverty in this country. We have heard a lot from conservative politicians about the reasons for poverty. We have heard from the conservative benches a rehash of an argument that probably goes back 200 years about the deserving and the undeserving poor. We have heard a great deal about poverty in this country being inevitable; that it cannot be eradicated. It would appear that, in the minds of some on the conservative side of this chamber, it is almost a good thing—that a little bit of poverty keeps people in line. I think that sort of attitude is quite reprehensible.

In this legislation we see the failure of the government to acknowledge its responsibility and to actually do something about ensuring social justice in this country and taking steps to ensure that the money that is spent in this country is able to be used to facilitate better outcomes. When I look at the statistics relating to the equity groups that the government seeks to measure, I see a continuing decline. I see no measures in the provisions of legislation like this where the government is taking deliberate action to address the fundamental problems in our society: the fact that there are so many people living in poverty in this country; and that, when it comes to education, one of the most serious causes of inequality being transmitted between generations is the failure to ensure equality of outcomes in the education system.

When we talk about homelessness, we understand that these sorts of situations are not brought about by people choosing to be paupers or choosing to be without a house. There are 10,000 children in this country who are homeless every night. In that sort of environment you would have thought the government would be more interested in ensuring that its educational programs were aimed at overcoming the inherent, institutionalised, embedded poverty that is occurring in this country. I would have thought that legislation such as this would have provided the opportunity for more action to be taken.

I have just been given a note informing me that this bill has to be carried by two o’clock today. I note that the government has not sought to involve the opposition in the management of its non-controversial business.

Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Or the minors.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is true—or the other end of the chamber, for that matter. The government has sought to unilaterally reorder business and behave in an arrogant manner after it has moved a gag on a previous piece of legislation. Now I get a note that says, ‘You’d better sit down because we’ve got to make sure this legislation is carried by two o’clock.’

It strikes me that one of the consequences of the government’s arrogance is that the legislative program may well be disrupted and they may not be able to achieve the ends that they seek. I say, however, that there is one more important factor than that: there should be an opportunity to raise with the government issues that go to fundamental questions of social justice. Your gags and your manipulations of the legislative program in this chamber ought not to prevent the work of this chamber being undertaken in a proper manner. So, recognising that you do need the bill through by two o’clock, I will continue my remarks on another occasion.

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make some extremely brief remarks. It is true as my colleague Senator Carr said: we have been advised that the government needs the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006 to go through here by two o’clock in order for schools to be presented with the letters allocating them their money. The Labor Party would never in any way want schools to not get the assistance that they so desperately require from this government. However, it needs to be put on the record that this legislation would have gone through a lot more smoothly if the government had spoken to us. We were not expecting this bill at this time. I am sure my colleague Senator Wong would have been more than happy to incorporate her remarks if there had been some common courtesy and consultation.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the senators for their remarks. I say, though, in response to their claims that they were not advised, the whips offices of the minor parties and the Labor Party were advised by the Parliamentary Liaison Office.

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We didn’t know the order it was going to be in!

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not responsible, Senator Webber, for the communication issues within the Labor Party, but the offices were advised. We accept that the notice was short, but, given the time taken to pass the previous legislation and the fact that we wanted to get some of these bills passed today, we made the decision.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’ve had months to get this legislation in!

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Carr! Senator Colbeck has the call.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are accepting the fact that the notice was short, Senator Carr, but it is disappointing that, in response to the fact that notice was short, a decision has been made by the Labor Party to essentially filibuster this piece of legislation.

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can’t tell us during a division—

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Wong interjecting—

The Acting Deputy President:

Order! Those on my left, you have made the point you wanted to make. Let the parliamentary secretary wind up the debate.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I accept the comment that Senator Carr made that it could potentially disrupt our legislative program, which it effectively has, so Labor’s ends have been achieved. I thank the senators for their comments. I appreciate that they may have been prepared to incorporate their speeches in other circumstances. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.