Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The President has received a letter from Senator Mason proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely:

The failure of the Rudd Government to appropriately plan, cost and implement in a timely manner its flagship election promise, the “education revolution”.

I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today’s debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You might remember that in November last year one of the defining points of the election campaign was the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Rudd, at a school surrounded by an adoring throng—not the media on this occasion but school students—holding a laptop computer. He said of the laptop computer, ‘This is the toolbox of the 21st century.’ It was great optics and very good politics but also, of course, great spin. The education revolution became one of the centrepieces of the campaign, in particular the computers in schools program—the promise that every high school student would get their own computer.

Nine months later, however, we have all been expecting the good news but it seems perhaps there is a false pregnancy. After two rounds of estimates, several COAG meetings and increasing media scrutiny, we now know that the education revolution is a sham. This is symptomatic of the general approach of the Rudd government: clever rhetoric, I will give them that—often great rhetoric—attractive promises and lots of spin. But then the reality hits. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but they have not gone through with it. They have not done the costings, they do not know how they are going to implement it and it ends up being a shambles.

Let us just go back and look at the computers in schools program. There are roughly one million year 9 to 12 students in Australia studying at both public and private schools. The promise, on kevin07.com.au, was that there would be one computer for every student—in other words, roughly one million laptop computers provided. That was in November last year.

When we got to estimates this year, the promise then was not one computer for every student; it was that there will be access—the government will provide a computer so that all students can access a computer. So we have gone from one computer for each student to each student having access to a laptop computer. Then we get to June—to budget estimates.

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But wait—there’s more!

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is more. We have kevin07.com.au, then Kevin 08 and then Kevin 08 version 2. Version 2 in the June estimates was different. This time the government admitted that in fact the aim was to supply one computer for every two students—that is, half as many as they initially said. So we have gone from an allocation of one million laptop computers to about half a million—half the computers they initially said they would provide. But it gets worse, much worse—the shambles goes on, as does the deception. We learnt in estimates that the government had budgeted $1,000 per unit. I can see my friend the chair of the estimates committee in which I serve, Senator Marshall, sitting over there and I am sure he will back me up on this. The government allocated $1,000 per unit: $500 for each laptop and $500 for all the other costs. There are start-up costs such as wiring, connection to the internet, networking computers and cabling. That is all part of the $500. Next are the ongoing costs such as maintenance, repair, insurance, security costs, storage costs, ongoing internet costs, air conditioning, electricity and so on and so on. And this is all part of the $500. Finally, of course, there is the cost to the education system of training teachers, upskilling them to make use of this new technology. All this for $500! It is an absolute fiasco.

The best estimates from industry are that the ratio is about one to four. So, if we have a unit cost of $500, the initial costs, the ongoing costs and the cost for the education of teachers to use this technology is roughly, let us say, $2,000. So it is being underbudgeted by $1,500 per computer. If we have half a million computers times $1,500 then we are left with a huge difference. What a farce. It was a great idea. It gave great visuals. It was great politics, great rhetoric and great spin. But that is exactly where it ends.

So who picks up the bill, because the $500 is not enough? Two groups of people. If the students go to independent schools for years 9 to 12 then their parents will pick up the bill, because the $500 will not pay for all of those costs. If the students go to state schools, where most Australian students go, then state governments will be expected to pick up that bill. What do state governments say about these ongoing costs, the set-up costs and the cost of educating teachers? Let me go through that. What did Mr Carpenter, the late Premier of Western Australia, say—

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don’t think he’s late!

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are probably right, Senator Marshall. That is a little bit rough even for Mr Carpenter. I should say the former Premier of Western Australia. Mr Carpenter got some things wrong but he got some things right. What he said was that the program was underbudgeted by about $3 billion—which again is about the average commercial ratio. Mr Carpenter said: ‘The Western Australia state government isn’t going to fund this proposal. This is a federal government initiative and they can pay for it.’ But what about some of the other states? Let us have a look at South Australia. I will read from the Australian of Friday, 12 September this year. The article says:

South Australian Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith said the funding deal was predicated on the states being able to buy a computer and licence for $1000.

“The federal Government have agreed that the funding should cover the cost of the equipment and legitimate oncosts,” Dr Lomax-Smith said. “If what (schools) are suggesting is the state Government should fund a federal commitment (to pay for the licences), then I’m a little bit bemused. It is a federal government initiative.”

Just like the Western Australian government, the South Australian government will not pay for this fiasco. They have said that they will not do that. And it gets worse. In New South Wales the budget papers of the former Treasurer, Mr Costa, said this:

To date, the COAG Working Groups have primarily focussed on developing detailed implementation plans for the major Commonwealth election commitments, such as the Digital Education Revolution and the National Rental Affordability Scheme.

According to the budget paper, the COAG meeting:

… recognises that the Commonwealth election commitments and the policy objectives and programs underpinning them reflect the Commonwealth’s priorities and preferences for service delivery.

The budget paper continued:

Whilst some of these election commitments relate to NSW broad policy objectives, they do not necessarily reflect the core commitments and priorities of the NSW State Plan.

The NSW Budget therefore has been prepared on the basis that the Commonwealth fully pays for all “legitimate and additional” State costs in implementing the Commonwealth Government’s election commitments.

So there we have it: Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales all saying they will not fund the Rudd government’s computers in schools program.

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So much for cooperative federalism.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So much for that indeed, Senator Ellison. This is what you get when you have a government that does not believe in anything—that has, in fact, no soul. It is run by bureaucrats. It is process driven and there is nothing left of the heart and soul of the Labor Party. My friend Senator Marshall sits over there. He is no doubt an economic conservative as well. That is no doubt why he joined the Australian Labor Party. The problem is that you have two sorts of people in the ALP: Senator Marshall, who believes in something, and the other sort—and it is unpalatable and wrong—who believe in nothing. What has happened to the ALP is that such people are all that are left— (Time expired)

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my very first speech in this place I said, among very many other important things, the following:

I believe education is a fundamental right that all people should have the opportunity to receive. It is an ingredient that all in our society are richer for and, in turn, it is the responsibility of all in our society to fund and control it. It is the basis for all invention, innovation, research development and leading social theory in our society. It is the key to equality, opportunity and prosperity.

That is why, after being in this place for six years, I am excited and thrilled that this newly elected Rudd Labor government is embarking on the much needed education revolution for this country. I think it is disappointing that Senator Brandis, who readily admitted in his contribution that he has dealt with all these issues already through the Senate estimates—

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You mean Senator Mason.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Did I say Senator Brandis? I say sorry to both Senator Brandis and Senator Mason, and I hope neither of them sues me. Senator Mason readily admitted in his contribution to this debate that all these issues have been thoroughly dealt with through the Senate estimates process. All those issues and figures that Senator Mason talked about were thoroughly canvassed and adequately responded to by the department and the relevant minister at the table through many, many hours of Senator Mason’s questions, yet Senator Mason continues—based on a fabrication—to run the line that this government is not committed to the education revolution. Quite frankly this demonstrates the poverty of the previous government’s, the now opposition’s, position with respect to education as a whole.

Senator Mason well knows that some of those figures that were being quoted were on the basis of a single computer with singly purchased software in a single installation. That is clearly not the case and that was gone through and explained to Senator Mason hour after hour by the department. The costs of bulk purchasing of the many thousands upon thousands of computers and their software together with the bulk arrangements for the rollout of these computers in schools are nowhere near the costs that he quotes for a single individual unit. I think it is unfortunate that, based on that fabrication, Senator Mason wants to run the line that what we are doing in terms of an education revolution is not with the best intentions for the future of our economic development in this country and with the best interests of our community at heart.

I appreciate that Senator Mason is actually very passionate about education and I give him due credit in that respect. But it is a problem when in opposition—and I have seen it because I have spent quite some time in opposition—that rather than constructively addressing the issue he is trying to take this fabrication and expand it into an argument to undermine the very education revolution that this country needs. I thought that Senator Mason was better than that. One must wonder and question, given his contribution today, whether he actually thinks that rolling out computers to secondary school students is a good thing or a bad thing.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You shouldn’t question that at all. What he said is that you screwed up the policy.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Brandis, maybe you should have been here for the contribution.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Brandis interjecting—

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will listen very carefully to your contribution to this debate later on. Senator Mason’s words stand for themselves. Given his attacks on the rolling out of computers, which are all based on a fabricated set of figures, one must question—

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They weren’t a fabricated set of figures.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Maybe, Senator Brandis, you should listen a little bit more carefully to what I have just explained to you and which was explained hour after hour to Senator Mason. Either he did not listen to what the departmental officials were explaining to him or maybe, just conveniently, he did not want to hear, so he could keep running this fictitious case based on fabricated figures, which he knows—and I am disappointed that he is not better than this and that he is not actually lifting his game to a higher level—is simply a political stunt to undermine the education revolution that this country so needs. One would have thought that he could have actually got up and told us about what they did when they were in government. We did not hear anything about that because we know that what they, the now opposition, did in government was simply to de-fund education. They did worse than stand still.

In the House today Minister Gillard talked about the latest OECD figures from 2005—and they are the latest figures available. They showed that public school funding during the life of the previous government was 4.3 per cent of GDP in this country against the average OECD figure of five per cent. We were ranked 19th in the OECD. That is very close to the bottom. In early education spending we were 24th out of 26 in the OECD. So it is not surprising that Senator Mason cannot come in and contribute to this debate based on any record of the previous government and instead simply wants to undermine our education revolution, which is so needed to fill the neglect that was left by the previous government.

The initiatives that the Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations has undertaken in her portfolio touch on a number of bases. The education revolution is not just a slogan. The education revolution is a response to over 12 years of Liberal Party neglect.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will be very interested to hear those senators interjecting opposite get up and defend the record of the previous government, because that record is absolutely atrocious.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Brandis interjecting—

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wait to hear your contribution in this debate, Senator Brandis; you seem to have a lot to say in your interjecting from the sidelines, but let us hear your contribution. If you total up all the new commitments in education that the Rudd Labor government has made since the election, the figure is around $17.6 billion committed to our education revolution. Against what?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Did The Hollowmen write your speech for you?

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Brandis, if you want to keep interjecting, tell us what you spent. In your contribution to this debate, you can tell us what your government spent, because it pales into insignificance with our plans for an education revolution.

There are many reasons that this education revolution is needed. Research undertaken by the previous government last year showed that 44 per cent of Australian businesses were having trouble recruiting the people they needed. They were your figures, Senator Brandis. What we have in this country is a skills crisis. This government has made fixing it a national priority, and that does not mean just plugging the skills gaps we have today; it means building the skills we will need for tomorrow. That is in stark contrast to everything the previous government did. It was always about short-termism, always about blaming everybody else but never about a long-term vision of what this country needs. That is why this government has undertaken the education revolution. The people on the opposition benches should be applauding us for these initiatives, but instead we heard from Senator Mason a fabricated set of figures, which he then based a whole argument on, to try to undermine the massive commitment that this government is making to the future of our economy, our education system and our society.

This government has made massive new investments in every stage of the learning journey. At the heart of this initiative, it is essential that we overcome disadvantage and improve educational outcomes. We need a skilled workforce to fill the jobs of the future—white-collar, green-collar and blue-collar jobs—and that is a fact that the opposition apparently failed to recognise in their entire term of office.

Moreover, the government need to address the challenges of 12 years of climate change denial by the previous government. We need smart citizens to make climate change adaptation work on the ground and the education revolution will ensure that we have people with these skills to handle the new technologies climate change will summon forth, to hold down increasingly knowledge intensive jobs and to contribute creatively to the innovation process. (Time expired)

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to comment on this important matter brought before the Senate in relation to the planning, costing and implementation, in a timely manner, of the flagship election promise, the ‘education revolution’. Frankly, I am concerned that there is not going to be an education revolution in Australia but that we are actually going to see a reformation of where the Howard government has been and that this government is going to head in exactly the same direction. A revolution implies excitement; it implies a change. It implies something different, innovative, new—an energy in the sector.

I do congratulate the Rudd government for its undertaking to put computers in schools. That is a critically important bit of infrastructure that the Australian education community needs, but I note and take on board what has been said about how that has actually been rolled out, because it is absolutely true that schools are being short-changed in the rollout of computer programs. What is happening is that schools are being forced to buy cheaper laptops and spend up to 30 per cent of their grants on licensing and government fees. That is just the reality. I went to a school in north-eastern Tasmania where they are having to rewire whole sections of the school because they do not have the most basic wiring able to accommodate the equipment that is now required if they are actually going to deliver education in the way that they hope to.

According to a recent newspaper report, South Australian public schools are paying $250 for licensing fees for each new computer and a $40 state government administration fee. They pay $6 a student to cover existing licences, but replacement computers do not attract the $250 fee. In fact those schools which are the most disadvantaged, and therefore have the fewest computers and are now getting new computers, will pay the highest fees because they are not replacement computers and therefore they have to pay additional licensing fees. In some states—New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia—the state governments have agreed to absorb the licensing fees and pay the whole of the grant to the school, but in other states this is not the case.

New South Wales has stumped up the money to give schools wireless access and I think that is a good idea as well. But the South Australian Secondary Principals Association has said that allowing the states to administer the scheme has led to funding inequities. In South Australia, for example, they had hoped to be leading edge nationally, but that is not the case. If you are a disadvantaged school and have not been able to build up the number of computers, nearly all of the computers will be new and they will carry the $250 fee. Hallett Cove School in Adelaide’s south is paying more than $51,000 on Microsoft fees, administration costs and so on and so forth.

What we are finding is that, whilst in theory it is a good idea, in practice it has not rolled out smoothly or uniformly across the country. The other thing to point out is that the same arrangement was made for privileged schools and completely underprivileged schools and so it has not addressed the inequity in the system. That is the point I really wanted to address today in terms of the education revolution. You cannot have a revolution in education unless you fund it.

Giving people computers is not a revolution on its own. It is no use putting a computer in front of a young person if you do not have teaching staff who can actually help them to discern what is good and reliable information, what is information that might be suspect and how to negotiate the internet, because the information superhighway is not uniform in quality.

The issue of public school funding is a critical one, and I am concerned that we are shortly going to see a break with the past when the government introduces its new funding for the next quadrennium. What we are most likely going to see is the splitting off, for the first time, of funding for private schools from funding for public schools, and that the public school funding will not come until after the negotiations with the states later this year. What this means is that the private schools will get their certainty early—within the next few weeks—and the public schools are going to have to wait till much later in the year. Politically, it is quite a savvy tactic because it allows the private schools to get their money without the public schools being able to have a point of comparison and reference for some time. On the other hand it allows the government the opportunity to negotiate a much better deal with the state governments. If one were less cynical one would hope that the motivation may be for the government to at last sit down and negotiate with the states to get a real injection of funds into public education.

As we know, under the Howard government the share of Commonwealth funding to public education slipped backwards. We would need an investment of $1½ billion upfront now to bring public education up to the same share it had in 1996, when the Howard government took office. So let us not fail to remember that under the Howard government for a decade the share of Commonwealth funding for public schools in Australia slipped right back. For all those years we had Julia Gillard, now the Deputy Prime Minister, saying that when there was a problem in the education sector the Howard government looked around for someone to blame: generally in question time it was the education unions and then it was state Labor governments.

But I have to say that Minister Gillard is now doing exactly the same thing—she is looking around for people to blame and she is generally blaming teachers. I will not have it. I am not going to stand in this parliament and allow governments to blame teachers for educational performance. In fact, you need to have your best teachers in the most difficult schools if you are going to get the best outcomes and offer equitable education outcomes. By setting up systems where you reward people on the basis of the educational attainment of students in schools, you are setting up a system whereby you end up with your best teachers not necessarily wanting to be in those difficult schools, and therefore those difficult-to-staff schools.

I want to put a line in the sand here and say that it is time as a society we thought much more about the place of schools in our community and about how we value teachers in our community and the job that they do. The whole society must recognise the value of teachers and what they bring to the classrooms. Computers are one thing, but it is the human management skills and the human teaching skills that are critical. We need smaller class sizes. We need a policy whereby if we have inclusion of students with disabilities of any kind, whether they are physical or mental disabilities or learning problems, there are smaller class sizes. We have to support the inclusion policy with enough aids to be able to allow students in those circumstances to learn.

I would like to see the Rudd government go back and have a look at how the states have handled the rollout of computers in their schools. It should look at the fact that, because some state governments have subsidised it and others have not, students are not receiving the computers in the equitable way the government promised they would. The fact that it is costing so much for reconfiguration of classrooms, for rewiring, for licensing fees and so on, is also undermining the value of these computers. But computers alone will not do it. We have to fund education adequately and increase the share of public education funding as a matter of urgency.

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I talk about the failure of the education revolution, I want to address the last point that Senator Milne made, which has also been made by other speakers in this debate, and that is the claim that the Howard government allowed public school funding to slip during its time in office. That claim is based essentially on a trick with the numbers. Senators should be aware that during the life of the Howard government there was a significant increase in the number and the proportion of school students in Australia who attended non-government schools. Of course, the constitutional arrangements in Australia are very clear: the federal government has prime responsibility for the funding of non-government education and the state governments have responsibility for the funding of state schools. And it was that growth in non-government school enrolments that drove an increase in the size of the non-government funding sector. But it is absolutely not true to say that the Howard government neglected the funding of government schools. I illustrate that point by observing that, in the life of the Howard government, enrolments in government schools increased across Australia by approximately two per cent and funding of government schools by the federal government increased by more than 70 per cent in real terms. To increase funding by that level over that period of time is not an indication of neglect, and those opposite should know better than to manipulate figures in that way.

On the matter of public importance, let me say that I think the education revolution launched by the government is essentially a slogan in search of an intellectual underpinning. It is also in search of some real dollars to make it actually work. I see in this policy nothing but intellectual drift; a sense that the government hit upon a great idea—a sexy idea—that the pollsters said would really turn people’s knobs before the election last year, and the details of how this would actually work to change the landscape of Australian education were to come later. The details are coming through in dribs and drabs, convincing nobody that Labor has a coherent and consistent approach towards improving education outcomes in this country.

The best evidence of that phenomenon is the speech that the Prime Minister gave a couple of weeks ago in Canberra at the National Press Club to announce the so-called philosophical underpinning of the education revolution. He talked about transparency in education, performance reports for schools, the right of school principals to be able to hire and fire teachers and performance pay for good teachers. They are great ideas, but where do those ideas come from? They were borrowed directly from the education reforms announced by the then education minister, Brendan Nelson, in 2004.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was hardly a revolution.

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Senator Nash has pointed out, it was hardly a revolution. In fact the nearest we got to a revolution was apparently in the Labor Party caucus when these plans were announced. People were saying: ‘We have been opposing these approaches for some years. We have been opposing performance pay for teachers. We have been opposing league tables for schools. We are not in favour of that. Why are you announcing it, Prime Minister?’ Indeed, the question remains: what exactly is Labor’s approach? Why was Labor prepared to back state governments that resisted these reforms during the life of the Howard government? Why are they now prepared to back them in the face of, presumably, some misgivings on the part of the state governments now that they are in government at the federal level? It just does not add up. Labor is thrashing about to try and find some basis for proceeding.

While they are doing that they are also cutting back on the essentials of a solid education system, which was so important to the way in which the former federal government implemented education reform and improved education outcomes. The best illustration of how badly they have mismanaged this exercise is their abolition of the very successful $1.2 billion Investing in our Schools Program. I do not think that there is a single senator in this chamber who would not, at one stage, have gone to a school in their state or territory and seen the good that that program did to the fabric and the morale of both government and non-government schools across this country. That program made an enormous difference to the quality of outcomes students were getting. Incidentally, it was purchasing computers for schools at a much greater rate than we are seeing at the present time. How many computers have appeared on the desks of Australian students as a result of the Rudd government’s education revolution? Not one. We are yet to see the very first computer arrive. When it does we will no doubt have a big media splash about it. But so far there are no results for this program. We delivered many, many computers to government and non-government schools through Investing in our Schools and, sadly, that program has been abolished.

We have also seen, courtesy of the former government, the release, very belatedly, of national literacy and numeracy tests. The tests were conducted in May and it was only in the last week or so that these test results have been finally released, making them much less useful to Australian schools and parents than they should have otherwise have been. It tested students in years 3, 5 and 7.

Having established that certain students have certain problems, the question then needs to be asked: what can a government committed to an education revolution do about assisting the particular needs of those students? Again, we had an answer to that question. We had the Even Start National Tuition Program of $450 million to provide tutorial vouchers worth $700 per student to ensure that students in this country who were falling behind had some means of catching up. As we know, no school system, no matter how good, is capable of making sure that every student marches at the same pace. For those that fall behind we had a solution. What has this government’s response been to that particular program? It has been, of course, to abolish Even Start with $450 million down the gurgler.

Their Trade Training Centres in Schools program was much vaunted as the answer to the problem of shortages in trades across the country. Again, it was poorly conceived and has produced very little in the way of tangible results. Just 34 schools across Australia are to receive funding to date. That is 1.3 per cent of the nation’s 2,600-odd schools, and it is very doubtful whether the funding allocated will produce any meaningful outcomes for schools in terms of building the appropriate facilities, maintaining them, depreciating them and providing for staffing and training and so forth. So the education revolution so far is a miserable parody of the promises that were made to the Australian community and we have yet to see them realised. We have yet to see the philosophy behind this revolution properly explained to the Australian community.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier today when I saw this motion from Senator Mason I thought that it was quite audacious on this of all days. I was pondering in the chamber a moment ago with my interjections that perhaps the good senator was seeking the education portfolio. Consider the content of the motion—

The failure of the Rudd government to appropriately plan, cost and implement in a timely manner its flagship election promise, the ‘education revolution’.

You can not help but reflect on the inconsistency of the opposition’s current approach. On the one hand we have: ‘Everything is being pushed off to review after review after review. All this government is about is reviews.’ Then, on the other hand, we have: ‘They are not doing anything now. They are not doing anything immediately.’ The Rudd government has achieved an awful lot in the short time that has been available in relation to this agenda.

Senator Humphries made the point—and did cover some other relevant areas to this debate—that the education revolution is not just about the sexy idea of improving digital infrastructure in schools. There is a hell of a lot more to the agenda. He suggests that the Australian public needs to know more about the philosophy and the background being covered here. There is a mighty lot of information that can be referred to to sustain that case. We have before us now a ground-breaking, unprecedented COAG agenda.

Let us look at a couple of the key priorities of that agenda. But before I do that I also want to put before the Senate some other facts about school funding. Senator Humphries says that the funding between government and non-government schools has been misrepresented in the discussion by some parties. Others have suggested that we are really only looking at the rollout of digital infrastructure. But the real point is: what is education spending as a proportion of the total government spend? That was where we went backwards under the Howard government. Let me be very clear and very fair: for the benefit of the Senate I will apply exactly the same measurement criteria to their previous period and to our current period, and let us look at the difference. The previous government was heading for a decrease in education spending from 7.54 per cent in 2007-08 to 7.47 per cent in 2008-09. Under the same measurement basis, the current government has increased its spending from 7.83 per cent in 2007-08 to eight per cent in 2008-09.

These small figures, when you are not looking at the total context of these scenarios, do not quite paint the full picture, so let me do that. In our first budget we allocated $19.3 billion to education initiatives, including not only the $1.2 billion for the digital education revolution, which will over time provide access to a computer for every student in years 9 to 12, but also the $11 billion for the Education Investment Fund, a national curriculum for all students in English, maths, science and history as well as national Asian language studies programs, and the $2.5 billion trades training centres program across Australia, which will help to provide robust trade skills for students and keep them engaged in schooling. That is the broader context. Senator Humphries can raise implementation issues. Indeed, Senator Milne also mentioned implementation issues, although she, with a far clearer perspective, made the point that we do need to be mindful of how well these programs are being implemented. The flexibility and the preparedness to deal with that is something that I think this government has and is quite prepared for and able to do.

The final point I make about keeping students engaged in schooling takes me back to the COAG agenda. We know that during the Howard government era keeping our students engaged in high school was, to the disgrace of Australia, going backwards. We had an appalling standard—if you look at other OECD countries—on the schooling and retention in schooling of our secondary school students. Worse than that, whilst most other OECD countries were going forwards, we were going backwards. This is not an issue to do with the debate between government and non-government schools; this is a pretty basic, clear benchmark for our school education. Why is it so basic? I encourage any of the senators to have a look at this document about quality education that was recently released by the government. Very clearly, it highlights for all of us the impact and the difference it makes for students to complete year 12. Any government concerned about social justice or inclusion cannot look past a simple benchmark such as improving the level of students remaining in our institutions until year 12. The consequences of them not doing so are appalling.

Let me move to the other area that is part of our COAG agenda. The secondary schooling benchmarks are one key area, but another area very close to my own heart is early childhood. It is another area where we measure very, very poorly—in fact, possibly worse—against OECD standards. What did the Howard government do in that area? It talked about having a national agenda for early childhood. It talked about it repeatedly, but it never had a plan. It never had a plan, yet we have had Senator Mason here today criticising at this early stage of the Rudd government our ability to appropriately plan, cost and implement our education revolution. Early childhood is a key part of our education revolution. A key part—and, again, the former government talked about it—is ensuring that every Australian child has one year of access to preschool education before they make the transition into our schools.

So our COAG plan is about the transition into schools and also about the transition out of schools. That plan is something that is easily available for any senator to refer to. As I said, it is groundbreaking and it is unprecedented. Yes, we will have implementation problems with the states. It is not easy to roll out these types of agendas across areas where you have had state management of delivery across a whole range of policy areas as well, but I believe the Rudd government will achieve that end. (Time expired)

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has been interesting to sit here and listen to those on the other side espousing the good things that the Rudd government has done since coming to office in relation to education. I, too, have to acknowledge one thing that the Rudd government is good at, but it has nothing to do with education. It is all about media spin—spin over substance every time; 10 out of 10 on the report card for that one. I think it is fair to say that the greatest success of the Rudd government to date is its capacity to produce spin rather than substance when dealing with important policy issues. After all, the Rudd government was elected as a result of media hype and media spin, with a range of so-called policies that, in the main, comprised of glib lines designed to entice and entrap the voter into believing that a Rudd government would actually deliver the educational needs of the nation. After nine months we can now see how the worm has turned and how the voter has now learnt that they got taken for a ride based on spin, rhetoric and a few glib political lines rather than substance.

Labor’s so-called education revolution has to be seen for what it is—that is, a fraud on the people of Australia, who were entitled and are entitled to expect more from this government. Let us look at the promises made by Mr Rudd in relation to the Productivity Places program, a Labor election commitment to deliver an additional 450,000 training places over four years. The spin on that is absolutely fantastic. Mr Rudd sold this policy as ‘a core piece of our overall armoury in fighting inflation’. This was the commitment: up to 20,000 places were offered to jobseekers from 1 April to 30 June. That was phase 1. From 1 July, up to 66,000 training places would be available to existing workers looking to upskill. But what is the reality in terms of this government delivering on this election promise? The reality is that the Rudd government has failed to meet their own expectations that were placed on the program when it was launched. Labor failed to fill even half of the 20,000 training places before phase 1 ended on 30 June. After selling this policy as ‘a core piece of our overall armoury in fighting inflation’, this is a gross failure by the Rudd government.

Only 3,300 places of the 66,000 places that are available to existing workers have been filled, because the Rudd government has only negotiated agreements with three states. This is in stark contrast to the coalition’s work-school vouchers. This was a simple, fully funded federal government initiative which allowed every jobseeker who wanted to improve their skills the opportunity to do so.

Now let us look at Mr Rudd’s plans to hand over all of the Australian technical colleges to the states, in favour of—and you have to love this one—a resource stretched trade training centre policy. Labor’s proposal, or spin as I like to call it, is to build state-of-the-art trade training centres in all 2,650 secondary schools around the country. Each school can apply for between $500,000 and $1.5 million to build or upgrade vocational education training facilities. The problem is that the funding available for each school program is grossly inadequate to provide proper trade training.

The coalition, however, spent an average of $24 million for each Australian technical college. In contrast, the Rudd government is offering each school an average of just $900,000 over 10 years. The funding is so paltry schools will be lucky if they can update woodwork rooms at best. This will not create 2,650 state-of-the-art trade training centres.

The evidence is clear. The Rudd Labor government’s education revolution is now being seen by the public for the fraud that it is. The Rudd government has during its time in office failed to deliver its education revolution, which was hailed as a flagship election policy. Clearly, the Rudd Labor government has failed the people of Australia, and the people are entitled to feel cheated. The product that was advertised to the people of Australia and that they bought is not the product that is now being delivered. If the Labor government were subject to the provisions of the Trade Practices Act, they would be sued by the people of Australia for misleading and deceptive conduct and the people of Australia would win hands down.

Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two weeks ago in my first speech to the chamber I talked about the importance of education to our country’s future, the importance of education in transitioning our economy, the importance of education in allowing us to take advantage of new science and technology and the importance of education in providing opportunities for all Australians to improve their own and their families’ livelihoods. That is why I was absolutely astonished on hearing of this MPI raised by Senator Mason.

I was astonished because I believe one of the main causes for the coalition’s defeat at the last election was their poor record in and neglect of our education system. In short, the former Howard Liberal government’s legacy on education was appalling. There were 12 years of underfunding, 12 years of inaction and 12 years of neglect. The sheer hypocrisy, after investing so little in education, is galling.

In 2005, Australia’s public spending on education as a percentage of GDP was 4.3 per cent, which was well below the OECD average of five per cent. We now rank 19th overall behind Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and many other European countries. Yet the Liberals still have the nerve to come into this chamber and challenge the Rudd government on its commitment to education.

It was not just underinvestment that characterised their 12 years in government; it was also extreme ideology. Just like in the workplace with Work Choices, the coalition was ideologically driven on education. Former Prime Minister John Howard’s ideological extremism on history, curriculum and student unions is well known and supported by all those on the opposite side of the chamber. For the Liberal Party, education was a wedge to try and attract votes rather than a pathway to skills and a brighter future. The Rudd government believes passionately in education and this is why we are undertaking an education revolution at every level: primary, secondary and tertiary. Importantly, we are also delivering on our election commitments.

Last May in our budget the government met its commitment on schools, providing support for technology, infrastructure, curriculum and resourcing through a $3 billion down payment on building a world-class education system. We are attempting to make the jump into the 21st century. With the information age right at our doorstep it is of the greatest importance that a modern, vibrant economy equips our children with the means necessary to prosper in the world economy. Therefore, the government will spend $1.2 billion over five years as part of the digital education revolution, providing computer equipment to every secondary school—years 9 to 12—through the National Secondary School Computer Fund. In the last two months alone we have approved $116 million for the funding of 116,000 new computers in 896 secondary schools right across the country. This is happening now. Some senators may laugh, but this is serious. These are computers that are going into schools now. Children in years 9 to 12 will have computers to use to improve their schooling and to improve their livelihood, and it is happening right now.

On childhood education we are also delivering on our commitments. Again, going back to the OECD figures, their report in 2005 on education showed that just 0.1 per cent of Australia’s GDP was spent on primary institutions compared to the OECD average of 0.4 per cent, ranking Australia 24 out of 26 countries on education—and this mob over here are proud of their record on education? You have got to be kidding me! Twenty-fourth out of 26 countries! That is why the government is spending $577 million on getting the basics right. There is an action plan on literacy and numeracy and under this program funds will be available to support schools across the board, focusing on those schools and students that are most in need of help.

The Australian government will also commit $5 million per annum over four years to support the activities of the National Curriculum Board to develop a national curriculum. The previous government talked about it; we are delivering on it. It is not just a national curriculum, but national testing—testing that is taking place right now in our schools. The results were out last week. And it is not just about curriculum and testing; it is also about looking at the future of languages. The National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Program will be vital in our commercial, social and cultural engagement with Asian nations, and it is rightly recognised by the Prime Minister in high schools where language teaching and training and support is so needed.

We are also taking up the fight on skills. A recent survey by global business consultant Grant Thornton International found that the shortage of skilled workers was the biggest single barrier to business expansion in Australia. Therefore, in the area of skills training, which the former government talked about but did very little about, the Rudd government’s trade training centres will provide $2.5 billion over 10 years to enable all secondary schools right across the country to apply for trade training centres. Already we have provided more than $90 million for these trade training centres and almost 100 schools nationwide will benefit.

Not only is the Rudd government committed to the education of children, it is also committed to ensuring that our children have the best facilities possible. The Rudd Labor government’s Local Schools Working Together policy has allocated $62 million to build facilities to be shared between government and non-government schools with 25 projects right across the country to build shared facilities such as assembly halls, computer and science laboratories, libraries and sporting facilities. And it is not just schools. The education revolution is also about universities and we are spending $500 million for campus renewal through the Better Universities Renewal Fund. After 12 years of the previous government’s neglect, the Rudd government is taking education seriously. (Time expired)

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time for the debate has expired.