Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak tonight about the importance of ensuring that all Australian children have access to high-quality education that equips them with the knowledge and skills they will need for the 21st century and gives them an opportunity to reach their full potential.

The Gonski review found that Australia's international performance in education has declined over the last decade and that underfunding of public education, in particular, has led to a deep inequity in Australia's schools system, which deprives us as a nation of the full potential of our children. The Gonski review recommended:

… that a significant increase in funding is required across all schooling sectors, with the largest part of this increase flowing to the government sector due to the significant numbers and greater concentration of disadvantaged students attending government schools.

The Gonski review also recommended that our nation embrace a new schools funding model that seeks to address this inequity and improve overall student performance by providing funding on the basis of needs.

Since the Gonski review was publicly released in February, the Australian Greens have been calling for legislation to implement its recommendations by the end of this year. Last week, the government's draft education bill was finally released and, after such a long wait, it was very disappointing—an exercise in rhetoric rather than meaningful action. It did not contain the means to implement the reforms and recommendations put forward by the Gonski review. While it does contain some commendable principles, they are not enforceable. Most importantly, the new funding model we have been waiting for is still nowhere to be seen.

This coming year will be make or break for our schools. Gonski has provided clear evidence of a broken system and a way forward for how it can be fixed. We currently have the best chance to reform a discredited schools funding system in decades. We must not squander it. People from around Australia agree. They have been writing to me about why Gonski is important and what an opportunity it provides for significant reform. I have received more than 200 accounts. Many of them are inspiring—they describe how many people have received an excellent and enriching education through our public education system. But there are also those which reveal how some public schools are significantly underresourced, with their teachers working in increasingly strained circumstances. I am going to share some of these accounts with you tonight.

First, we will hear from Jill, who lives in Victoria. Her story highlights the need for better funding and resources to educate children with disabilities. Jill wrote to me:

I strongly believe that the Gonski recommendations should be implemented in full.

I have two children, both with disabilities, and I have not been able to keep them in public schools because those schools simply did not have the resources to provide the relatively minimal extra assistance each of them needed.

Whether children are disadvantaged by disability, by economic circumstance, by location or any other reason, they should always have the genuine option of an adequately resourced public school.

My son, for example, spent a year in the Principal's office and in her Year 6 classroom — when he was in year 2 - because they only had resources to provide extra assistance for two hours a week, and then only for 10 weeks.

I'm sorry, but Asperger's syndrome does not go away in 10 weeks - nor do the effects.

Our educational system should be able to cope with situations like this. But clearly it can't.

My son was only mildly affected, and it has taken several years for him to recover from the trauma of this year. Proper arrangements would have avoided heaps of later expenditure.

My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD in early high school, and could not cope with the learning style of sitting in the classroom and listening. As a result, she ended up leaving school at year 10, - yet it is not difficult for a well-trained teacher to accommodate different learning styles.

These are some of the reasons why we need Gonski.

Education is critical to an intelligent, thinking country, and we need to make it our top priority (and not just for kids). This is the future of our country, of our industry and it should not be essentially restricted to those whose parents have the option - albeit often through great sacrifice - of sending their children to a private school.

Jane Ralls from Western Australia highlighted the necessity of funding for need of a different kind. She wrote:

I have a year 6 and a year 9 child and am strongly committed to the public education system.

I have been increasing alarmed at the lack of funding for basics at the children's primary schools -even extending to insufficient teachers, - and longstanding teachers' aides being forced to leave even when they are an integral part of the community and workforce within the school.

Specifically my children are both gifted. I have learnt by experience as well as by research, that gifted children have very special needs, and are very much at risk in many ways.

They have a very high rate of anxiety, the boredom they suffer daily puts them at risk of behavioural disorders and depression, and long term they have an incongruously high rate of school drop out.

Rightly - with short resources, the focus is on the lower end of the educational spectrum, but there is not enough money to provide for those needy children.

There is very little left for the gifted kids - who are almost entirely left to fend for themselves in primary school. My yr 6 girl now has to survive another 18 months of boredom before she starts high school and I fear for her.

And, finally, I will share the words of Sabina, from Victoria, who wrote:

I have only a small story to tell but it makes me cry writing about it.

At my local Williamstown library, on a cold, wet winters night recently, I was present as two young boys, no more than 11, were fighting over who could use the public computers - not to play games - but to 'get my homework done by tomorrow'.

I felt awful - realising these 2 kids, who lived in the housing commission flats nearby, - were studious enough to come out in darkness and cold on their own to try and research for their assignment....

Whilst my friend's children in the same suburb go on European trips and have the latest.

We must ensure that each child has the same opportunities in life, as much as possible. - That children have access equally to computers, the internet, excursions and various learning opportunities.

Regarding literacy - I've worked in this area and the statistics (and my experience) concerning lack of basic literacy skills to navigate the world (brochures, prescriptions, newspapers etc) - in this great first world country! -are terrible.

This is even before we look at indigenous communities; - right here in our own neighbourhoods.

We must fully support and implement the Gonski recommendations to ensure a functioning, equitable, healthy society.

So the Australian Greens say: as a community we must be willing to pay for what we value. School funding is about more than just money for new buildings and better infrastructure. It is also about valuing our teachers by providing conditions to enable them to do one of the most important jobs in the world—educating citizens of the future—and a career structure that attracts and retains them. For too long we have been requiring our teachers—too many teachers, in many of our public schools—to deliver results in a chronically underfunded system. We need action now, and our public education system needs investment now. We must legislate for Gonski, and make a serious investment in the future of our children.

Senate adjourned at 22:35