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

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes:

(i) needs-based funding, where money is distributed equitably according to need, is essential to ensuring all students can access high-quality education,

(ii) that disadvantage occurs in all sectors of schooling, but is concentrated in government schools,

(iii) the discredited SES funding model was responsible for increasing inequity, and

(iv) the Government made a clear pre-election commitment to maintain the reformed school funding model from 1 January 2014 for 4 years, with the same funding envelope; and

(b) recognises that, in reneging on its pre-election commitment, the Government will perpetuate and worsen the inequities at the heart of the schooling system, which needs-based funding reform had the only chance of reversing.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I seek leave to make a short statement

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

Leave is granted for one minute.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government will not be supporting this motion, but it is important to note that the former government did leave school funding in a mess. The hurried agreements that were signed in the dying days of the previous government meant that some states secured funding while others missed out completely. The coalition government is delivering what the previous government failed to do. That is a national agreement on school funding that ensures parents, principals and students, regardless of where they live, have funding certainty. The government is implementing a funding model that is national, fair and needs based, while getting rid of the prescriptive command and control features that removed authority for schools from the states and territories and the non-government sector. The coalition made clear that it would deliver a school funding system that is fair and national, and that is what the government is doing.

Question agreed to.