Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Carr, I move:

(1) That a select committee, to be known as the Select Committee on School Funding, be established to inquire into and report on the development and implementation of national school funding arrangements and school reform, with particular reference to:

(a) the implementation of needs based funding arrangements, from 1 January 2014, for all schools and school systems, including:

  (i) Commonwealth funding, methods for the distribution of funds, funding arrangements and agreements with states and territories, as well as related accountability and transparency measures,

  (ii) funding arrangements for individual schools,

  (iii) the extent to which schools can anticipate their total future funding and links to educational programs in future years,

  (iv) the consequential equity of educational opportunity between states and territories, schools and students,

  (v) progress towards the Schooling Resource Standard, and

  (vi) the implementation of schools reforms,

(b) how funding arrangements will meet the needs of all schools and individual students, including Indigenous students, students with disability, small schools, remote schools, students with limited English, and students from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds;

(c) the Government's proposed changes to the Australian Education Act 2013, related legislative instruments and their consequences;

(d) the economic impacts of school education policy;

(e) the Government's consideration of expert findings, research, public consultation and reports in the development and implementation of school policy, including the selection of experts to provide advice on education policy; and

(f) any related matters.

(2) That the committee may present interim reports and must present a final report on or before 13 May 2014.

(3) That the committee consist of 7 senators, 3 nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, 3 nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, and 1 nominated by the Leader of the Australian Greens.

(4) That:

(a) participating members may be appointed to the committee on the nomination of the Leader of the Government in the Senate, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate or any minority party or independent senator; and

(b) participating members may participate in hearings of evidence and deliberations of the committee, and have all the rights of members of the committee, but may not vote on any questions before the committee.

(5) That 3 members of the committee constitute a quorum of the committee.

(6) That the committee may proceed to the dispatch of business notwithstanding that not all members have been duly nominated and appointed and notwithstanding any vacancy.

(7) That the committee elect as chair a member nominated by the Leader of the Opposition and as deputy chair, a member nominated by the Leader of the Australian Greens.

(8) That the deputy chair shall act as chair when the chair is absent from a meeting of the committee or the position of chair is temporarily vacant.

(9) That the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, may appoint another member of the committee to act as chair during the temporary absence of both the chair and deputy chair at a meeting of the committee.

(10) That, in the event of an equally divided vote, the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, has a casting vote.

(11) That the committee have power to appoint subcommittees consisting of 3 or more of its members, and to refer to any such subcommittee any of the matters which the committee is empowered to examine.

(12) That the committee and any subcommittee have power to send for and examine persons and documents, to move from place to place, to sit in public or in private, notwithstanding any prorogation of the Parliament or dissolution of the House of Representatives, and have leave to report from time to time its proceedings, the evidence taken and such interim recommendations as it may deem fit.

(13) That the committee be provided with all necessary staff, facilities and resources and be empowered to appoint persons with specialist knowledge for the purposes of the committee with the approval of the President.

(14) That the committee be empowered to print from day to day such documents and evidence as may be ordered by it, and a daily Hansard be published of such proceedings as take place in public.

Question agreed to.