Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the following responses to the resolutions of the Senate:

Attorney-General (Senator Brandis)—Marrakesh Treaty (agreed to 23 June 2014)

Minister for Education (Mr Pyne)—Schools funding (agreed to 14 July 2014)

Minister for Industry (Mr Macfarlane)—Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (agreed to 1 September 2014)

Auditor-General—Australian National Audit Office—Annual report for 2013-14

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

I seek leave to take note of the ministerial response on schools funding.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

The letter tabled by the Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, is in response to my motion in support of the New South Wales branch of the National Party, of 14 July this year, in calling for the federal government to honour the full six-year funding agreement made between the Commonwealth and New South Wales governments. I appreciate why it is an awkward issue for Minister Pyne, so I can understand why his letter avoids the substance of my motion.

The Australian Greens recognise that rural schools across Australia will continue to be significantly disadvantaged as a direct result of the Abbott government's broken promises on the Gonski funding scheme. This is not an abstract issue. It is thousands of children who, every year, year-on-year, will fall further and further behind kids in city classrooms because their schools simply do not have enough money. The Australian Greens were very pleased that we were not the only ones concerned about this issue. It was extremely heartening to see that one state branch of the Nationals had the courage to contradict their Liberal Party colleagues in favour of standing up for their constituents. So, you can imagine my dismay when I saw that the federal National MPs in this place would not dare to be so bold. I put the motion, and it was embarrassing that the National senators voted against their own party, but it is shameful that they voted against the interests of their own communities.

The sad fact is that schools in rural and regional areas are amongst the biggest losers as a result of the Abbott government's decision to cut the majority of Gonski funding. Already students in rural and regional areas are as much as two years of schooling behind students in metropolitan schools, and it is only going to get worse. A recent report showed that our education system is now more unequal than when the Gonski review panel handed down its damning assessment three years ago. The gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students in Australia is growing, but what do we get from our education minister? Outrage? A plan? Even mild concern? No, we merely get deliberately-misleading, evidence-dodging slogans about funding not equalling better outcomes.

He has made the same deceptive claim in his letter. He cites slipping PESA results over the last decade and directly correlates them with a 44 per cent increase in education funding. Of course, he does not say where this increase in education funding went, so let me clarify. Under the Howard government, education funding was increased—yes—for the wealthiest in Australia. This money went to the private schooling system, not our public schools which educate the vast majority of disadvantaged students in Australia. Under the broken Howard school-funding model, the discredited Howard school-funding model, more money was spent on the most advantaged students than on any other group. So, what a surprise, giving more to the top end of town has not fixed our education system but has indeed exacerbated the very inequality our rural schools are now suffering from.

The Gonski reforms seek to overcome this inequality by targeting the areas of greatest need to reduce the equity gap and lift educational outcomes across the country. This same Gonski review, which would have delivered a much needed boost for country schools, was branded a failure by New South Wales National Senator Williams in a Senate committee report. Despite what Minister Pyne would like to believe, the Gonski review did not recommend extra funding for rural schools because they thought it would be amusing, they recommended extra funding because the evidence showed them it would work.

School after school that I have heard from, teachers and parents and principals, have told me exactly what their country schools could do with that money: teacher training, professional development and teacher support, which always cost more in terms of time and travel for teachers in rural and regional areas. Also, better IT equipment to connect them with the world, and parental and community engagement. In communities where there is not a lot of employment and not a lot of hope and aspiration for the kids, engaging parents and the community with schools is crucial. These sorts of things require people, resources and money.

It is disappointing that our education minister keeps dodging the truth about the realities of schools in Australia. He needs to get out there and really see them. What is even worse is that the federal National MPs in this place are willing to go along with his deception, even though it means selling out their very own community.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to comment on Minister Pyne's letter, dated 17 September, in response to the Senate resolution. His response is yet another example of the coalition's deliberate deceptions and misrepresentations. Before the election the then shadow minister for education promised:

You can vote Liberal or Labor and you will get exactly the same amount of funding for your school.

Just two days before the election, Mr Tony Abbott promised that there would be 'No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.' But the deceit and the duplicity have of course all been laid bare. Today we see an ideologically-driven minister saying that black is white and claiming that this government does have a commitment to rural and regional schools. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The government's mendacity is understood even by conservative governments, such as that in New South Wales. The New South Wales education minister, in responding to Mr Abbott breaking his promise to honour the Gonski agreements by cutting $30 billion from school funding, said:

Schools in regional areas, as well as disadvantaged and Aboriginal students, will be the hardest hit.

The recent PISA analysis shows that students in regional areas are up to a year behind their city peers and those in remote areas up to two years behind. This is completely unacceptable for a country which says that the importance of education is a measure of our civilisation.

Country schools are paying the price for the inequality in our school system. And to those in the coalition who say that money does not matter: tell that to the parents of children who go to some of our elite private schools and who are paying over $30,000 a year per child to go to those schools. You tell them that money does not matter! National Party senators in particular ought hang their heads in shame because they are demonstrating just what doormats they are to this government. Clearly, they have no sway whatsoever within the government. Country schools in fact have the most to gain from the full implementation of the school reforms that the Labor Party introduced when we were in government, which of course means keeping the loadings and the funding for years 5 and 6 of that school reform program.

Instead, what we have seen from the government is $30 billion cut from schools. They are cutting funding from every school in Australia by an average of $3.2 million—that is, $1,000 per student. The minister pretends that, somehow, he should be congratulated for linking school funding to the CPI. Anyone who knows anything about education knows that the ABS Education Price Index increases by 5.1 per cent a year, whereas the budget papers predict a CPI increase of just 2.5 per cent per year. That of course has a significant compounding effect when you look at it in real terms.

This government has been deceptive, dishonest and duplicitous. It is a government that is not able to lie straight in bed politically, because it has a fundamental commitment to misleading the Australian public. The minister himself said—at the time when he was at university—that he was quite happy to tell people what he thought they wanted to hear, not what he actually believed to be the case.

The cuts this government has introduced will have effects in classrooms. Teachers and principals cannot plan for the future, with the biggest cuts to school funding ever seen in the country. Those cuts are hanging over the heads of every school in this nation. The response we have from this minister today is, frankly, embarrassing. It shows a minister who is desperately trying to rewrite the commitments that he made before the election. It shows a minister clinging to false excuses about the funding cuts outside the forward estimates, while his colleagues will be claiming they are committed to infrastructure spending over the next decade. The minister admits here in black and white that school funding has been cut by this government over the next decade.

Finally and tragically, it bells the cat on the government's plan to rip apart the needs-based funding system from 2018, by foreshadowing new negotiations on school funding, negotiations that this government will hope will divide parents and schools as they fight over a shrinking pool of funds. Since the election, this government has abandoned the Gonski school funding reforms; failed to fund years 5 and 6 of the Gonski reforms; cut $30 billion from schools, the biggest cut in this nation's history; and cut indexation for growth funding.

At the next election the government, in a desperate attempt to grab votes, will defraud voters, will deceive Australians and will never have any intention of maintaining a commitment that they make in any election campaign. You simply cannot trust them.

This government is built on lies, dedicated to lies and deceit. We know that, whatever the problems in the education system at the moment, this government has no interest in fixing them. This government is perfidious. It will go down in the history of this nation for its commitment to lying its way into office.

This is a government that at the next election will have to face the public on its record of deceit. It is a government that has failed to meet its commitments in office, a government whose chicanery will be demonstrably clear to parents of this nation, and I have no doubt the public will reject it for its dishonesty. This is a government that ought to be condemned, and I expect that that is exactly what will happen. I am looking forward to the perfidy of this government being demonstrated, and we will take every opportunity to do exactly that. I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later hour.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.