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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I hope the minister will take particular attention to this because I am sure that he will, no doubt, be persuaded by the remarks that I have to make. This is the Senate Select Committee on School Funding's report Equity and excellence in Australian schools.

I am particularly concerned that the government has sought to essentially walk away from the funding of state schools. It has left state and territory systems to wither as a result of their failure to meet the commitments that they made during the last federal election.

What we see here is where the government's plans would have the opportunity to unite and improve all Australian schools. But what they have done by their particularly unpleasant approach to school education is to pit parent against parent, to pit school against school and to have state fight with state in their capacity to try to divvy-up Commonwealth funding, which is dwindling in real terms. The government has locked in behind the concept of CPI indexation from schools from 2018. It is a recommitment to the government's $80 billion in cuts to schools and hospitals—cuts that will leave every school in this country worse off, on an average across the system, by $3.2 million for every school. Seven teachers could be funded by that. There will be $1,000 less support for every student, every year, as a result of the government's initiatives in terms of cutting back on school education. This is very significant in real terms with the education price index currently running at 5.1 per cent.

We know that, behind closed doors, the Minister for Education has been telling schools that the CPI indexation rates in the budget will be re-negotiated. But what we have seen here today and what was tabled earlier in the parliament highlighted that that is not the approach that the government is taking through this budget. It is a crystal clear fact that funding will go down in real terms. School education funding from 2018 will increase based on student enrolment growth and the government wide indexation rate on the consumer price index. The distribution of funding envelopes from 2018 will be:

… subject to formal negotiations between the Commonwealth and the States and Territories—

and non-government school providers. The government is pursuing a divide-and-conquer strategy, which means that our schools will never reach the student resource standard, and which will entrench and amplify the inequality across the system. The tragedy of this process is that it will actually put a handbrake on the economy.

According to PISA 2012, there is up to three years difference in the school results between the most advantaged and disadvantaged students in this country. This is a gap that will never be closed while a government like this continues down the path of breaking its promises on school funding and affirms its rejection of the Gonski reform proposals. This is a government that has cut all the additional funding for the fifth and sixth years of the Gonski reform program. It has cut $80 billion from schools and hospitals, which is the biggest ever cut in Commonwealth-state relations. It has cut a $100 million a year from the More Support for Students with Disabilities program and it has failed in its promise for more funding from 2015. This means that the state governments will be let off the hook because the coalition government has promised not to enforce their funding obligations under the original contract arrangements made with the former government.

They are locking school funding in at CPI from 2018, with the budget papers assuming CPI will be just 2.5 per cent. The ABS education price index is currently at 5.1 per cent. That is a huge difference and the people that pay that price are the students of this nation. The reality of the difference between 2.5 per cent and 5.1 per cent means that increasing number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds will miss out.

This government is trying to walk away from the fundamental commitment that it made in the last election that it had a unity ticket with the Labor Party on schools. Before the election, on 4 August 2013, the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Abbott, said at a press conference:

Kevin Rudd and I are on an absolute unity ticket when it comes to school funding.

On 29 August 2013, the current Minister for Education, Mr Pyne, said:

… you can vote Liberal or Labor and you'll get exactly the same amount of funding for your school …

Before the election, the minister was also crystal clear about what the coalition's commitment to Gonski meant—that it was to needs based funding—and he was telling voters: 'We have agreed to the government's school funding model.' That was on 29 August last year. He was talking there about the Labor government's model. He also said, on RNBreakfast on 30 August, the next day: 'We are committed to the student resource standard. Of course we are,' he said. 'We are committed to this new school funding model'—so he repeated it. And, finally, as Australians entered the polling booths on election day, they were faced with signs, right across the country: 'Liberals will match Labor's school funding dollar for dollar'.

So the most galling of all these claims is that the government has met its election commitments and it is clear that it supports students with disabilities, their families and carers—which of course is the proposition that has been advanced by this government on a daily basis. This is just patently untrue. You only have to ask any disability organisation, any of the people who actually know something about this, or anyone who is a student, parent or teacher, just how much they have been misled—they know. Before the election, the government promised:

If elected to Government the Coalition will continue the data collection work that has commenced, which will be used to deliver more funding for people with disability through the 'disability loading' in 2015.

That was a press release by the now minister, Mr Pyne, on 23 August last year. So the full implementation of the loadings for students with disabilities was of course expected to be delivered on schedule in 2015. This was to allow time for the data collection and for further collaborations with states and school systems and to ensure that the final disability loadings would give students the resources they needed. What we know is that Labor funded the $100 million per year More Support for Students with Disabilities program to make sure that students who needed the most assistance got the assistance they needed, while we were working to fully develop the Gonski disability loading in 2015. And, before the election, this process, just like the Gonski reform programs, had bipartisan support. The current government's promises were clear. They were straightforward. Students with disabilities had a right to rely upon them. But, in this budget, the government cut $100 million from the More Support for Students with Disabilities program, and failed to replace it with any additional funds.

So what we have here is a clear and unequivocal example of what this government actually does when it gets into office: it promises one thing before the election and repudiates it after the election. The government has been absolutely shameless in pretending that black is white, in rewriting history, and in sliding away from its clear commitments to the students and families of this country. And the most heartless of all its broken promises in education is undoubtedly the broken promise to fund the full Gonski disability loading from 2015. The government made promises to get itself elected and then it cut support for students with disabilities in the budget. What we know is that this government can never be trusted on education ever again. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.