Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2014. If the government had kept its promise to honour the Gonski agreements, there would be no need to consider many parts of this bill. If the government had simply kept its promise to deliver the full disability loading in 2015, we would not need amendments relating to funding for independent special schools. If this government had a clear vision for schools policy, if it actually cared what happened in classrooms, Labor would not need to defend the Gonski reforms, stand up for students with disabilities and argue for transparency and accountability in school funding.

This bill will ensure that funding reaches Indigenous students in boarding schools and independent special schools, which is of utmost importance. The opposition supports clauses in the bill that allow funding to flow to Indigenous students at boarding schools and clauses that will prevent funding cuts to students with disabilities in some independent schools.

While not opposing the delay of the implementation of school improvement plans, the opposition has serious concerns about what this move might be a harbinger for: a watering down of accountability to the Commonwealth brought in as a part of the Gonski reforms, perhaps? These are reforms that the Minister for Education has botched; these are reforms that the minister has, as with other elements of his portfolio, clearly said one thing about before the election and said—in this case many, many—different things about after the election.

School improvement plans, at their very heart, are about making sure that the money invested in schools by the federal government actually reaches classrooms and actually improves students' results. They are ways of ensuring that bureaucracies, state government and independent schools actually spend money on students. On the one hand, the government claims that money alone will not improve our schools, but on the other it is trying to sneakily undo reforms backed by experts that will improve student results. School improvement plans are not onerous. They were designed to make sure that money reaches those students that need it the most and that the extra Gonski investment that Labor made in our schools actually makes a difference in classrooms. This is about accountability.

The independent Australian Council for Educational Research has developed the guide for the school improvement plans, and it has been signed off by the states—Liberal and Labor. We need an appropriate level of reporting to make sure that these reforms do what they are supposed to do: help every child in every school to improve their results. Schools already make improvement plans and track their progress. The vast majority of schools will have to do absolutely nothing more in order to satisfy the requirements.

If I can turn to Victorian school funding, the government has been caught out again with absolutely no idea when it comes to schools. A year after breaking its promise to honour the Gonski agreements, then having a different position on schools every day and then being shamed into humiliating double backflips, it is still chasing its tail. We have seen this, for instance, in Victoria, where the Napthine government refuses to be accountable for money it has received under the Gonski reforms; where it has refused to tell Victorian schools and their principals how the Gonski funding will flow to schools; where school communities have no guarantees that this funding will be delivered on the ground and not squirrelled away for election bribes; and where there continues to be doubt about how much money Victoria will receive, with the Napthine government saying that no final decisions have been reached, but with the Commonwealth and Minister Pyne claiming that funding is settled.

Education funding in Victoria is a mess, with a government who cut TAFE funding while youth unemployment went up; a government which abolished the Education Maintenance Allowance; a government which has no real commitment to schools or to the welfare of students; a government which, like those opposite, sees education policy as a proxy for some great cultural war, a war which is a waste of time, of interest only to crazed right-wing obsessives; and a Commonwealth minister who clearly cannot work out what his policy is. Hopefully, in less than two weeks time, Victoria will have a new government to fix up this morass, a government that will fight this government's plan to rip $30 billion from Victorian schools and their students.

Elements of this bill, and the ideology that drives it, foreshadow the federal government's deep desire to walk away from funding state schools, leaving state and territory systems to wither on the vine. The bill exposes the government's plan not to unite and improve all Australian schools but to pit parent against parent, school against school and state against state in a fight for a pool of Commonwealth funding. This will, in real terms, dwindle that funding.

The government has again locked in behind the concept of CPI indexation for schools funding from 2018. This is a real commitment to this government's $80 billion in cuts to schools and hospitals—cuts that will leave every school an average of $3.2 million worse off, which is the same as sacking one in seven teachers and which will mean $1,000 less support for every student every year. This is a very significant cut in real terms, with the education price index currently running at 5.1 per cent.

We know that behind closed doors the education minister has been telling schools that the CPI indexation rate announced in the budget will be renegotiated, but the government response to the recent Senate report Equity and excellence in Australian schools blows that out of the water. It is crystal clear about the fact that funding will be going down in real terms:

… school education funding from 2018 will increase based on student enrolment growth and the government-wide indexation rate of the Consumer Price Index.

I further quote:

The distribution of the funding envelope from 2018 will be subject to formal negotiations with all states and territories and non-government education providers …

This is a divide and conquer strategy that will mean our schools will never reach the student resource standard and will entrench and amplify inequality. It will be a handbrake on the economy. According to PISA 2012, there is up to three years difference in the results between the most advantaged and most disadvantaged students. This gap will never be closed if the government continues down the path of braking it promises on school funding and the Gonski reforms.

The government has cut all additional funding for the fifth and sixth years of the Gonski reforms; cut $80 billion from schools and hospitals over the next decade—the biggest ever cut; cut the $100 million a year more support for students with disabilities program and failed in its promise for more funding from 2015. It has let state governments off the hook by promising not to enforce their funding obligations under the Gonski agreements.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not true. Stop lying to the Australian people.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You may not like to hear them but these are the facts, Senator McKenzie. They have locked school funding to CPI from 2018, with the budget papers assuming CPI will be just 2.5 per cent and the ABS Education Price Index currently 5.1 per cent. This is a huge cut in real terms. They have also blamed Australian voters for the broken promises on schools and completely trashed their 'unity ticket' on schools. Before the election—those opposite might want to recall this—Mr Abbott promised on 4 August 2013 at a press conference:

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

Leave the Senate chamber, Senator McKenzie. You do not like to hear the facts. On 29 August, 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, Mr Pyne was also crystal clear about the coalition's commitment to the Gonski model and to needs-based funding, telling voters:

We have agreed to the government's school funding model.

Mr Pyne also said on Radio National Breakfast on 30 August 2013:

We are committed to the student resource standard, of course we are. We are committed to this new school funding model.

And finally as Australians entered polling booths on election day, they were faced with signs that read, 'Liberals will match Labor's school funding dollar for dollar.' This is not the case. The government has claimed most recently in a Senate report on equity and excellence in schools, that:

The Government has met its election commitment and is clear in its support for students with disability and their families and carers.

This is patently not true. Ask any disability organisation, ask any stakeholder, ask any student, parent or teacher who was misled before the election because 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 also Mr Pyne in his media release on 23 August 2013. The full implementation of the loading for students with disability, however, was scheduled for 2015. This was to allow time for data collection and further collaboration with the states and schools systems to ensure the final disability loading would give students the resources they needed.

Definitions of the disabilities that attract extra support vary significantly between states—and so does the average level of support, which ranges from $4,000 in South Australia to $40,000 in Tasmania. Labor funded the $100 million per year More Support for Students with Disability program to make sure those students who need the most assistance got the assistance they needed, while work continued to finalise the full Gonski disability loading in 2015. Before the election, this process, just like the Gonski school funding reforms, had bipartisan support. The government's promise was clear and straightforward. However, students with disability, along with their parents and carers, have been utterly betrayed by this government. In this year's budget, the government cut the $100 million More Support for Students with Disability program and failed to replace it with the promised additional funds. At the same time, stakeholders are reporting that the government has dropped the ball on the finalisation of the full Gonski loading.

There has been almost no consultation, and when consultation has occurred, it has been rushed and secretive. This means that neither the promised additional funding, nor the promised full Gonski loading for students with disability will be implemented next year. And students with disability will have $100 million in support cut next year. Today's amendments to funding for independent special schools would not be necessary if the government had kept their commitment to introduce the full Gonski disability loading in 2015 and invest the extra money they promised.

This government has been absolutely shameless in pretending black is white, in rewriting history and sliding away from its clear commitment to our schools. However, the most heartless of all broken promises in education is undoubtedly the broken promise to fund the full Gonski disability loading from 2015. The government made promises to get elected and then cut support for students with disability in the budget. It stands condemned for this heartless break of faith.

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

I rise to speak on the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2014. As Australian Greens national spokesperson on schools and education, I welcome every opportunity to talk about the absolute necessity of school education and our duty to provide a great school for every child in Australia.

I also welcome the opportunity on behalf of the Australian Greens to stand up against this government's agenda to undermine the principles of the Gonski school funding reforms. Unfortunately, many of the measures in this bill would not be necessary if the Abbott government had kept their election commitments.

Most particularly, this bill reflects a broken promise to every student with a disability, every teacher who has a disabled student in their class and every parent who looked forward to a better education for their child with a disability and believed the coalition when they said they would deliver a disability loading in 2015. Let me remind you of Christopher Pyne's words before the election. He promised:

… 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.'

It is a pretty unequivocal promise, but—as this bill demonstrates—a broken one.

The Australian Greens will support this bill, because it will prevent funding cuts to students with a disability that would otherwise occur as a result of the government's mismanagement. In saying this, I acknowledge the complexity around the process of establishing the disability loadings.

In my role as the Deputy Chair of the Senate Select Committee on School funding, it was very clear to me how imperative it was to get these loadings right.    As a committee, however, we concluded:

… the uncertainty around continuing funding for students with a disability is a particularly urgent example of the negative effect of the change in funding arrangements.

Likewise, the committee notes that other disadvantaged groups could also be acutely affected.

The confusion around the interaction between the disability loading and the NDIS is also of concern to the committee.

As a result, the committee recommended the federal government expedite the data collection process to move as a matter of urgency to a disability loading based on actual student need. By failing to honour their promise to fund the full disability loading from 2015, this government has heartlessly walked away from some of the students who need its help the most.

This bill also allows the payment of additional funding to schools with a large number of Indigenous boarding students from remote areas.    The Australian Greens are absolutely committed to closing the gap in educational achievements between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. We understand the challenges faced by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians growing up in remote areas to access a first-class education. We are therefore pleased to support this measure, although we strongly believe boarding schools must not be the only measure to tackle the inequality of opportunity for students in remote Australia.

The Australian Greens believe every school should be a great one and every child should have the chance to reach their potential no matter who they are, where they live or how wealthy or poor their parents are. This is exactly what the Gonski reforms were designed to achieve and why specific loadings were recommended for small and remote schools and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

The area of this bill the Australian Greens have the most concern with is the delaying of the implementation of school improvement plans. These plans were required to ensure that Commonwealth money actually reaches the students who need it most. It was an underpinning of the Gonski school recommendations. School improvement plans were designed to ensure that the money was being spent wisely in ways that would make a demonstrable difference to student achievement.

The coalition government is fond of saying that this is not about money. It is not about throwing buckets of money, and we wholeheartedly agree with that. We agree: you do not throw buckets of money at schools systems and hope for the best. What the Gonski recommendations said very, very clearly was that we need to have well-targeted investment where it will do the most good; at those very students who need the most support to increase their achievements and which will increase the achievements overall in education in Australia.

School improvement plans had reporting requirements that would have guaranteed transparency in how public funds are distributed within all of the educational systems. Those who have followed this debate closely would know the Australian Greens sought to enshrine these accountability measures in legislation rather than regulation at the time that these reforms were being debated in the last parliament. This was to avoid the very circumstance we now find ourselves in where the Abbott government is undermining the principle and practice of transparency in schools funding.

It is a continuing disappointment that the previous government would not accept our very sensible amendments in this regard and that these school improvement plans were not legislated for. We did not want taxpayer money frittered away or consumed by state bureaucracies. We wanted the money to get past the school gate into the classrooms where it is needed most. We did not want to leave accountability and transparency in the hands of the current Prime Minister and his education minister, because we knew we could not trust them with our schools, and this has been borne out time and time again since the election.

Fundamentally, we knew we could not trust them because the coalition government has still not acknowledged the fundamental finding of the Gonski review of school funding and that there are inequities across Australian schools that need to be rectified. Such an acknowledgement would be a compelling motivation to fix an unjust system—one that currently fosters and entrenches privilege. But it has never been forthcoming from this education minister nor this Prime Minister who presides over a government that governs for the privileged and wealthy in Australia.

We also know that this government's commitment to accountability for Commonwealth expenditure in independent schools is flimsy. What this government calls 'command and control', we call sensible public transparency measures to ensure that money going to non-government schools is properly accounted for.

With the government's review into these measures, though, we know changes are on the horizon. We understand the unnecessary work created for schools when federal governments unpick and drastically alter recent reforms. However, we are unabashedly committed to the need for strong reporting requirements, because we want to safeguard the objectives of the Gonski school funding reforms and ensure that they are being achieved.

The no-strings approach this government is taking shows a fundamental lack of concern for ensuring money gets to where it is most needed and most makes a difference. Without these strings being attached we will not see the changes that we need to address the vast inequality of opportunity presented to Australian students in 2014. It is these very strings—in this case, the school improvement plans—which ensure that needs-based funding exists across the country and every child has the resources, the support and the school quality they need to succeed.

I want to conclude by restating the Australian Greens commitment to the Gonski school funding reforms and reiterating my unhappiness with the Abbott government, with its coalition of Liberal and National Party members, for its broken promises and refusal to meet educational inequality head-on—whether that is educational inequality in low-socioeconomic schools, whether it is educational inequality in schools where there are predominantly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students or whether it is educational inequality in remote or country schools or in small schools—and ensure that, no matter where a child lives in Australia and no matter what their background, they can be guaranteed an excellent education by going to a neighbourhood local government school.

Since coming to government, the coalition have done nothing to address the staggering educational inequality in Australia. If they continue on this path, the Abbott government's legacy will be the further entrenchment of privilege in our schools—just like the Howard government before them. Achievement based on merit, on ability and on effort will be increasingly replaced by outcomes dependent on the roll of a dice in a child's life—where they were born, who their parents were and which school they went to.

It was not always thus. Australia has had a proud and pioneering tradition of quality public education which really took off in the 1870s and 1880s—education available for all irrespective of background. Our move away from this tradition has been occurring over decades now, and the Gonski review highlighted the consequences. It gave us an opportunity to transform the system—and we are now going backward again at a rate of knots as this coalition government abandons those fundamental Gonski principles.

As I have said many times in this place before, the Prime Minister and his education minster have been remarkably consistent in their opposition to genuine needs-based funding. It is not hard to find the ideological rationale for the coalition's scepticism.    After all, a needs-based funding system would do away with the sector against sector war. It would put kid's first, not lobbyists or school systems. In the words of panel member Ken Boston:

Gonski is a truly needs-based system. It's a fundamental re-imagining of Australian education.

That is pretty threatening to entrenched privilege and entrenched power.

As Boston said:

If school performance is neither advantaged nor disadvantaged by parental income, ethnic background, religion, school size and location, or whether a student attends an independent, Catholic or public school, success at school will be determined essentially by the student's ability, application and hard work.

What a change that would be! If we reduce disadvantage, we also reduce privilege—and the Abbott government are frightened of a future where privilege is challenged.

Instead of locking in disadvantage, the Australian Greens want to see it addressed. We want to live in a country where every single kid can achieve their potential no matter where they live and whatever their background. I again want to state that there is more than a social justice imperative to provide quality public education—although that should, arguably, be the principle that wins the day—there is also, clearly an economic argument. The OECD says directing extra resources to the most disadvantaged students raises educational outcomes for the whole country, providing a return on investment twice as high as the outlay. An analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers showed that investing substantially in what is required to lift our schools' performance and that of the most disadvantaged students would generate $3.6 trillion in GDP in the life of a child being educated today.

I want to assure everyone listening to this speech—every teacher, every parent and every student—that the Australian Greens are committed to a well-resourced public schooling system with genuine needs-based funding. We are watching this government closely and we will fight to preserve the hard-won Gonski reforms.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we are re-prosecuting the rhetoric once again, with the Labor Party and the Greens trotting out their familiar lines. The coalition believes that every child in this nation is entitled to a great education no matter which school they go to or where they live, which is exactly why the Minister for Education has chosen the policy settings he has and why this bill, the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2014, needs to be amended. In the rush and the haste to politicise education in this country, and in the context of the last federal election campaign, this bill was rushed through, and it is riddled with mistakes that we are now coming to address. This bill amends the Australian Education Act 2013, which commenced in January 2014. As a result, in 2014 around $14 billion will be paid to government and non-government school authorities under the act. This funding is disbursed across state and territory governments through funding from the Commonwealth government.

The legislation had gaping holes in it that needed to be addressed. But where were the Greens complaining about the haste with which that bill was constructed? They were nowhere. They were absolutely silent, as Labor and the Greens slogged it out for the hearts and minds of the AEU in the context of the last federal election campaign. I think Labor won, though, Penny.

What we propose to do is amend the bill to ensure there is adequate administration and that all students, especially Indigenous and disadvantaged students, are able to receive a high-quality education. Specifically, the bill allows payment of additional funding, in 2014, to schools with large numbers of Indigenous boarding students from remote areas. It sounds like a good idea.

The Liberal/National government's Indigenous boarding initiative was announced in this year's budget. It provides $6.8 million in additional funding for eligible schools. Increased funding will be available to schools that currently have more than 50 Indigenous boarding students from remote or very remote Australia, or where more than 50 per cent of their boarders are Indigenous and from remote or very remote Australia.

The bill also prevents funding cuts to students with disabilities in some independent special schools and special assistance schools, from 1 January 2015. The bill also amends the Australian Education (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Act to extend the start of school improvement plans under the act in response to feedback from principals and schools. In short, the bill is important legislation from the government's perspective, because we need to make good on our budget initiative to provide additional funding for Indigenous boarding students and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. We are not altering the substance of the initial act. We are not altering the needs based funding models. We are not walking away from the commitments we made prior to the election.

Senator Wright interjecting—

Your saying it is so does not make it so, Senator. The fact remains that the focus of the Australian Education Act on a needs based funding model that is funded through the forward estimates—

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Please resume your seat, Senator McKenzie. Senator Scullion.

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We listened in respectful silence to some pretty ordinary contributions from the other side. If you could ask the Greens to provide the same respect it would be useful.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take that on board, Senator Scullion. Senator McKenzie has the call.

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

She was heckling the whole time.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Wright, Senator McKenzie has the call. Will you refrain from interjecting, please.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You know she wants to join the Liberal Party. She wants to join the Libs.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Cameron. The chamber will come to order. Senator McKenzie has the call.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So the needs based funding model exists. It is completely funded over the forward estimates. It actually has additional money going towards its implementation than that provided by the previous government. Yet they stand here and complain and make up realities that simply did not exist.

We have listened to an independent review and to the schools that have come to the government pleading for extra funds. The result is an initiative that provides high-quality education to young Indigenous people from remote and very remote areas around Australia. We are being responsive to the feedback from the sector, with measures that make a real difference in young people's lives, and in the lives of their families, so that they may have a positive and successful future.

This bill is close to the heart of those of us who care about education, and it should be supported by everybody in this chamber for the very reason that Indigenous boarding students from regional and remote Australia are clearly quite disadvantaged. I would like to acknowledge the work of the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Nigel Scullion, for his focus on tangible, practical measures to close the gap with respect to educational outcomes for our Indigenous youth. These students are at the crux of this reform for ensuring that we have a sustainable and well-considered education bill. Hence, we did not expect the bill to be controversial. But that is what happens when Angelo wakes up and works out that Labor in the other place has actually supported this bill going through. The AEU wakes up and sees it and it is in the Bundaberg news the next day, slamming the bill. And what do we have? Backflips left, right and centre from the Labor Party on whether or not to support the bill.

Going to the schedules of the bill, schedule one outlines the reforms and amendments that come into place. They will apply retrospectively from 1 January 2014 to double-check that payments and calculations for this year are correct and schools are receiving the adequate funding they are entitled to. The new mechanism under schedule one will be created to make payments to schools in recommended circumstances where parliament and the minister will be able to review eligibility and calculation of funding. It will become known as the Australian Government Indigenous Boarding Initiative. It was announced in our budget, and as I have outlined it has specific criteria around the number of young Indigenous Australians in those schools and where they are actually from. It allows the government to meet budgetary constraints while still providing high-quality education to those who need it.

With schedule two we are actually trying to correct errors that have become apparent since 1 January 2014, when this act was implemented. There are a number of errors that the Labor Party or the Greens did not pay attention to when finalising this legislation. This has created confusion for different authorities and schools, and we are actually aiming to provide certainty for them. Currently there are gaps in the system concerning schools in a transitional process, moving between approved authorities. Different authorities will provide different levels of funding and the bill seeks to address this problem and have a Commonwealth starting point for funding entitlement under that authority.

We also seek to clarify the accessibility remoteness index of Australia, ensuring that there is proper acknowledgement of inner regional locations. As it stands, the act could also see some school authorities in a position to receive funding as a whole from the Commonwealth government, rather than the Commonwealth share of that amount. This is a significant error that could see the Commonwealth and the national state share being paid to one authority. It is just ridiculous that that sort of error can occur. Not supporting it being fixed shows the level to which the Labor Party are beholden to the AEU in this matter.

The bill will seek the wide consultation that the current act ignores. We will amend the Australian Education (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Act to extend to 1 January 2016, or a later date determined by the minister, the commencement of school improvement planning requirements under the act. We want to work with stakeholders to consider possible adjustments to this requirement. Extending the time frame provides us with the opportunity to consult. Since when did consulting with people we are seeking to impose a regulatory burden upon become a bad thing? Yet, if you listen to those opposite, it is.

We need to get it right. We need to provide schools with certainty. One of the biggest criticisms, when the original bill was before the last parliament, was that there was a severe lack of certainty for school systems and for school principals about what their funding allocation would be, what were they going to be able to do with staffing et cetera. We seek to provide certainty so that they can get on and do what we want them to do—which is provide high-quality education to young Australians.

We are also ensuring that funding for special schools and special assistance schools remains at the forefront of education reforms. That is what we want to do. It is one of the key pillars of our 'students first' policy—ensuring that students with a disability are catered for and supported within our system. We have to get it right. In its current form, the safety net currently in place for these schools will disappear in 2015. Funding will be reduced to the schooling resource standard. This is purely because the current work with the states and territories to develop nationally consistent data is missing. We knew this. We knew that this was going to be an issue. Anybody that worked on the Australian Education Act through the Senate Education and Employment Committee inquiry process in the last parliament knew that this was going to be a problem. Yet we stand here today as if this has become an issue because of some Machiavellian action by the current government. We all knew, when the bill went through the last parliament, that this was going to become a problem.

We propose that $2.4 million be spent next year to assist these schools to adjust to the schooling resource standard, aiming to provide some certainty to these schools, schools which the current legislation ignores. We want to work with disadvantaged students, their families and their communities—and indeed the schools that care for them—to provide them with the best education possible. What we care about is putting students first, putting student outcomes at the heart of our education policy. That is why we are focused on teacher quality. It is why we are focused on measures to increase parental engagement. It is why a key focus of this government, particularly of Minister Pyne, is on those aspects of our policy that support students with a disability. It is about ensuring our national curriculum is relevant and responsive and that our young people will graduate from our schools not only literate and numerate but fabulous young citizens ready, willing and able to take on the challenges of the 21st century. We also believe that school principals should have a little autonomy in deciding what goes on within the school grounds. It is not a bad thing to make students the focus of education policy. What a change!

There are other errors in the current legislation that this bill addresses. One is final amounts for block grant authorities, providing a base for future capital funding. Another is giving greater flexibility and more options for managing any noncompliance that occurred under the previous legislation. The bill also seeks to clarify the operation of reviewable decisions and will correct errors in the current act relating to who can apply for a review of a decision under the act.

This bill seeks to tie up loose ends forgotten in the former government's rush to politicise education in the context of the last federal election campaign. The Gonski report was handed down in December 2010, yet we were scrambling to get the signature of premiers on bits of paper in September 2013. It was a joke. What we ended up with was an almighty mess which this bill seeks to address and fix. I support this bill; I support our government's intention to put students first, to put students back at the heart of education policy; and I support our commitment to a needs based funding model fully funded over the forward estimates, in line with the commitment we made before the last election.

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Being in the chamber tonight has been quite illuminating. It has shown us that the Abbott government can put a spin on anything. I said earlier today that I think they are living in a parallel universe—and tonight they have clearly demonstrated that they are. You would think that these reforms proposed by the Abbott government to our education system were revolutionary—when they are not. They are practical amendments that need to be made because of the appalling way the Abbott government has handled education.

Let us just remind ourselves of some of the massive mistakes the Abbott government has made in relation to the education of our youngest Australians. This bill is before the Senate tonight because of the Abbott government's broken promises. Those broken promises are the only reason it is here. One of the Abbott government's biggest broken promises was in the area of education. Remember Gonski? Remember those commitments? 'We are on a unity ticket with Labor on the Gonski reforms.' Do you remember when the Prime Minister said, 'It does not matter who you vote for, Labor or Liberal, because we will implement the full Gonski reforms'? Of course it matters who you vote for. Every single time it matters. It mattered at the last election and it will matter at the next election.

The Abbott government simply cannot be trusted on education despite their promises, the apparently cast iron guarantees that the Liberals and their coalition partners, the Nationals, gave us before the last election. So desperate were they to get into government that they lied to Australian voters. The Abbott government lied about its commitment to Gonski. Those reforms, like many other Abbott government commitments, are well and truly gone—make no mistake. That is why this bill is before the Senate. It is because the government did not keep its promise to honour the Gonski amendments.

We now need to consider specific parts of this bill. If the government had simply kept their promise to deliver the full disability loading in 2015, it would not need amendments relating to funding for independent special schools. Where is the government's vision for schools?

I have heard members of the Abbott government say, 'We don't run schools.' Does that mean the Abbott government is abrogating any responsibility it has for ensuring that Australian students have the highest quality education and that their postcode does not determine their school results?

Gonski identified falling standards and a growing gap in achievements, and that growing gap is between well-off students and those from low socioeconomic areas. What has the Abbott government done about this? Absolutely nothing. It is worth repeating some of the unfortunate standout features Gonski found. He found that one in seven 15-year-olds do not have basic literacy skills. How will these young people compete for jobs in the future when at every turn their poor literacy skills are going to prevent them from being successful? How will these students fare under the harsh new regime that the Abbott government wants to introduce for young job seekers of a six-month compulsory period without any funds to support themselves? With poor literacy skills, what education do they enrol in? What jobs will they be able to secure? These young people have been thrown on the scrap heap by the Abbott government—discarded before they have even had a real chance at life, at attaining a decent job at a decent rate of pay. These kids will not get a helping hand if the Abbott government's harsh dole amendments get through the Senate. If this government had a clear vision for school policies for these kids and many others, if they cared about what happened in our classrooms, I would not need to be standing here today defending the Gonski reforms, standing up for students with disability, standing up for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids, and arguing for transparency and accountability in school funding.

In relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boarders in particular, the bill establishes a mechanism which enables the minister to make payments to schools for a reason prescribed by regulation. The government says this will facilitate the payment of around $6.8 million in support for boarding schools for 2014 and 2015, but—and it is a big but—at this stage it has not provided any funding beyond that. This is a move not unique to education—it is typical of how the Abbott government is funding a range of critical support areas for states. We have seen the same funding deal—or no deal—in the area of homelessness funding to the states. The government has chopped about $45 million out of the funding for homeless people, taking all the capital money out. Why? Because they believe it is a state responsibility to provide housing for those who become homeless. The papers on Federation I am sure will spell out that education, health, affordable housing and a raft of other measures are all the responsibility of state governments, who do not have adequate funds to address these very critical areas. That is why the government have not ticked over funding on an ongoing basis—that is why they have just ticked it over for one year. Boarding schools, in the eyes of the Abbott government, are obviously no different from anything else.

I go back to the move to establish a mechanism to enable the minister to direct payments to schools. It will assist schools with more than 50 Aboriginal boarders from remote communities or where more than 50 per cent of boarders are Aboriginal and come from remote communities. Of course Labor supports this—not as a panacea but as one of the many steps, not the only step, that the government must take to close the gap in school education. It is just a tiny step. It is Labor's position that the first focus of government should be to make sure that every school is a great school—not too much of an ask; it is the right of a child to expect that—and that every child should have the resources and support necessary to achieve their best no matter where they live, no matter what their postcode is or what school they attend. That was the central plank of the Gonski reforms and it absolutely applies to schools in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Supporting boarding schools cannot be used as an argument to leave schools in communities behind. In Western Australia, the Barnett government have an appalling record on education—they have ripped millions out of the school system. They have taken away programs that specifically target Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and they have specifically targeted programs for kids with learning disability and slashed and burned those programs. Now, in response to the cut in funding from the Abbott government, the Premier of Western Australia is going to look at closing communities in Western Australia. I wonder whether the Minister for Indigenous Affairs is aware of that? Schools will be closed. Warren Mundine, their own man, has called it an infrastructure apartheid. That is what their own man has called it. And what are they doing? Nothing. So goodness knows what is going to happen in Western Australia if Premier Barnett gets his way and starts closing communities. Those kids might be in a boarding school and suddenly find they have no home to go back to. That is what Premier Barnett has in store for kids from remote communities in Western Australia. Of course it is a big secret about which ones. Make no mistake, the Premier has put that right at the feet of the Abbott government and their own Mr Warren Mundine has called it infrastructure apartheid. Let us see what the Abbott government's response to that is.

Closing the gap in the educational attainment of Aboriginal Australians requires a focus not just on boarding schools but on every single bush school and every classroom in every remote area. Right now the attention needs to be on what Premier Barnett is doing with those communities in Western Australia—he has made it very clear that he intends to close some because of the actions of the Abbott government

Of course, Labor supports those students and those communities that want to use boarding schools, but boarding schools are only a very tiny part of the solution. Labor remains absolutely committed to closing the gap.

Let's have a look at what the bill intends to do in relation to students with disability. This bill also changes the funding transition rules for independent special schools so their funding is indexed by at least three per cent a year—the guaranteed level of indexation under the Gonski reforms. It is not something that is new or fixed up by the Abbott government but what was clearly in the Gonski reforms. It is nothing new. It was already there, part of Labor's plans. It is a change that would not need to be brought to the parliament if the government had kept its promise to fully implement the full Gonski disability loading for 2015 and allocate the additional resources. There are six additional loadings under the Gonski reforms—for small schools, for remote schools, for Aboriginal schools, for students with low English, for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and for students with disability. These loadings, with the exception of the loadings for students with disability,were fully defined—despite the parallel universe language we see from the Abbott government—when the Australian Education Act was introduced. Of course, the Abbott government knew that.Remember their commitment leading up to the election? 'We are on a unity ticket with Labor on the Gonski reforms.' But, obviously, that was never true, because it has not been true since the election.

The full implementation of the loading for students with disability was scheduled for 2015, a nd there was a reason for that. This was to allow time for data collection and for further work with the states and the school systems to make the final disability loading work to give students the resources they need to achieve their best. W e have heard over and over again from those opposite , from the Abbott government , that they want to give principals more say. Labo r ' s plan was to consult , collect the information and speak not just to princip als but to school communities. So , again, empty rhetoric is a ll we hear from those on the other side . This was Labo r ' s plan all along . But they cannot bear to actually say Labor' s Gonski reforms were successful; t hey have to invent their own reasons as to why they need to do something different—give it a new name and say something else about it. But no-one is fooled. Those loadings were there and they were plain for everyone to see.

Definitions of the disabilities that attract extra support vary significantly between states , and so do the average level s of support, which range from around $4,000 in South Australian to $40,000 in Tasmania. W hile that investigative work continued, Labor funded the $100 million per year More Support for Students with Disability program to make sure those students who need the most assistance got the assistance they needed. We ensured that was happening while we continued to finalise the full Gonski disability loading in 2015.

Remember that unity ticket? It does not go away . J ust because you say something different now , it does not mean you did not say it. You said it in the media and you said it over and over. Before the election, this process —just like the Gonsk i school funding reforms—had bi partisan support. But we know now that anything bipartisan, according to the Abbott government, is a dirty word. They are trying to erase that concept of 'bipartisan' from their vocabulary, because they just try to trash and burn everything that went before them and invent it—even if it is just giving a new name—to somehow claim that what they are doing is better or different when, in fact, it is not. The education minister 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 came from Minister Pyne on his own media release dated 23 August 2013. That promise was clear and straightforward, as was the promise of a unity ticket on Gonski.

However, despite it being a clear commitment, students with disability, along with their parents and carers, have been utterly betrayed by this government. In this year's budget, the government cut the $100 million More Support for Students with Disability program—the program we had put in place to make sure students with disability continued to be supported while we worked out the new loading. It was a safety net, if you like—that is what we put in place for students with disability. But, no, the Abbott government slashed and burned that—'Let's just cut that; it's just money for nothing'—despite that clear commitment. Not only did they cut that but they failed to replace it with the promised additional funds. There was just nothing left in its wake.

At the same time, stakeholders are reporting the government has dropped the ball on the finalisation of the full Gonski loading. And, in the typical fashion of the Abbott government, there has been almost no consultation, because that is not the way they drive their agenda. Consultation leads to transparency, and they do not want to be transparent around what they have done to disability loadings. They want to try and sneak it through, but nobody is fooled. Where they have done consultation, again, in typical Abbott government fashion, it has been rushed and, of course, secretive. That is the style of this government—no transparency and everything done in secret.

This means that neither the promised additional funding nor the promised full Gonski loading for students with disability will be implemented next year. They just will not be; they will be missing in action. On top of that, students with disability will have $100 million in support cut next year.

The Abbott government have been absolutely shameless in pretending black is white, in rewriting history and in sliding away from their very clear commitments to our schools. However, the most heartless of all the broken promises in education is undoubtedly the broken promise to fund the full Gonski disability loading from 2015—and absolutely nothing has been left in its place. Parents of children with disability fought really hard to make sure their kids got a fair go. Kids with disability do need additional support and in some instances they need significant support. They need that helping hand to ensure that the education they receive is of the same high quality that children without a disability receive. All of us who are fair-minded would agree that that is the just and proper thing to do. But the government—the Liberals and the Nationals—simply made those now broken promises, promises they had absolutely no intention of implementing, to get elected and then cut the support for those students with disability in the budget.

Again, Labor will not stand in the way of ensuring funding flows to independent special schools from next year, but we are going to make sure that the Australian community knows exactly what is going on here. There must be no more hoodwinking like when the government cut the additional funding that Labor put in place and then reneged on the commitments it made around disability loading. We will absolutely continue to take the Abbott government to task on its broken promises to students with disability.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wonder, as people in the chamber and people listening this evening would be wondering: what are we doing here? This is an amendment which actually received support from the Labor Party in the other place through the spokesperson, Ms King. In the other place, the Greens political party made no comment at all and, therefore, I cannot see why there would be any occasion on which that party would oppose these amendments. So I am asking myself: why are we here having this spirited debate in which the Labor Party, from what I understand from Senator Lines and others, are opposing this measure? The Greens' position was not clear from Senator Wright's contribution, although, with my knowledge of Senator Wright's deep interest in this area, I would be extremely surprised and disappointed if Senator Wright was actually recommending to her colleagues that they should oppose these amendments.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Come on, Chris, let's go home.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think I hear Senator Sterle agreeing with me that, should it go to a vote now, we will actually have support from the other side. If we do not, it would have to be the greatest act of hypocrisy that we have seen in recent times in this place.

I sat here in stunned silence, I must say, to Senator Lines's contribution, some of which I will seek to dispel in a few minutes, but what is this bill all about? It is a usual theme: it will correct a significant error of the last government—we had that all the time through the numbers of years that Mr Rudd, followed by Ms Gillard, followed by Mr Rudd, led an incompetent and disparate government—that would see, for some school authorities, the Commonwealth liable to pay the entire amount, both the Commonwealth and the notional state share, calculated for an authority. It goes to questions associated with additional funding for Indigenous boarding students. It speaks of transition arrangements for special schools and special assistance schools. It extends the commencement of school improvement planning requirements, ensures schools moving between approved authorities will be financially neither advantaged nor disadvantaged and ensures the Commonwealth, as I just said, pays only its share of the total public funding arrangement. All it speaks to is ill-conceived drafting in the first place and a failure of rushed legislation.

So what are we talking about? We have just heard a rant from Senator Lines about Gonski. Let us be very, very clear. For the period of the out years, the current four-year funding period within this parliament, there is no change. Let me repeat that for those who are slow of listening: there is no change, no decrease at all, in the funding to the schools sector. The only change is an increase, would you believe it? You would not have known that listening to the previous speaker. There is an increase of $1.2 billion for the three states that resisted the bullying of Ms Gillard to sign up to the ill-conceived Gonski provisions. They actually were not the Gonski provisions, as, indeed, Mr Gonski and his co-authors rushed to say. The Labor Party, as usual, cherry-picked those bits that they thought were most politically expedient. Of course, my own state of Western Australia, amongst others, stood by and said it was not going to accept the domination by the then federal Labor government to take over control of its schools for the paltry amount that was offered to the Western Australian state. When we came to government, and Mr Abbott became the Prime Minister and Mr Pyne became the education minister, far from removing funds we actually put $1.2 billion more into the system. So let me dispel that myth from the word go.

I am pleased that Senator Lines said that she supports Aboriginal education, particularly in relation to boarding, because, if she did not, that would be a great travesty for all of us in this chamber. Let me speak, if I may, for a few moments about a program that has been running for some years, coordinated by the independent schools in Western Australia, called Future Footprints. It takes students from remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia and parts of the Northern Territory and down they come to some 17 metropolitan independent and Catholic boarding schools in Perth. It receives limited funding from government sources, particularly, in this case, the Commonwealth. There has been very generous funding from the schools and those who support them.

But at the moment there are some 330 students in this program. I have followed it over the last few years and I have seen the excellence of the outcomes of the program for these young Aboriginal students from remote Indigenous communities. They come down to schools in Perth. They have gone on. Their completion rate to year 12 has been exceptionally high. The number of those who have gone on to post-secondary studies is enviable.

I have had the privilege of meeting some of the young people, who have set up their careers for the future, as a result of this wonderful opportunity that has been created for them. They have come from their homes in remote areas to schools in Perth. The program has been absolutely exemplary.

Any program that encourages these young people to take the opportunity to study at boarding schools around Australia must be accepted and those who participate in it must be congratulated and encouraged. The programs for these young people from years 10 to 12 are designed to increase retention rates—to increase the levels of completions. It is pleasing to record the success rates that are occurring as a result of these programs.

The young people are mentored. There is a liaison officer who ensures that these young people, of a weekend for example, have the opportunity to gather together, to meet and to discuss what is going on. I remember being told that when a school function is taking place the liaison officer would take the young girls into town and make sure that they had appropriate clothing et cetera so that when they attended the function they felt comfortable in themselves. We should encourage these sorts of activities.

I will go, now, to the question of disability. Let me explain to those who might be interested what will happen if these amendments before us this evening are not passed. There are some eight Northern Territory colleges, which I am absolutely sure my colleague Senator Scullion will be familiar with, which will be disadvantaged under the Indigenous Boarding Initiative if these amendments are not passed. In Queensland there are six colleges that will be disadvantaged. In my home state of Western Australia there are also six, including the Christian Aboriginal Parent-directed School; the Clontarf Aboriginal College, which has been a national leader over some period of time now in terms of their education programs for young men and young women; La Salle College, with which I have some familiarity; and the Wongutha Christian Aboriginal Parent-directed School. These are schools that will be disadvantaged if these amendments do not pass.

When I speak about the question of disability I will mention, for example, the Aspect schools in New South Wales. These are schools which focus on the needs of autistic children. They include Aspect Hunter School, Aspect Vern Barnett School, Aspect Central Coast School, Aspect Western Sydney School, Aspect South Coast School, and Giant Steps Sydney. All of them will be financially disadvantaged if these amendments do not pass. In Queensland, the Autism Queensland Education and Therapy Centre will be disadvantaged to the tune of almost half of the funding that is available to them currently. The same applies in my home state of Western Australia, where the Telethon Speech and Hearing establishment will be disadvantaged.

Here in the ACT—in your home patch, Acting Deputy President Seselja—the Galilee school will forsake almost 50 per cent of its funding. Where it would have been expecting $16,000 its funding will go down to $8,900—a loss of $7,000. It will be similar again in New South Wales and in Queensland.

I cannot let this occasion go past without making a comment on some of the discussion advanced by Senator Lines with regard to Western Australia—particularly the actions of the Barnett government. Senator Lines ridiculed the Barnett government about, to paraphrase her, its very poor contribution to education et cetera in this country. Be aware that the highest per capita funding for students in state schools in this nation is in Western Australia as a result of the Barnett state government. The highest paid teachers in this nation are the Western Australian state government teachers. So I will not sit here this evening and listen to Senator Lines—a Western Australian senator—malign the Barnett government. The man was an outstanding Minister for Education. His parliamentary secretary, the honourable Barbara Scott, was responsible for the education of preschool children. That program has found its way throughout this nation.

Senator Lines drew the comparison between the decision of the Barnett government to close some remote Aboriginal communities with its decision to close schools. That indicates one of two things—either she is loose with the truth or she is totally ignorant of remote Aboriginal communities in this state. It is a shame that Senator Sterle is not here, because he is a person who is well versed in the remote Aboriginal communities of Western Australia. As one who actually had an association with the Kimberley in past years, I have taken a keen interest in what has been made public, and I have heard nothing stating that the Barnett government is closing schools in remote Aboriginal communities. So this debate is not the place nor time to be making the sorts of spurious and false statements and allegations that we have heard in connection with the Barnett government

It is exemplary when it comes to the provision of primary, secondary and pre-primary education in this nation.

I conclude that all senators should want to pass the amendment to the Australian Education Act 2013. It will ensure additional funding for Indigenous boarding students. It will ensure that transition arrangements are in place for special schools and special-assistant schools and it will add to the facilities and funding for transitional and disabled students in that circumstance. When it comes to funding for the period of this government, for the period under consideration, that is guaranteed. Any statement to the contrary is simply one that we all know to be incorrect. I urge my colleagues on all sides of the chamber to pass these legislation.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I had this funny idea that the role of the Senate was to allow senators to look at legislation, to consider it and then have the chance to make statements in this chamber about it. I am sorry if people on the other side think that is something which should be restricted to only those who agree with them. In terms of the interest people have in this place about education, there can be no question that there is a genuine interest. There is a genuine interest in ensuring that all children, all people who are seeking education across our nation, have effective options, real choice and well-resourced and accessible education at every level.

What we have before us is a bill that had to be brought in. Promises were made by the government, before the election, to the community, to people seeking education—to all of us—that there would not be a sliver of difference between the Gonski process supported by the then government and that of the opposition. There were outpourings of commitment all over the place. It was knee-deep in commitment to ensure that the changes, the improvements and the funding arrangements would be taken forward. That is what people were told, and many people believed it. They believed that the commitments made before the election would be maintained into the post-election period.

We have a bill that has come before us because those commitments have not been made. There is no doubt that senators on this side of the chamber will be supporting the changes in this bill. I am sure that will allay the concern put forward so forcibly by Senator Back that there would be an attempt from people on this side of the chamber to knock off the amendments in this bill—that are there because the promises made before the election have not been brought forward.

We know what the key elements of this bill are because we have heard a range of speakers on this topic. There is support for Indigenous students in boarding schools—as if there is anyone in this chamber who does not support effective funding around a range of options for education, particularly for Indigenous students. In this case, we are being asked through this amendment to ensure that funding flows to boarding schools, for Indigenous students, that have over 50 students.

Every one of us who has had the honour, the privilege, of visiting some of the Indigenous communities in our country, of course, will be supporting it. I am a Queenslander and I have had the privilege of visiting a number of schools across Queensland that focus on offering education to young people in a boarding facility, to allow them and their parents to make that choice. The reason we are here is that the funding that was supposed to be going through there did not flow in the original act, which came through from this government after it came to office.

Naturally, on this side of the chamber we will be bringing that to the attention of the people who are sitting now on government benches. We will be bringing it to the attention of people in the wider community. But we will not be blocking any funding that ensures young people in Indigenous communities who believe their best option for the future is to have a boarding option should have that facility provided effectively by their government. That is what we are supporting in this bill. We need to ensure that the funding announced in the budget will flow and that they will facilitate the payment of $6.8 million in 2014-15 to non-government boarding schools with more than 50 Indigenous borders or more than 50 per cent of boarders who are Indigenous. We will be supporting that part of the bill.

We will also be talking about the need for a commitment and trust that Indigenous communities will have options, that they can consider the best way for their children to be educated and know that the facilities will be there. This ensures that discussions continue between providers of education and Indigenous communities and that children are not forced to seek a certain path. We must ensure that every child has the option of effective schooling, where they are. For some people, that will be schooling in their own communities. For others, it will be the option of boarding. We have seen this work so well. The previous government was responsible for providing boarding colleges and housing so that young people would have safe and accessible housing close to where they receive their education.

The other change that has to be talked about in this place, because the funding did not come through originally, is the issue of transitional fees for independent special schools so that funding is indexed by at least three per cent a year, the guaranteed level that was under the Gonski reforms. It is a change that would not have been brought to the parliament if the government had kept its original promise to fully implement the Gonski disability loading for 2015 and allocate additional resources. It is very straightforward.

There were six additional funding loadings under the Gonski reforms. They were talked about throughout the community. There were special sessions to ensure that people understood how the loading system would work. The loadings were for small schools, remote schools, Indigenous students, students with low English, students from a disadvantaged background and students with disabilities.

These were the needs that were expressed to us, to all of us. This is not a party issue. These were the needs that were being expressed by the community about the children, the students, who needed extra support. This was negotiated at length with the independent schools, with Catholic ed, with public schools and with the appropriate unions to ensure that people understood how it would work and how the benefits would flow through to the schools so that the kids with these needs and these backgrounds would have the support they needed—again, effective options so that every child would have the opportunity for an effective, responsible and very much a personal education.

The loadings with the exception of the loading for students with disabilities were fully defined in the original act. The full implementation for the loading for students with disabilities was scheduled for 2015. This was to allow time for effective data collection and further work with the states and school systems to make the final disability loading work to give students the resources they needed to achieve their best—understandable because this is a contested area as to the best way to provide this support. So the decision in the original act was to ensure that this funding would be delayed until 2015, the full rollout, so that that further data could be collected, information shared and that consultation and dialogue maintained.

Definitions of the disabilities that attract extra support vary significantly between states and so does, as a result, the average levels of support, which range from the current situation from $4,000 in South Australia to $40,000 in Tasmania—an enormous scope and reflective of the need for more consultation and discussion. While the work continued because there is an acknowledgement that this work would need to continue, Labor funded the $100 million per year More Support for Students With Disabilities program to make sure that those students who needed the most assistance got the assistance they needed while work continued to finalise the full Gonski disability loading. The expectation and the promise was that this was going to be introduced in 2015.

Before the election, this process, just like the Gonski overall process, had full support across the board. But, as I said, as a result of the election that support has waned. I am not going to go through all the quotations which people know and I am not going through all that argument. But what we do know is that that funding did not flow. So the funding in this bill will change the transitional rules so that their funding is indexed. I think Senator Back was talking about the people and the schools who would miss out if somehow this side of the chamber actually rejected this legislation. Well, we are not and the schools will not, because we actually believe that there must be this understanding and support for students, for teachers, for educators and for communities to ensure that they have the special needs that they must have to ensure that they have their education options.

Again, all of us share a commitment to ensure that there is an effective education process. We can talk about the teachers we have met, the students we have met and the schools we have attended. I would think most senators would be able to share those experiences. But there is a clear expectation that this will be fulfilled and the disability loading or process will happen. So this part of the bill we are supporting.

Another element of the bill is delaying the implementation of the school improvement plans by one year. For me, this is just so frustrating because there was so much work done in developing agreements around the school improvement plans. We talked with teachers because they actually had raised concerns about whether this was going to be a large impost on them and their workloads. We talked with families about how they would operate. We talked with state education departments, who already had systems in place that demanded teachers write individual plans for students. That work was done. The process was in place. No process receives absolute joyous acceptance in its first rollout. But the absolute need to have this relationship and this clear, defined school improvement plan presented by teachers working with their students was agreed. So that was the process that was rolling out, that was going to be part of the introduction.

What we have here is a delay by one year. That is to facilitate further changes to the school improvement plans as a consequence of the minister's review of command and control requirements of the school funding system. (Time expired)