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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Education and Training (Senator Birmingham) to questions without notice asked by Senators Gallacher and Dastyari today relating to school funding..

I want to take note of these and speak to some of the inconsistencies and myths that were presented by the Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham, in answers to questions that he gave moments earlier.

But before doing so, I do also want to note that yesterday I had the privilege of being able to take my daughter to her first day at school. While many of us are going to debate over the next year how we can better fund our schools, how schools should be funded and what needs to be done to make sure we have the best possible education system, we should all be incredibly proud of the numerous teachers, principals and volunteers who make our education system as fantastic as it is.

But, while we have a fantastic education system—particularly in my home state of New South Wales—it can and it should be improved. I think it is disappointing that the minister—Minister Birmingham—outlined and actually undercut comments made by the National Catholic Education Commission, which said that the failure to properly fund the future years of the Gonski model will have the result that:

… fees will increase, schools could close and the quality of education will be compromised.

Ultimately, the government has been trying to set up a straw man argument, and the straw man argument is this: that it is all about funding—that the Gonski model and the Labor proposals that we put forward over the past year, and also the entire process over the past several years, has simply been about funding. Funding is an important component of it. Funding is the start. You cannot have a better education system if you are not prepared to pay for it. But what the Labor proposals have been saying, and what the Gonski model has addressed fundamentally, is: how do you make sure you make the most of more funding, how do you get the best bang for your buck and how do you work towards a more equal, a more fair and a more equitable system? You cannot achieve that if you do not start with a base of better funding for our education system.

Before the last election the Liberals promised—and this was Christopher Pyne, who was the shadow minister at the time—

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Mr Pyne' to you!

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

Minister Pyne. He was not Minister Pyne at the time, he has become Minister Pyne.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I said 'Mr Pyne'.

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

He said at the time—and I am quoting a press conference on 29 August 2013:

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

That turned out to be a statement that was not true. That turned out to be a statement that is untrue.

We also had the then Leader of the Opposition, who became the Prime Minister and who is now a quiet and subservient backbencher—a Mr Tony Abbott—talk about an absolute 'unity ticket' when it came to school funding. Then, as if that were not enough, the official Liberal Party-endorsed sign at the election on 7 September 2013—properly authorised by the Liberal Party—said:

Liberals will match Labor's school funding dollar for dollar.

After the election was over we saw these promises broken. We saw teachers betrayed; we saw students, parents and principals in every state and territory ripped off.

Over Christmas, when there was a presumption that nobody was watching, the Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Turnbull, made the decision to dump the Gonski reforms and cut $30 billion in future potential funding from our schools. To break this down: on average, that is $3.2 million from every school, which will mean fewer subject choices, less support for students with disability, fewer literacy and numeracy programs, learning support cuts and less training for teachers.

Fundamentally this all comes down to the priorities of a government and what a government should, wants to and chooses to prioritise. We have seen from the answers from the minister today and in the decisions that have been made by this government that they have decided that the future education of our children is not a priority. For this to all happen just as children go back to school is a tragedy.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too took my kids to school last week as Senator Dastyari did. I share his comments in commending the incredible commitment of the teachers and principal at my children's school, St Benedict's Catholic Primary School in Yeppoon. It is a wonderful school, and they do a great job. I am proud to say that all of my three children actually seemed to want to go to school. There were no complaints, tears or dragging them out of bed. I do not know if that will happen every day this year, but it is nice to start the year on a positive step.

I noted Senator Dastyari did talk about his own children to start with and he did spend a lot of time speaking about the Labor Party's policy they announced last week, which you might have seen was titled 'Your Child. Our Future'. To me that was quite a scary title and frame to put on things. I think you can look after your children, Senator Dastyari. I do not particularly want to have any kind of ownership over your children, but apparently the Labor Party wants to have some ownership over my children and other people's children as well. That approach of the Labor Party is testament to their overall overbearing and controlling approach.

In fact, improvements to our children's schools are going to come not so much from what we do in this place but from the good work, commitment and cooperation between parents, teachers and local school communities. There is no magic wand that a minister, Treasurer or budget down here in this place could wave and suddenly have my son no longer wanting to play Minecraft every night and wanting to go learn the periodic table. That is not going to happen. It is not going to happen by Labor's policy. It is not going to happen by spending billions more dollars. It is going to happen by commitment to better education at all of our schools.

I also took note that Senator Dastyari said very clearly that in his view we cannot achieve better educational outcomes unless we have more funding. That is the Labor Party's position. It is all tied to the inputs. It is all tied to how much we spend. In fact, we have spent 40 per cent more on education in the last decade. According to the Labor Party's own 'Your Child. Our Future'policy document, over that period, according to OECD data, in the year 2000 only one country outperformed Australia in reading and maths and in 2006 only two countries outperformed Australia in science. Today, 16 countries outperform Australia in maths, nine countries outperform Australia in reading and seven countries outperform Australia in science. By their own admission and their own data we have gone backwards in the past 10 to 15 years at the same time as we have spent 40 per cent more on education funding.

How do they explain that? How do you explain that the response to this reduction in our performance in the past 10 to 15 years is just to throw more money at the problem? That is the Labor Party's approach to every problem that comes in: just spend more money. Just spend more money on these Medicare reforms that are controversial now. Do not worry about the results. Do not worry about whether they actually deliver what you promised and what you argued for.

We are in a new year now. It is an election year, and the Australian people will have a choice later for a Labor Party that is still addicted to spending too much of their money, still addicted to throwing billions of dollars at problems regardless of the outcome. They do not care. They do not do the analysis. They are not particularly concentrating on the results. They only care about how many dollar signs they can put before the next policy announcement they make. They will not fully fund it, as Jay Weatherill, the Premier of South Australia, admits. They will not have a proper funding plan for it. If we do end up with a Labor government after this election, it will no be 'Your Child. Our Future'; it will be your debt and you having to pay it back. That is what will happen if the Labor Party get back into office. They will continue to spend your money, regardless of what the outcomes deliver, like they did with $900 cheques, school halls and many other programs in their last term in government. God help Australia if they get back in and can have a cash barbecue of billions of dollars more of your money with their misguided plans.

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

I rise with some fury at the nonsense that we have heard from those opposite this afternoon—not just the contribution of the member who is about to leave the chamber but the outlandish misrepresentation from the minister himself. The minister no doubt stood at booths in Adelaide in the lead-up to the last election and distributed hand-outs, smiling at people all the while and saying they were on a unity ticket with Labor, that you would get exactly the same investment in funding the future of education in this country in response to the Gonski review to make sure that students got a fair go. They stood there with banners beside them that said they would match the Labor Party commitment, which was a six-year commitment. They would match it dollar for dollar.

Yet day after day we hear this quivering nonsense from them that money does not matter. It is ignoring the clear reality that is evident to every single parent who rocks up at school, opens their eyes and sees that there are needs unmet in every single school across this country bar a few very privileged schools. That is what the Gonski investigation found out, and that is why the commitment was made by the Labor Party last week to fund years 5 and 6, which had fallen off a cliff under those on the other side of the chamber. They have abandoned that commitment that they made to the Australian people. What we see day after day is that those opposite say one thing but they absolutely do another. This is a perfect example of a party that simply cannot be trusted with the truth, cannot be trusted with dollars to invest in the future of this nation and cannot be trusted with education because their miserly view of education is at odds with the facts at every single turn.

When Labor were in government, we recognised that there was an urgent need for excellence and equitable school experiences right across this country. The review that was undertaken involved 70 different education groups, 39 school visits and 7,000 submissions. Mr David Gonski, whose name has been attributed to this for such a period of time now, wrote:

… the additional investment—

which is the dollars that the Liberal Party continue to say do not matter—

is needed to implement a schooling resource standard. It is necessary because without it—

this is the key part—

the high cost of poor educational outcomes will become an even greater drag on Australia's social and economic development in the future. The need for the additional expenditure and the application of what those funds can do is urgent. Australia will only slip further behind unless as a nation we act and act now.

That was a compelling argument that this government knew Australians understood. Those opposite were prepared to stand up and pretend to the Australian people that they would fund the entire six years of Gonski. People rolled up to vote in good faith and had a look at those posters that reassured them that this government would match the funding that Labor had committed to this national education project dollar for dollar. Well, now those opposite are quibbling over every single dollar. They have withdrawn their support. They misrepresented to the Australian parliament and to the Australian people what they were going to do, and they continue to come in here and peddle a load of nonsense about the lack of need in schools.

In schools around Australia we know that there are kids right now who are benefiting from the first four years of funding going through. In New South Wales, I have visited many of those schools, such as Woy Woy South public school, where there has been a transformation in learning for many of the students, particularly for the local Indigenous families, who have suddenly been able to achieve literacy and numeracy standards never before achieved because they got access to the additional education they needed to help them make up the gap from where they started.

But this government continues to deny that there is any inequity in schools. We need schools that can access the funding to make sure that they are able to do the job of educating our young. We need schools to get that money because they cannot do the job on the miserly amount that this government is intending to give them, a CPI indexation that is not up to the job. There is a failure to understand that speech therapists and quality teaching cost money. It is an investment in the future of the country. Labor is for it; the Liberals stand against it, and they continue to misrepresent their position.

Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to join in this very important debate. I will start by commending the wonderful teachers we have here in the ACT and the wonderful schools we have in the ACT both in the government sector and in the non-government sector. I have had the privilege of attending some of these schools here in the ACT along with my family members both in the public sector and in the non-government sector, and my kids now have the opportunities in these wonderful schools. I commend the teachers here in Canberra and around the country who do such an outstanding job.

I think when we take note of answers it is worth reflecting on the point that the opposition are trying to make in some of their questioning. I have got to say this is a little bit like the first day of school. It is the first day back for us here in the Senate after the summer break. You would think that, having had many weeks to regroup, the Labor Party could have come up with something a little bit better than this. They meandered around about Prime Minister Turnbull's views on the republic, on climate change, on same-sex marriage. When that did not get anywhere, they started asking other questions. I thought, 'What a tired strategy in an election year.' We had the year of ideas last year, which produced some extra ideas for taxes from the Labor Party. You would think that in an election year they would be raring to go. But unfortunately that is not what we saw in question time today.

That brings us to some of Labor's questioning on education funding. This is lazy policy from the Labor Party, and this is policy that they know they cannot deliver. They cannot afford it. They cannot deliver it. They knew it when they were in government, which is why they put it out to years 5 and 6. This is the fundamental issue here. Let us look at the first four years, the four-year cycle of the budget, which is what we deal with, which is what Treasurers deal with and is what governments deal with. It is what the Labor Party had when they were in government and it is what the coalition government has now. Over those four years that we committed to, not only will we match what the Labor Party was going to deliver but we will deliver an extra $1.2 billion—that is a fact. That is the record in terms of the coalition government.

We have seen an increase in funding of 27.3 per cent over the forward estimates, a significant increase in funding. The point has been made that we need significant increased investment in our schools, which we are doing. But that is not the only question as to how you get better outcomes. From the late eighties to around 2011-12 there was a 100 per cent increase in schools funding in Australia, yet we saw many of our outcomes going backwards. It is not the be-all and end-all. Even though we are increasing funding by 27.3 per cent in education over the forward estimates—$1.2 billion more than Labor was going to deliver—that is not the only answer. That is not a whole equation.

It comes down to the credibility of Labor to deliver. The reason they pushed it out up to years 5 and 6 was that they had not done the work; they did not have the money, because they wasted it in government; and they certainly would not have the money if they were ever trusted with the Treasury benches again. You do not have to believe me. Believe Jay Weatherill if you want to know Labor's credibility on funding their education promises. What did Jay Weatherill, the South Australian Labor Premier, say about their plans? He said: … we haven't seen any coherent or sustainable way in which that's going to be funded.

Those are the words of a South Australian Labor Premier. If even your mates in South Australian Labor do not believe you on education funding, how can the Australian people believe you on education funding? Jay Weatherill has called you out. He has said that you cannot fund it, that you have got no plans to fund it. Tinkering with multinationals is not going to fund your plans. You are going to have a budget black hole. This is the fundamental credibility problem Labor have, not just on education but on a whole range of other things. Until they can fix that, they can never be trusted to govern again. (Time expired)

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

I too rise to take note of answers on education given by the government today. All we have heard from government senators is ridicule of Labor's very solid, fully costed plan on education. There is a reason for that. It is that those opposite have nothing to say when it comes to education. They have absolutely nothing to say. And why is that? Because they have ripped out of every single Australian school $3.2 million. That will happen over the next 10 years. That is their school plan: to reduce the funding available to schools—$3.2 million out of every single school across this country. What a disgrace. Imagine what impact the loss of that money has on the quality of resource, the quality of teaching, the exciting learning experiences that children simply will not have because those opposite, the Turnbull government, will have ripped the heart out of every single school in Australia.

I come from a state where, unfortunately, their Liberal counterpart, Colin Barnett, has also ripped the heart out of school funding. Not only will every school in Western Australia suffer this $3.2 million cut imposed by the Turnbull government; they have got cuts of their own imposed by the Colin Barnett Liberal government. Let me tell you: schools in Western Australia are in a shocking state. But of course it is not just Labor saying this. I recently chaired the inquiry into children with special needs in our education system. Again, we saw another mistruth. Christopher Pyne, when he was the opposition shadow, made promises that he would commit the sort of Gonski funding that kids with special needs in our schools need. And yet what we have seen is that government has introduced this indexation to CPI, which is failing children with special needs.

What did the very conservative Catholic Education they tell the inquiry? They told the inquiry exactly the same thing—that they cannot manage on this funding, that it is not enough for Catholic Education to provide the quality and the specialist services that children with special needs need in their schools. And they went further. They said, 'Schools will close.' Schools for special needs children that they manage will close if this drop in funding—the failure to commit to their promises—continues by the Turnbull government. We heard Catholic Education yesterday say exactly the same thing about their mainstream schools. We cannot all have a comprehension problem. You do not sit there as a Catholic Education office and attack your funder unless things are dire—and they are dire. We heard shocking experiences of children with disability in our education system. If they had the Gonski funding, things would change.

We heard from schools in New South Wales who had picked up the special funding that Labor put into schools that have children with special needs, and they told us of the great innovations that they were able to bring to bear—all of which is now gone. This is what we see again from those opposite. The Gonski review was revolutionary. Obviously those opposite have never bothered to read it. It established very clearly the growing inequity in our schools between those students who come from wealthier areas and those students who do not. There is a growing disparity. But of course that is what the Turnbull government are all about. Unless you can help yourself, they have got no interest in helping you. The Gonski panel set out very clearly what was needed. Yes, of course funding is at the core of reform, but we also need good quality teachers—something Labor will invest in in our policy. We want to see innovative schools. We want to see all children having the best opportunity, not being defined by postcode.

I have two grandchildren in high school this year. Unfortunately they do not live in the green leafy suburbs. Their schooling is difficult. Their schools need more funding, and yet I know that those opposite have taken $3.2 million away from their schools, denying them the opportunities of other children.

Question agreed to.