Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham. Can the minister inform the Senate of how the Turnbull government's new school funding reforms will benefit Australian school students, including those students in my home state of Tasmania?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Duniam for his question and for his hard work and advocacy in favour of fair, consistent, needs-based funding for schools right around Australia. Senator Duniam is right that many schools—virtually all Australian schools—will stand to benefit from the Turnbull government's application of fair and consistent needs based funding.

Our investment of some $18.6 billion of additional resourcing will help the schools that need it most to obtain the resources that they need most. Just over the next few years that will see Tasmanian schools stand to benefit, with an additional injection of $56.7 million of support. Once again, they are the schools that need it most. It is providing total funding for those Tasmanian schools of some $1.8 billion of resourcing just over the next few years—an increase of 13.3 per cent for those schools.

Because it a model that genuinely reflects need and targets funding to where it is most needed, Tasmania will receive particular benefit. It will receive the second-highest per student support of any jurisdiction in Australia. When you bring that down to the individual school level, Edith Creek Primary School, for example, will see growth in terms of its per student support from the federal government to the tune of around $2,000 per student. That is, of course, a tangible benefit in a very small school. Edith Creek Primary School is a school of just 41 students. They will see an increase of around $446,000 in funding support into that school and total support of around $2.33 million under the Turnbull government support. It is schools like this one—small schools, high-need schools in states like Tasmania—that are getting the resources and support that they need and deserve.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Duniam, a supplementary question.

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for the answer. Can he inform the Senate of support for the new school funding reforms?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly can and I am very pleased to say that support for the Turnbull government's reforms continues to grow. From the very first day upon which the Prime Minister and I announced the reforms—supported and endorsed by David Gonski himself—we have seen growing support, right through to today, when another member of the Gonski panel, Dr Ken Boston, has voiced his public support for the reforms. Dr Boston was very clear when he said:

There are no grounds for opposition to the schools funding bill in principle, and every reason to work collaboratively towards its successful implementation and further refinement in the years ahead.

Dr Boston went on and said:

For the first time, the available funding would be distributed on a sector-blind needs-based principle, using a common assessment tool for individual schools nationally.

This is a strong endorsement from the people who wrote the Gonski report for the Turnbull government's implementation of the Gonski report, and it is a tragedy that those opposite are not heeding it.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Duniam, a final supplementary question.

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the part I have been looking forward to: can the minister inform the Senate of alternative proposals to school funding being put forward?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sadly, the only alternative appears to be those opposite, who want to engage in a spend-a-thon. Void of any policy or principle, their policy, as Senator Cormann rightly points out—not that it is funded, because they spend money time and time again that the nation does not have—is a spend-a-thon void of any principle that aligns with the Gonski report, void of any practical policy and void of any idea as to how they will do it, aside from maintaining 27 different funding deals and special arrangements around the country. They, of course, are failing to commit to the actual vision that David Gonski had and Ken Boston had. It has not just been endorsed by them; it has been endorsed by organisations like the Australian Council of State School Organisations, by the Primary Principals Association, by the Grattan Institute and by a long list of people, who have said that the Labor Party should get on board with the type of reform that they commissioned in a report but never had the guts to implement themselves.