Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Senator Watt) to a question without notice she asked today relating to funding for private schools.

Figures from March 2020 showed that approximately 12 per cent of classrooms in New South Wales public schools were in demountables. That represented a 45 per cent increase in demountables in New South Wales public schools from 2014 to 2020. Governments consistently tell us that, while demountables may not be ideal, they're not the demountables of yesteryear and they actually offer decent amenities. Well, if demountables really aren't that bad, why not make them available to private schools instead of splashing ever-increasing amounts of public money into ever more grand private school buildings?

Why is it that public schools are always the ones that have to scrape by on scraps while the private sector gets more and more public funding? Gledswood Hill Public School in Sydney is a relatively new school which opened its gates in 2020. By 2021 it had 13 demountables taking over its open fields, leaving kids with nowhere to play. Nearby, Oran Park Public School had 27 demountable classrooms as of last year. School populations are exploding, but the government is chucking $70 billion over the next four years into the private system.

Of course, the private education sector will tell us that capital funding and recurrent funding are separate streams. The reality is that that's complete rubbish. Every dollar of public money given to a private school by the government offsets the costs of teachers' wages and other current expenses directly related to educating students. It also frees up money that the private schools would otherwise have to spend on educating students, allowing them to spend money on capital works. Yet, despite the huge amount of money that governments provide to private schools both in general funding and in capital works grants, the average independent school has raised their fees by over 50 per cent in the last decade and some by as much as 80 per cent. So much for the idea that funding private schools relieves pressure on fee-paying parents. And so we see story after story of largesse from the richest private schools in Australia: plunge pools for headmasters, trips to watch a rowing race in England, a 50-metre Olympic pool because their 25-metre one wasn't quite good enough for the water polo team.

To be clear, I believe that Australian students deserve those sorts of amenities. I want to live in a country where schoolkids, no matter their parents' income, have access to pools, auditoriums, state-of-the-art theatres, technology and excursions. But when rich private schools—and I note that it is just the rich ones; many private schools do remain poor due to the decisions made by the Catholic and independent block grant authorities—get public money while the public sector crumbles, that is a moral wrong.

Private schools funding across the forward estimates will now be $1.7 billion more than the amount the Morrison government committed in its final budget. As a proportion of total funding, private school funding is growing and funding for public schools is shrinking. The government's budget has moved Australia even further away from reaching 100 per cent of the minimum schooling resource standard for public schools, something that was suggested by Gonski over a decade ago. A greater proportion of federal funding for schools is now going to private schools, and that is worse than it was under the Morrison government: over $70 billion for private schools over the next four years compared to only $45 billion for public schools. Labor has clearly given up on fighting for a fair education system. At a time when our public schools are in dire need of adequate resourcing and upgrades and are experiencing teacher shortages, this is not only incredibly disappointing but disgraceful.

The Greens won't give up on our public school students and teachers, and we will continue to fight for public money for our public schools.

Question agreed to.