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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

It is distressing to see another report detailing the continuing failure of governments to do one simple thing: fully fund public schools. If you stick a microphone in front of the Minister for Education, he's bound to tell you that he doesn't want to live in a country where kids' chances in life depend on how rich their parents are or the colour of their skin. But, to be clear, the government has no plan. In their recently released policy platform, the ALP have dumped any commitment to fully funding public schools.

The minister is intent to keep spinning our public schools and the concept of public education as a pillar of social equity into wonkish oblivion. The system is being crushed under the weight of fragmented, piecemeal policy that capitulates only to the interests of private schools. There is simple maths here. The only state or territory in this country with fully funded public schools is the ACT. That means that a majority of kids enrolled in public schools in this country will not attend a school funded to its minimum standard of resourcing. Many of these kids will spend their entire schooling career hearing about this mythical pathway to full funding. Tomorrow thousands of kids will wake up and go to thousands of public schools around Australia that will have to keep stretching paper and string to hold together kids' education. They will be taught by a workforce that is underpaid, overworked and burnt out. If we peer into the future, the future is bleak. We're at a crisis point. We have continued to throw dragon hoards of public money into the private school system, while we have driven the public system off a cliff—another pillar of Australia's social democracy kicked in the teeth.

Negotiations on the next National School Reform Agreement are already underway. This is the last chance we have to bring the public school system back from the brink. Labor has the chance to come riding over the hill to save the day, but at the moment it looks like they're vacating the field of battle.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Allman-Payne, do you wish to seek leave to continue your remarks?

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

Thank you, I do.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.