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

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by the Minister representing the Minister for Education (Senator Watt) to a question without notice I asked today relating to public schools.

I note today we've seen another underwhelming response from the Labor government on their commitment to public schools in this country. It's no secret that our public school system is on the brink. Ninety-eight per cent of public schools in the country are underfunded. Every year, they're robbed of $6.6 billion while the private system continues to be overfunded. That means public schools don't have the money to pay for the bare minimum level of resourcing they need to deliver a basic education for Australia's 2.6 million public school students.

Teachers are abandoning the profession, results are falling and millions of kids are being left behind. The underfunding of public schools in this country has created a national crisis. We have teachers burning out in droves, we have students struggling to be seen and heard and we have a system that's permanently baking in inequality. This year, more than 100,000 kids will graduate from public schools having never experienced a school funded to 100 per cent of the schooling resource standard. Let's be crystal clear about what the schooling resource standard is. It's the minimum funding that a school needs to function. In fact, it's the minimum funding needed to get 80 per cent of kids across the line. We're not even talking about getting every public-school kid across the line. That's how low the bar for the federal government has been pulled down by Labor and coalition governments.

We are at a tipping point, with public schools declining despite the best efforts of teachers, parents and carers, who are forced to dig deeper and deeper into their own pockets. Families are left with an impossible choice: to send their child to a public school that doesn't have the resources it needs to provide a good education or to send them to the private school up the road that gets public funding and charges fees they can barely afford. If Labor wants to get serious about the cost of living then they need to get serious about public education. This is the last chance we have to save our public schools.

Today the Greens introduced a bill to remove the arbitrary cap on federal funding for public schools. We are moving to replace the 20 per cent cap with a 25 per cent minimum funding requirement. This would have the immediate effect of bringing a majority of public schools in this country up to their minimum funding requirement. We're at a crisis point, and our public schools can't wait a minute longer. Our bill also requires the education minister to ensure that every school-age child in Australia has access to a fully funded government school. This change is a no-brainer for the education minister. It really should be the base requirement.

I have been a public-school teacher for 30 years. I understand the impacts of workload intensification and the frustration and the exhaustion of teachers who cannot provide young people with the educational resources that they know those kids need to succeed. I know the struggles of parents and carers, who are trying to keep their kids afloat, including those parents of kids with 'school can't', and I know that the system is at its breaking point. Every time I leave this place, I talk to more and more teachers who are ready to walk out the door, and we cannot afford to lose them. We need full funding now. For every kid in an underresourced public school around this country: the Greens will keep fighting for you. And for every teacher who is overworked, underpaid, frustrated and exhausted: the Greens will continue to fight for you too.

Question agreed to.