Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Listen to the Labor Party and it would seem as though all purity, all godliness, is on their side. But what is missing from any of the arguments they put forward on anything to do with education is the awkwardness at best, and the downright corruption at worst, that exists in the education system in this country when it comes to the priorities set by state government bureaucracies. I listened to the member for Perth, who represents a very small electorate in the centre of Perth—and there is nothing wrong with that—but the member for Parkes, who I see here, will understand the point I make when I say that the sparse horizons of real Australia, outside of the tree-lined suburbs of central Perth, are a different reality. What is worse, the Western Australian government tell everyone in country Western Australia: ‘Come to Perth.’ They actually defund and denude education opportunities for people in Western Australia and demand that people come to Perth.

I know that the member for Mackellar comes from New South Wales, and there is an equally poor record there in New South Wales. The further away from Sydney you get, the better the education system works, because the priority for the New South Wales government—just as it is for the governments in Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and even here in the ACT—is to take the Commonwealth funds and make sure that the people in the bureaucracy are well furnished with all they need, that the quarter-of-a-million-dollar-a-year men and women are paid and that their services are made available before anything actually filters through to the schools.

If there is one fundamental flaw in the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment (2007 Budget Measures) Bill 2007, a bill I support as it stands, it is that it puts more money into the hands of state and territory governments, and that is where the problem is. The member for Perth talks about all the great things that would occur if Labor were in power. Thirty-three billion dollars worth of expenditure over the 2005-08 funding quadrennium represents something in the order of an 80 per cent increase in expenditure by the Australian government on schools and education compared to when Labor were last in power. That is way beyond the inflation rate. So, if there has ever been an education government in Australia’s history, it has to be this government—the Liberal Party government, the National Party government, the coalition government, the Howard government; however you want to describe it, this government has actually gone beyond the rhetoric and delivered real dividends.

This bill is about a vote of further support. It is about recognising vulnerable people in various parts of Australia, and that has an impact on all of us. In those remote, very remote, regional and moderately accessible areas—as the bill defines them—the additional vote of money that will go to non-government schools will address some of the real needs and the parlous circumstances of those schools. This is in the face of a failure by state governments around this country to realise that the most important thing they should do with their education funding is to start in the classroom and work out. They should not start in the big towers in Phillip Street in Sydney or in Mary Street in Brisbane or wherever they happen to be. This is not about wall panelling for those offices, not about flash cars and not about long lunches for people in education head offices; it is about the teachers and the students. I put it very plainly to the House tonight that something in the order of one dollar out of every four that goes from the Australian government to the various state and territory governments is lost in administration of the other three dollars. One dollar out of every four, instead of going straight to the classrooms, goes into the big towers.

If those opposite would join with me and this side of the chamber and demand greater accountability and greater prioritisation by state governments on the business of education, more money would actually be delivered to the classroom. The schools assistance bill that we are debating tonight reflects additional moneys from the Commonwealth government budget delivered a few weeks ago, continuing this government’s track record of trying to target need where it exists the most. The Investing in Our Schools Program has produced a direct investment that has gone into the hands of principals and P&C presidents. It means money can go directly from Canberra to local schools, because we trust those schools to best know what they want.

The first thing state governments have sought is management fees for projects. The New South Wales government is probably the worst, but the Queensland government is not far behind. They demand, ‘If you are going to touch anything in our schools, we want a slice of that money off the top.’ In fact, some states demand that their public works departments do the work—or else! The Department of Public Works in Queensland has a reputation for featherbedding 40 per cent on top of any commercial rate for work that normal contractors do. Whilst I know that the Labor Party are going to pass this bill, I call their amendment for what it is—a stunt. It is an attempt to look pure and godlike in their attitude towards education. But, in practice, state Labor governments have failed the classroom teachers and students in their care for far too long.

We are going to see non-government schools in moderately accessible, remote and very remote regions finding ways to keep the good teachers. One of the problems that exists in a lot of those schools in the very productive areas of rural and regional Australia is that the second a good teacher arrives they are snared and taken away somewhere else. I remember going to Mildura a few years ago, and the problem there was simple: the kids—and these were not even schoolkids—were just being minded in childcare facilities while their parents were off earning money picking fruit. They were losing teachers hand over fist to the fruit-picking industry, because it was paying more than teaching paid. So you can imagine that, as a result of the general recurrent grants—the remoteness per capita loading for non-government schools—we are going to start to see non-government schools in remote, very remote and moderately accessible regions of Australia offering AWAs to teachers. That is going to give teachers an opportunity to earn more and stay in the classroom. They will always earn more. They trade their skills and experience, but they also give some guarantee of tenure—that they will stay there—because the wage rates in various parts of remote, very remote and moderately accessible Australia are competing with the wage rates in industries outside the education sector.

So that is one of the good things that is going to come. I must say that, regardless of which part of Australia any of us happens to represent, that may stem the tide of people leaving those rural and regional areas to come to cities to place their kids in schools in city areas. Those rural and regional areas will be able to get good teachers and keep them there. They will be able to resource the education equation in those regional centres, so parents will not be tempted to send their kids to the cities for better opportunities. So the roll-on effect of what the government is doing here, whilst it does not directly impact upon a seat like mine in the southern suburbs of Brisbane, does actually have a beneficial impact for schools and teachers in my area. It means that schools and students in regional and rural Australia are going to be able to see a vote from the Australian government of additional funds to improve educational opportunities in those areas, attract quality teachers, increase staff retention and improve teacher access to professional development.

The National Catholic Education Commission has raised the issue of the high cost of regional and remote Australian schools in comparison to schools in other areas. We have seen examples where statistically they have not had education outcomes as good as those of some of the city based or large town based schools. This measure will assist 400 regional and remote non-government schools from 1 January next year, with increased funding that is going to make a difference.

I want to turn my attention to something that directly impacts on the electorate of Moreton. We have the most culturally diverse electorate in Queensland. In the southern suburbs of Brisbane we have people who have come to Australia as refugees and humanitarian entrants—people who have come to do better for themselves and their families. They may be the first generation that have come here, and they are willing to sacrifice things so that their kids are given opportunities to grow and have things that they themselves would never have imagined having—and one of the key things, of course, is education. Schools in my district are playing an enormous role—doing the heavy liftng of early investment in people to make a difference. This sort of early investment in people, through the English as a second language new arrivals, ESLNA, program, and the increased funding that the budget has delivered—and the bill is all about the formal delivery of that funding—will reap an enormous dividend for Australia in years to come.

I think Queensland has, by comparison with all other states, the best system for high-school-age students in that it has an intensive delivery of English programs, getting kids geared up at a high-school level through Milperra State High School at Chelmer, in my electorate. I pay tribute to Adele Rice, the principal, and her hardworking, dedicated staff. I was there on Friday night watching the Burundi dancers celebrate students who had been at that school in years past and students who are still at that school. They were celebrating the receipt of $108,000 in Investing in Our Schools funding which went to refurbishing the canteen. The canteen is the centre of the school social activities. The canteen is the place for food and drink and for the good times that seem to revolve around it, as well as for teaching kids about food hygiene and food preparation skills. So that $108,000, which has gone directly from the Australian government to that school where its P&C and principal can be trusted, has made a difference there.

Adele Rice, the principal of Milperra, can be very brave given the way the Queensland Labor government operates. Very bravely for a public servant, she actually came out and said how appreciative she was that we have an Australian government that understands—through the doubling of this increased funding, the doubling of the per capita amount of support, for eligible humanitarian entrants—the difference that it is going to make. I say to Adele Rice: thank you for your courage in applauding this positive effort. I know of the difference that is made at Milperra State High School. I know of the intensive work that is done over, say, six months. The kids often start from nothing and go to something. Then they go on and, particularly at high schools like Yeronga high school and Sunnybank high school, we see the success of those students that passed through Milperra. We see the success of the students who pass through this ESLNA program that we fund. We are doubling the funding through this bill tonight. We see the success of those students exemplified by the fact that school captains of both Sunnybank and Yeronga high schools have passed through Milperra and have come here with no English skills but have gained confidence because they have the skills, which we fund—and a difference is made.

Last Friday the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, was in the electorate of Moreton. I took her to a number of places. I did not take her to Milperra but I was there later in the day representing her and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Pat Farmer, at the opening of that canteen. I took her and sat her down with ESL teachers making a difference at Moorooka Primary School. Moorooka Primary School is just down the road from where the department of immigration’s on-arrival accommodation in that part of Brisbane is located. Milperra does the work for the high school students but Moorooka, amongst other schools, really does the heavy lifting for the primary school age students. I gave the teachers an opportunity to tell Minister Bishop exactly the way forward, from their point of view, on how to further invest in their areas.

Schools like Moorooka make a difference because they have teachers dedicated to the task of English as a second language, the funding for which has been doubled through this budget measure. But schools like Moorooka do not see anything like the $5,277 for eligible students that is provided, on the initial 2006-07 price basis, by the Australian government, which assisted some 13,000 students in 2006, including more than 5,000 who entered Australia as part of the humanitarian program. Schools like Moorooka Primary School, Sunnybank Primary School, Runcorn Heights Primary School, Warrigal Road Primary School and Kuraby Primary School—these state government schools that are doing the heavy lifting work on ESL, as are St Brendan’s Catholic parish school at Moorooka and St Pius X at Salisbury—do not see this $5,277 per student, because it goes to the Queensland government first. The highly paid bureaucrats get paid first and what is left over trickles out to these schools.

I simply say to the House tonight that if there were fairness and focus and if there were decency and honour in the ambitions of the Australian Labor Party members in this place—and indeed where they actually have control and an ability to deliver on a program, that being in the state bureaucracies—they would take that $5,277 per student that is being offered by the Australian government each year—13,000 students in 2006-07—and they would make it available to the schools where the teaching is done. They would actually put a classroom focus first, rather than following the tradition of Yes, Minister and seeing that the most efficient school offering English as a second language programs is the one with no students. They would actually fund the classroom relationship between the teachers and students. Moorooka Primary School, we were told last Friday, has two and a bit ESL teachers allocated with a case load of something equivalent to 27 per cent of the student body. In round figures, that is about 120 students out of 500. Moorooka state school does not need two and a bit teachers; it needs six or eight teachers. It is quite obvious to me that there is a desperate need in a school community like that to have the additional resources.

Here we have the Australian government playing its role, doubling the resources that go to assist English language tuition for new arrivals. But, as I said at the outset of my remarks, the big fundamental mistake in this bill is that the funding actually goes to state government bureaucracies, whom we hope will pass it on. The principals of schools in my electorate would be overwhelmed if they had a budget allocation of $5,277 per eligible student. Not only would they be overwhelmed; they would be able to provide the resources and support that would make a difference in those students’ lives. Taking the Moorooka example alone of 120 to 130 students—and anyone can do the sums—it would mean hundreds of thousands of dollars available to make a difference at the coalface. It would mean that all of the students who have come to the school with English language skills would not feel—and their parents would not feel—as though somehow or other the teachers may have to put extra effort into the ESL students. I think Moorooka has moved on from that, but I know that particularly at the time of the last federal election the Labor Party were promoting that as a whisper campaign around the suburb of Moorooka in my electorate, much to their great shame.

The simple reality is that the resources are coming from Canberra. Why are they not arriving in the classroom? Because the reality is that, no matter how pleasant their talk is, no matter how positive and on the side of God they sound in their utterances here about their aspirations, the Australian Labor Party’s priority is to put union based, union dominated officials and state bureaucracies ahead of the English language lessons being afforded to young people in this country, particularly vulnerable young people who have come from a humanitarian and refugee background. It is a disgrace. I commend this bill to the House.

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