Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

Doesn't it just demonstrate what an utter farce these government's claims are, to have had a year of achievement, when they try to point to their schools achievement, of all things, to try to prove this. One thing we should at least be grateful of is that there are many within the sector who thought that this minister had forgotten he had responsibility for schools. He has been so side-tracked in his fruitless pursuit to strip our universities of one-fifth of their funding and trying to introduce $100,000 degrees for Australian undergraduate students that he has failed to even remember that he is meant to have responsibilities for schools, and people have been scratching their heads wondering where this minister, missing in action, has been.

We do recognise that the minister has rediverted his attention away from his hapless efforts in higher education to at least talk about schools. Unfortunately, though, it has not been a year of achievement in schools and education by this government. Instead, we are here to lament their year of utter failure in this regard. When it comes to schools policy, it has been a year of broken promises. It has been, sadly, a year of squandered opportunities, a year that has been spent by the minister and by the government on petty politics and destruction and on absolute destruction of the goodwill that had been built up in the sector and in the really significant and important reform and progress that had been made. It is a shameless and a brazen move by the minister to come into the chamber today, on the last day of the sitting year, and try to crow about the government's achievements in these areas. I guess we should not be surprised by shameless and brazen moves by a minister who just tried to criticise me about text messaging in a week when his own text messaging habits have been a subject of national debate.

It has been nothing but another thinly veiled attempt to deny reality and to try to rewrite history. It is a very tired trick in the playbook of what has very quickly become an utterly dysfunctional and chaotic government—a government which has proven themselves capable of three-word slogans but incapable of serious policy and incapable of the serious commitment we need to lift our schools' performance.

In contrast to the glossy statements and the brave act of denial that we have just seen from the minister, I will offer an honest stocktake of the government's achievements when it comes to schools policy and I will make this assessment against the criteria that this government set for themselves by what they told the Australian public before the last election they would do if elected. Before the election, the government promised:

Kevin Rudd and I are on an absolute unity ticket when it comes to school funding.

That is what the now Prime Minister said. We know that the minister said:

You can vote Liberal or Labor and you'll get exactly the same amount of funding for your school.

He went on to say:

We have agreed to the government's school funding model.

He also told the Australian people:

We are committed to the student resource standard, of course we are. We are committed to this new school funding model.

On election day, in South Australia, when voters turned up at their polling booths, we saw the large signs where this government was desperately trying to deceive the Australian people. The last thing people saw before they went in to vote were large signs saying: 'Liberals will match Labor's school funding dollar for dollar.'

Let's look at how the government's year of what they call achievement lines up against the promises that they made to the Australian public. The government has broken every promise. They have cut all additional funding for the fifth and sixth years of the Gonski reforms. They have cut $80 billion from schools and hospitals over the next decade—the biggest ever cut that this country has seen when it comes to schools policies, and they have the gall to come into this House and tried to crow about a year of achievement when it comes to schools. They have cut $100 million a year from the More Support for Students with Disabilities program and failed in their promise for more funding from 2015. They have let the state governments off the hook by promising not to enforce their funding obligations under the Gonski agreements and they have locked school funding to CPI from 2018.

Those opposite try to say that this is not a cut at all, but let us just consider that the current legislation makes it very clear that school funding will be indexed at 4.7 per cent moving forward. This government's budget papers make it very clear that school funding will be indexed at CPI, which is currently 2.5 per cent moving forward. They can try to say that black is white all that they like, but we and the Australian public know that that is a very clear cut, and it is a devastating cut for every school right across the country. The budget papers need to be crystal clear about this.

Mr Pyne interjecting—

The minister interjects and says, 'Lies'. He may try to say that 2.5 per cent is not less than 4.7 per cent. I would challenge the minister to try to put that case to the Australian public, because the government continually take the Australian public for fools. We know that this is a cut. It is spelt out in their budget papers how big a cut this is and it is ripping almost $30 billion from schools right across Australia, and then they come into this House and say that black is white and that it is not really happening. We know that they have not had the guts to change the act, but it is a cut in anyone's language.

Of course, we know that there are two hallmarks of this government's approach to education policy. Firstly, there is uncertainty and chaos, which we have seen in both schools and in higher education policy over the last year. Secondly, and arguably worse, there is the hypocrisy and the deception. We have seen that, again, in a statement that the minister just made to the House. I would like to refer to the actual words of the minister where he stated: 'Education policy must now be measured by where public funds are being spent on what works to improve student outcomes'. I would say that the minister is absolutely right in those words, but he is not right in what he is actually doing, which is something very different.

On too many occasions to count the Prime Minister and the minister have actually stressed that Commonwealth funding for schools is, 'No strings attached'. The minister then comes into this House and tries to argue: 'It's not the amount of money; it's what you are spending it on that is important'. At the same time he is saying to the state governments: 'Here you go. Here is a blank cheque. Here is some school funding, but you can spend it on whatever you like, because we are getting rid of these so-called control-and-command elements and we are offering'—their own words—'a no-strings-attached approach'. How you can reconcile those two sentences and not be seen to be entirely hypocritical is something which I would love to hear the minister explain?

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