Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Sydney knows very well that the recommendation of the Gonski panel in 2011 was to introduce transparent, consistent national needs based funding. And the needs based funding is based on a Schooling Resource Standard which is then adjusted with loadings for disabilities, for low incomes, for lack of English language and so forth. There is a whole series—half a dozen—of special loadings: remote schools, small schools and so forth.

Now, that calculation, which has been used under the Labor government and continued under our government, has been consistent for many years. Many arguments have been made about improving and refining the SRS measure. Of course, that is a commitment the government has—we will continue to work with the sector to improve it and to refine it.

As the minister for education has made clear, schools that feel the SES measure has not treated them appropriately are able to have their needs assessed on the basis of parents' income, in a much more direct and granular way. So this is a very conventional approach that has been operating for many years. It allocates the funding on a needs basis. It does so transparently. It does so consistently. That is what Labor argued for for years. They claim to have introduced it, but they did not. Ken Boston, David Gonski's fellow member of that panel, described Labor's 27 secret deals as a corruption of the Gonski recommendations. We are not giving a Gonski; we are not talking about a Gonski; we are delivering. And we are delivering on that needs based funding, and the honourable member knows it better than most. What she is standing up for is not Gonski. It is not needs based. It is 27 secret, inconsistent deals, a corruption of the Gonski panel's recommendations.

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