Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I want to go to some further concerns of the Western Australian state government. I will quote from their submission to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee. The Western Australian government noted that, through this legislation, the Commonwealth is 'seeking to strengthen the linkage between Commonwealth financial assistance and the implementation of evidence-based reforms to improve student outcomes'. As the Western Australian state government characterises it, the bill is seeking to stipulate conditions of financial assistance on the states and territories that is conditional on the implementation of national policy initiatives and that those jurisdictions maintain their 2017 levels of schools funding. Given that, why have you not provided the states the detail about how the funding will be tied to reforms, how maintenance of effort will be calculated and measured and how noncompliance will be managed?