Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

to move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges the Government's failure to deliver on its promise to provide a computer for every secondary school student between years 9 to12 within the original budget commitment of $1 billion;

(2) condemns the Government for promising to families that they would not have to pay for charges associated with using the laptop computers, and then for breaking that promise by authorising schools to charge fees and levies to parents to use the laptops; and

(3) calls on the Government to explain to families why it has broken its promise and why parents should be the ones to pay up to hundreds of dollars to make up the funding shortfall associated with the program, at a time when cost of living pressures are increasing.

to move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges the importance of the role that non-government schools play in reflecting the diversity of Australian society and serving a broad range of students, including those from a variety of religions, social backgrounds, regions, and socio-economic circumstances;

(2) supports the continuation of a funding model into the future that distributes funds according to socio-economic need and which recognises that every non-government school student is entitled to a basic level of government funding;

(3) calls on the Government to continue to support parents in their right to chose a school which they believe best reflects their values and beliefs, by not penalising parents who wish to make private contributions towards their child's education, nor discouraging schools in their efforts to fundraise or encourage private investment;

(4) notes the many submissions made to the Review of Funding for Schooling by non-government sector authorities requesting that changes to school funding arrangements not leave schools or students worse off in real terms;

(5) acknowledges that any reduction in government funding for non-government schools would need to be addressed by increasing the level of private income required to be raised by the school community (such as school fees), or through a reduction in the quality of the educational provision in affected schools; and

(6) calls on the Government to make a clear commitment to the continuation of current funding levels to all non-government schools, plus indexation, and for this to be the basic starting point of any new funding model resulting from the Review of Funding for Schooling process.

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