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

I 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 choose 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.

The issue of non-government school funding is at the moment like a train coming down a tunnel for parents in non-government schools across Australia. There are 1.2 million students in non-government schools across this country, which means about 2.4 million parents who send their children to non-government schools. All of those parents are, and should be, concerned, the principals of non-government schools are concerned, and all the organisations representing non-government schools should be very concerned about the government's response to what the David Gonski review of non-government school funding hands down by the end of this year. If the government responds badly to that report, if it missteps on non-government school funding, there could be catastrophic impacts on the non-government school sector. If the non-government school sector loses funds, one of two things can occur: either non-government schools will need to push up their school fees—and at a time of major cost-of-living pressures the last thing that families need is an increase in their school fees—or potentially there will be the sacking or removal of many, many teachers in order to meet the shortfall in funds.

The Labor-Greens government has done very little to ameliorate the concerns of the non-government school sector. We in the coalition have been pointing out to the government for months and months the impact of not responding appropriately to non-government school funding reviews such as this one. Let us remember that the coalition are committed to indexing non-government school funding from the Commonwealth based on the current quantum of funds. In the event that the government chooses not to do this, and so far it has failed to commit to it—the minister has in fact said that schools will not get one dollar less than they currently get, which he thinks is a clever, tricky way of convincing schools that they have nothing to be concerned about, but of course the semantics are not lost on the non-government school sector—and it continues to support non-government schools only to the tune of the current quantum of funding then over the next quadrennium of funding $4.2 billion less will be paid to the non-government school sector. That is $4.2 billion across all of the non-government schools in Australia, which would have a massive impact on the resources available to non-government schools. Those schools would have to replace that $4.2 billion either by increasing their school fees dramatically or by cutting teachers.

Conservative estimates suggest that if the schools choose not to put up their school fees, at a time of real cost-of-living pressures, then they will have to sack 56,000 teachers in non-government schools. If they push up their fees to the tune of $4.2 billion then obviously some parents simply will not be able to afford that increase in fees, which will mean schools will lose students. This is such a serious matter—there are many schools that will actually close their doors if the government fails to index their funding based on the current quantum of funds—yet the government continues to obfuscate and to be unclear about what it believes schools in the non-government sector deserve in funding from the Australian taxpayer.

I will give just a couple of examples. In my own electorate of Sturt, Mary MacKillop College, which was founded and is still run by the Sisters of Saint Joseph—and of course Mary MacKillop was the founder of the Sisters of Saint Joseph order—would lose $2 million over four years, in real terms, which equates to $3,985 per student. Mary MacKillop is not a high-fee school. I note for the minister at the table, the Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare, that this school is on the border of our electorates, on Portrush Road between the Adelaide and Sturt electorates. She is deathly silent about the impact of not indexing school fees for non-government school students, yet many of the students in Norwood and across her electorate would be students at Mary MacKillop College. While I am standing up for the students in my electorate by insisting that we have indexation on top of the quantum that is currently paid to non-government schools, the minister at the table, the member for Adelaide, is deathly silent and refuses to commit. But I give her the opportunity: she can speak on this motion if she chooses to and she can commit to funding for non-government schools like Mary MacKillop College.

There is another example which impacts on both the minister at the table, the member for Adelaide, and myself: Kildare College. Kildare College, in the north of my electorate, is very close to the border between the member for Adelaide's electo­rate and my electorate and it would lose $1.4 million in funding if there were no indexation of non-government school fund­ing over the next four years, which is over $4,000 per student. Kildare College is a low-fee school that caters for many students from low-socioeconomic-status backgrounds in the north-east of Adelaide, yet the govern­ment continues to leave those people swinging in the breeze without a clear indication that their funding will be maintained into the future at current levels plus indexation.

The government's partners in government, the Greens, have a quite radical proposal for non-government school fees. They wish to reduce the funds from the government to 2003 levels. This would completely annih­ilate schools in the non-government school sector across Australia. Yet, because the government, the Labor Party, are in fear of the Greens, they are yet to come out and condemn the Greens for their policy on non-government schools—and they have had every opportunity to do so. The minister, Mr Garrett, has been stone silent about the Greens' policy for non-government school funding. Why don't the government slam the Greens' proposal to reduce funding to 2003 levels, which would decimate the non-government school sector? Yet the government remain silent.

The other aspect to this motion is the support for 'funding maintained' schools. Funding maintained has been a part of the SES funding model since 2001. It has been a part of it from day one. It is as much a part of the current funding of non-government schools as any other part. There are 1,075 schools—out of 2,650—that are funding maintained schools. If those funds were to be withdrawn, nine schools in Sturt would lose over $4 million per annum in funding, being removed from them if funding maintained does not continue. These figures might mean very little to the ideologically driven government of Labor and the Greens but to parents, principals and teachers they mean jobs and they mean more cost-of-living pressure that they cannot face. The vast majority of these households will have mortgages on their homes and the vast majority will be struggling to pay their grocery bills every week. Yet this government continues to leave them hanging in the balance without any clear indication of whether it will support indexation going forward or of whether it will support funding maintained. I commend the motion to the House and look forward to the member for Adelaide finding her courage.

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