Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

To follow on from the contribution from the member for Fadden, one of the joys of going around the electorate and visiting our schools is that sometimes in those visits you get the opportunity to meet with some of the school chaplains. Some 31 schools, both primary and secondary, in the electorate of Forde have school chaplaincy in place. As the member for Ryan quite rightly pointed out earlier, the program provides some $20,000 a year in funding to the chaplaincy service. The remainder of the funds are required to be raised by the community, whether it is the P&C or, in the case of the Beenleigh region, a large fundraising dinner is held every year as part of the fundraising drive to raise funds for schools such as Beenleigh State High School, Eagleby State School, Windaroo High, Edens Landing and Eagleby South State School. These are all schools where the chaplaincy service is of enormous benefit not only to students, with the mentoring and support that those chaplains provide, but equally importantly to the staff and to the parents of those schools.

I am pleased to see that the government is taking steps to ensure that the funding for this program can continue, because in my community it is of enormous benefit and I am sure that for many other communities not only in Queensland but also in other states, that is equally the case. Right now in Queensland our 'chappies', as we refer to them, look after the needs of some 330,000 Queensland students and I think that it is fundamentally important that we continue to provide that service.

The Financial Framework Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 3) 2012 has been presented to the House by the Attorney-General as an urgent response to the High Court's Williams decision handed down last Wednesday, and I commend the government for the speed with which they have brought this bill before the House. The decision found that the funding for the National School Chaplaincy and Student Welfare Program—which, as the member for Fadden rightly pointed out, the opposition strongly supports—was beyond the executive power of the Commonwealth. We should stress that it was only the chaplaincy program which was invalidated in this decision. However, the language and reasoning of the justices brings into question a number of other Commonwealth programs. The solution proposed by the government is to amend the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 to provide validation for that broader range of programs, some 11 types of Commonwealth financial assistance grants and some other 416 programs that the Commonwealth currently funds.

Our primary concern is the broad umbrella approach that has been applied within this legislative framework, given that the High Court decision was quite narrow in its focus and related specifically to the chaplaincy program. Nor are we satisfied that the proposed section 32B, in its application to each particular grant or program payment, is supported by any of the section 51 heads of power obtained in the Constitution. The whole point of the Williams case was to decide that the executive cannot spend public money without legislative authority and parliamentary scrutiny.

In the interests of not using up too much time in this debate and to have it finalised, the member for Stirling is going to propose an amendment that there be a sunset clause effective 31 December 2012. The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that we all have a period of several months to consider the matters raised in the High Court decision in greater detail and to bring back to parliament a more carefully considered and comprehensive bill which deals properly with the Constitutional issues raised by the High Court in respect of particular grants and government programs.

In conclusion, subject to the reservations we have raised and to the amendment which I have foreshadowed, the opposition will cooperate with the government to expedite the passage of the bill through both chambers, because we recognise the importance of the chaplaincy program not only to the students in our schools but also to the staff and parents in our school communities and the broader community.

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