Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Equity in education matters. And this is a really important contribution to that principle of equity. I have been chased up hill and down dale about a certain 17-minute speech, but anyone who listened beyond about the 10-minute mark would have heard me talking about the importance of equity in education and the clear failures in the education data around rural students, Aboriginal students and low-SES families. So I am thrilled that we are actually seeing that education data being addressed in a substantive way. That is why this legislation does need to progress through this chamber. That is why state sovereignty as promoted in the budget in reply should be protected and endorsed in an agreement between New South Wales and the Commonwealth, and that is why my judgement call is that this should progress through this chamber relatively swiftly this morning.

I am listening to this debate and I am seeing people get up for a second and a third time and in many ways repeating messages of a political kind rather than drilling down on the detail. It is a pretty simple proposal before the House. We either accept the education data or we do not. If we do accept the education data, we are accepting a massive failure of public policy. So, righto; if we accept there is a problem, what is the solution? The Gonski process identified an 'intolerable link' between the education data and the funding formula. So either we accept that link or we do not. We accept that it is tolerable or intolerable. Once we have got across that very simple hurdle, we accept loadings and a new funding formula or we do not.

We can complain about 70 pages and we can complain about what schools know what level of detail, but in the end it is a pretty simple question before the House: is there a problem in our education data? Yes. Is there an intolerable link that has been identified? Yes. Is the solution to put in place loadings specific to regionality, Aboriginality and to socioeconomic status? That is the question before the House. I think everyone has had a crack at second reads; everyone has had a crack in this debate this morning. And I know I am going to get a bucketful from the shadow minister in the chair—

See this speech in context