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

I am pleased to speak and outline the coalition's stance on this transitional and consequential amendments bill to the Australian Education Bill 2013 that the House of Representatives passed in the last sitting week and which is now in the Senate. We do not oppose this bill, as we did not the Australian Education Bill, because it is a measure of the confusion of the government that they are now passing bills through the House of Representatives to implement new school funding plans before these plans have even been agreed to by state governments. We are in the extraordinary position where the House rises on 27 June, and the agreements with the states to implement a new school funding model can be agreed to anytime up to 30 June. So the House will rise on 27 June, and five out of eight jurisdictions—three have already signed up—could sign up between 27 June and 30 June, which would make the new school funding model work. But, equally, none of those five might sign up to the government's new school funding agreement. The House and the Senate will have passed a new school funding model bill, and the consequential and transitional amendments bill that goes with it, for a national school funding agreement that has no agreement and does not have national implications because it is not agreed to by an overwhelming majority of states.

The government has got us into the ridiculous position where we are debating a bill to implement a new school funding model when not all of the states have agreed to a new school funding model. It is very different to the way that the government and the opposition handled the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which was handled in a bipartisan way. Therefore, the states and territories knew that they could sign up to the agreement for a National Disability Insurance Scheme and that it would be implemented by either a Labor government or a coalition government. In this case, on the other hand, it is very clear that there are some states that have very strong views opposing the introduction of this new school funding model—and I will go through some of those in a moment.

The coalition has very serious concerns about this new school funding model. The first of those concerns is that it is all far too late. For this government to try and implement a new school funding model to begin on 1 January 2014, this debate needed to be held last year, in 2012. As I travel around Australia—and I have been the shadow minister for 4½ years—principals tell me that to implement a new school funding model takes about 12 to 18 months. This government has potentially given non-government and government schools less than six months to implement a new school funding model, assuming one is agreed to by all the states. It is far too late, at five minutes to midnight, for the Prime Minister and the minister for schools to try and implement a new school funding model in Australia which would normally take 12 to 18 months to do properly—and they have given themselves six months to do it.

If we were faced with a government with a record of achievement and competence, that we knew were capable of putting pink batts in the ceilings of people's homes, or building school halls that were not overpriced, or managing the live cattle exports trade—or any of the other examples I could give—then you might give them the benefit of the doubt. But we do not have that kind of government in Australia at the moment. We have a government that we know is manifestly incompetent. The prospect of them introducing an even more complicated model than the current model, that is less transparent and has had less time for consultation and negotiation with the states and the non-government sector—and the idea of them implementing that successfully—is a long way from the expectations of the opposition. For that reason, we have very serious concerns about this minister's capacity to implement any kind of new school funding model, let alone one that applies differently in different states to different sectors. Even within those sectors and within those states, depending on whether they have achieved the student resource standard or not, it applies different levels of indexation to those non-government and government schools in the same state. It is much more complicated and much less transparent than the previous model.

It also provides a much greater concentration of power in the hands of the federal minister for education than has ever been precedented before in Australia. The Premier of Tasmania got this right on Friday when she said that Tasmania was very reluctant to sign up to a new school funding model because she did not want the opposition having that much power over Tasmanian state schools. Now, quite apart from the fact that it appears that the Premier of Tasmania has already given up on the prospect of the Gillard government being returned—which seems to be running up the white flag rather prematurely since we have 90 days or 89 days to go before the election—the Premier of Tasmania is correct inasmuch as this new funding model would give unprecedented power to the minister for schools at the federal level. The Premier of Tasmania is right: schools are run by state governments. They employ teachers, they own the infrastructure and they make the decisions in their schools. This new model, apart from creating another new bureaucracy called the Australian School Performance Institute—yet another institute and another bureaucracy in Canberra—also devolves enormous amounts of discretionary power to the federal minister for education to intervene in state government and non-government schools.

This is one of the reasons why the National Catholic Education Commission is so concerned about signing up lock, stock and barrel to a new school funding model that allows the federal minister for education to determine whether they can vary from the school funding model that is proposed in this legislation. The Catholic system has always been run very independently. They cross-subsidise between their schools, and they do not want to have to go back, cap in hand, to the federal minister for education if they ever want to vary those arrangements. I can understand their reticence. I can also understand Western Australia's, Tasmania's, Victoria's, Queensland's and the Northern Territory's reticence at signing up to a model which allows the federal minister for education to determine the operations and management of schools in the state systems. Western Australia particularly has been doing very well in terms of its student outcomes since it shifted to a model that had greater autonomy for school principals; they call it Independent Public Schools in Western Australia.

Why should they allow the federal minister for education to ride in over the top of the state minister for education and say, 'We don't like the way you are managing your schools and, because we now have this new power under the National Plan for School Improvement, we can tell you exactly what we want you to do.' The coalition does not support that. The coalition believes in the devolution of power to the levels of government to whom it should be devolved and that state governments run state schools. State governments should be the primary decision makers in state schools.

I have talked before about how this new school funding model is a swindle. I will not delay the House at great length about that tonight other than to remind the House that the Gonski report into school funding called for $6½ billion each year in new school funding. Over the forward estimates, which is four years, you would expect that to be $26 billion. What does this new school funding model deliver? It delivers a cut to school funding of $325 million over the next four years.

Those states and territories that have signed up to it—the ACT, New South Wales and South Australia—have signed up to a new school funding model that cuts school funding over the next four years by $325 million. Then you have to suspend everything you know about this Prime Minister and this government to believe that, miraculously, in 2018 and 2019 rivers of gold will flow to the school sector to the tune of billions and billions of dollars. That is $7.8 billion in year 5 and year 6.

It is like your boss saying, 'I am giving a big pay rise and you should go out and plan on that basis.' Out you go and you change your mortgage or you do whatever you like with credit cards or you buy a new car and then you get your pay packet and there has been a cut. You go back to your boss and you say, 'How come you promised me a pay rise? I have relied on that to make all sorts of decisions and there is actually a pay cut in my salary.' The boss says, 'No, no, you get a big pay rise. You just have to wait five or six years for it to happen.'

No Australian would accept that from their boss and no state or territory government should accept that from the federal government. I might be cynical, but I do not believe that the Prime Minister will win the next three elections in a row and deliver rivers of gold in 2018 and 2019 to schools when she could not even keep a promise for six days not to introduce a carbon tax before the last election. This is not the Gonski report being implemented. This is a swindle being visited on schools. Principals and parents know it. Another one of our concerns is the confused data.

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