Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

This bill amends the Australian Education Act 2013 to require that the minister be satisfied that a state or territory will not reduce or has not reduced its education budget before making a determination of Commonwealth school funding to that state or territory. In simple terms, what this means is: the states and territories cannot take funding out the back door as the Commonwealth increases funding in the front door.

Before the election, Tony Abbott promised a unity ticket with Labor on schools funding, but we see now another broken promise. What we see here is legislation designed to ensure that states are not decreasing education funding. Before the election, the Labor government did a lot of work to come up with a fair funding model for Australian schools. Along with that fair funding model for Australian schools, we made a commitment to substantial extra investment in schools, $14.65 billion over six years. That $14.65 billion included Commonwealth funding, and it also included state funding. For every $2 that we were putting in, we expected the states to put in an extra $1.

Before the election, first of all we had Christopher Pyne—the opposition spokesperson at the time—saying: 'Absolutely not. Over my dead body. No Gonski. No way are we supporting this funding model'. What became apparent as the election campaign progressed was how terribly unpopular that position was. Australian parents of both public and private school kids understand that the quality of our education system depends on every child in every community in every family in every school having an opportunity to get the best possible education.

Parents want their kids to get the very best education but they know that, for the cohesion of our society and the strength of our economy, all kids need to get a decent education. So there is very strong support for the Gonski school education funding reforms. The coalition was dragged kicking and screaming to say that they were on a unity ticket with Labor. But then what happens afterwards?

Under this government, Commonwealth funding drops to just $2.8 billion over four years—instead of the $14.65 billion combined Commonwealth state funding over six years I mentioned earlier—and the states do not need to put in a single extra dollar. In fact they can cut funding from their own education budgets and still get the small amount of extra Commonwealth funding in comparison to what was previously on offer.

The reason that we went into the complexity of our school education funding system is: every child in Australia deserves a decent education. But, just as importantly, our national prosperity depends on every Australian child getting a top quality education. So it was not just $14.65 billion of extra funding for our schools that was important; it was also better quality teaching; higher standards; better training, support and development for teachers; better student outcomes, focussing on more individual attention for every student; more flexibility for principals, engaging with parents in the community. I am a particularly strong supporter for more flexibility for principals. I think principals know their school communities and what their kids need in their schools, and they are dedicated to achieving that.

I am a big supporter of more flexibility for principals; a needs based funding system where every child in every school gets a good education; and transparency and accountability. Transparency and accountability were controversial measures. We were criticised, including by some teachers, for the demand we instituted for greater transparency and accountability for national testing like NAPLAN and for the transparency of the MySchool website, but I make no apology for those measures either. We saw on the weekend a list of most-improved schools that included some very surprising names. We only know that because we have NAPLAN and the school transparency measures.

In the end, I have to say that this bill should not be necessary. It should not be necessary to have to hold the states to accounts, but we have seen terrible cuts at state and territory levels, teachers sacked and schools closed and sold off. If the Liberals were truly on a unity ticket with Labor on funding, this bill would not be necessary. It is necessary because, instead of $14.65 billion, we get about one-third of that under this government.

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