Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have the pleasure of asking a question of Minister Josh Frydenberg, who is representing the Minister for Education and Training, Simon Birmingham. The education reforms of the Turnbull government will finally address a glaring injustice in the schools funding debate, an injustice that I have spoken about many times in this place, and I no doubt will continue to do so for some time. To put it simply, the share of schools funding in regional Western Australia has been nothing short of a joke in the past. On a sliding scale of need, we are sadly up around the top of the ladder. We have the greatest disparity with the clear needs of our students, who are under-represented in school completion rates, mean grades and higher education take-up. By most measures, we are in serious need. We have finally had those issues addressed, by a government that I am very proud to be a part of, a government that actually cares about regional Australia and its future.

Just last week I visited a school in my electorate, in Geraldton, and spoke about the importance of these changes for regional Australia. Under the coalition's model, this school stands to receive roughly double the amount of federal funding per student by 2027, compared to what they are currently receiving. That translates to an extra $3 million over 10 years and will mean that, by 2027, they are receiving $4,000 per student from the government, versus the 2,000 pitiful dollars that they are currently receiving. I think we can all agree here that that is indeed a very fantastic result for that tiny little school in South Geraldton.

It is worth ruminating on what those members opposite have done in the past for that little primary school in the Mid West of Western Australia. Of all the special deals that the Labor Party have cut to gain influence and support through the little games and the dodgy deals that they have been able to accumulate over the years, it is interesting to note that not one of those special dodgy deals ever benefited a school in regional Western Australia. Perhaps the member for Sydney and her colleagues believe that the expensive private schools in the member for Sydney's electorate deserve more money than that small school in Mount Tarcoola in Geraldton. Well, I do not think so, and I do not think anyone here thinks so either. How anyone can say that the current model is equitable and fair is beyond me. It has rewarded those bad, dodgy deals made in the past and it disadvantages rural students and Indigenous students. I know that in the Deputy Speaker's electorate, Canning, they have also experienced this.

In Geraldton, the Geraldton Flexible Learning Centre—with around 87 students, 86 of whom are Indigenous—will be allocated an extra $28,980 per student in Commonwealth funding in 2018, growing to $40,842 per student in 2027, an increase of $13,006 from 2017 funding levels. Total Commonwealth funding over 2018 to 2027 for the Geraldton Flexible Learning Centre will be around $30.16 million, a total increase of $5.94 million. Over the next four years, annual average per-student funding to the government school sector in Western Australia will grow by 7.3 per cent. This is well above inflation and well above the wage price index. That means that funding for Western Australian government schools goes up some 44 per cent. I see that we have the member for Fremantle in the House here today. I will be very interested to watch how our WA Labor members of parliament react when we finalise this, because I will be very surprised if they cannot back it. In fact, I dare the WA members of parliament representing the Labor Party not to support these increases.

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