House debates

Wednesday, 16 June 2021

Bills

Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2021-2022; Consideration in Detail

11:25 am

Photo of Joanne RyanJoanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to be part of today's consideration in detail of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2021-22. It gives me an opportunity to speak directly to the minister responsible for school education, and I'll focus most of my questions in that space. Obviously, it's now been eight long years of a very tired Liberal-National government, particularly in the space around schools. There was a lot of activity in the early years of this government, like the immediate 30 per cent cut to the schools budget delivered by Tony Abbott when he was Prime Minister. I know many of those opposite think that the care factor around this has died during the pandemic, but some facts can't be changed, and they need to be reminded of those.

The government's schools policy is not needs based, it is not sector blind and it is certainly not fair. The government is providing just 20 per cent of the schooling resource standard to public schools, while non-government schools will receive 80 per cent of their SRS from the federal government. Under this approach, 87 per cent of public schools will never reach what was determined to be their fair level of funding, yet two-thirds of private schools will be funded over the SRS. And, in an electorate like mine, we are already seeing this disadvantage to the public sector being played out, purely and simply, in schools' budgets. The government's record has been extraordinary, and to claim there's been no cut to education spending is extraordinary, particularly from a government that has played with the very important algorithms that determine the SRS and made the cutting decision that the federal government would only provide 20 per cent of the SRS to state schools, which was a complete turnaround from what it was. The minister might like to go through some of the data on the My School website and explain to the secondary school families in the Lalor electorate why their school receives less from the federal government than the private school down the road does. They should know why government made the decision to cap federal funding to support state schools to 20 per cent of the SRS.

During COVID I've visited all of my local schools. I obviously have a keen interest, with my history in state education and as a principal. I'd like to ask the minister how much he appreciates the fact that our Victorian state schools, given the COVID situation, were able to very quickly implement an online learning program. A lot of that was to do with some old policies from a former Labor government that ensured we had one-on-one capability, in most Victorian schools, in terms of IT equipment. I'd like the minister to consider how important that funding was to ensure that, when this pandemic hit, Victorian schools were able to go to a one-on-one learning from home model.

I'd like to express my appreciation to the teachers in both the private and public sectors for their incredible work during the pandemic. They actually doubled their workload, in terms of preparation, delivery, being in the online environment, creating videos after hours and doing all of those things. But I want to ask the minister what he can tell us about the fact that the Victorian and New South Wales governments have both made large commitments—$250 million in Victoria and $337 million in New South Wales—to support schools to support those students who have fallen behind due to the pandemic. Of course, the online environment wasn't perfect for all students. I know that I've visited my schools and seen the testing that's being done, the judgements that are being made and the tutor program that's being rolled out. I want to ask the minister why the federal government aren't making a contribution to that across the country—why it has been left to states to determine that—which, obviously, leaves children in some states not as well off as others.

I'd also ask this minister if there is any conversation going on within government about ensuring that our school teachers, in both public and private schools, are going to get to the front of a queue in the vaccination rollout across this country. I'd like to hear what he thinks about that. I would close by saying that I know the consequences of the government's poor record on school funding, and I will always fight for fair funding for our local schools.

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