Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education. Will the minister please update the House in relation to its transparency and accountability reforms for Australian schools?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Page for her question. Of course, she is very interested in education reform and making sure that every school in her electorate is a great school. The Rudd government’s priorities are to ensure that every Australian child receives a world-class education and that every school in this country, no matter what school system it is from—whether it is a government school, an independent school or a Catholic school—is a great school.

At the COAG meeting on Saturday we took some very big steps forward for this new era of education reform for this education revolution. Those steps included a new era of transparency, school by school, including making sure that the needs and characteristics of the student population are apparent, as are its academic results and the teaching and financial resources at its command. We took a step forward on a quality national curriculum. We ensured that there would be more than $42 billion invested through the new national education agreement. We committed more than $500 million—indeed, $550 million—to raising the quality of teaching and of school leadership in this country. There is a new investment of $1.1 billion in disadvantaged schools, a $540 million investment in literacy and numeracy and a new $635 million investment in government primary schools to end a longstanding funding inequity.

We have the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 in the Senate, and its agenda is complementary to the agenda agreed at COAG on Saturday. I want to make it absolutely clear that there is not one requirement or expectation for government schools that the government is not also putting onto non-government schools. We want complete equity—all requirements and all expectations on schools, government and non-government, to be the same. The Schools Assistance Bill that is in the Senate deals with a new transparency and accountability framework—that is, it deals with exactly the transparency and accountability measures that we have agreed through COAG will be there for government schools. Within that framework we will be asking schools to report on information about resources available to schools, and there will be a financial questionnaire to the department—and there is a financial questionnaire to the department now. I have indicated, in making publicly available information about school resources, that it is not now and has never been the intention of the government to require publication that would identify individual donors or payers. It is not now, and it has never been, the intention of the government to do that.

The government is committed to a national curriculum. We went to the last election promising a national curriculum and we have had 12 months of development of a national curriculum. That work is going very well and there is cooperation. The non-government system has been involved in that work every step of the way, with the Catholic and independent schools systems serving with representatives on the national curriculum board.

Of course, the shadow minister for education stands in the way of these reforms. He has described transparency and national curriculum as offensive. He said that they are things that should be opposed. I would like to inform the House that, in dealing with education reform and the future for Australian children, I have had some constructive discussions today with Senator Xenophon, who is committed to ensuring that Australian students get good quality education. He is taking a constructive approach to the bill. He has raised with the government some technical amendments that he would like to see made to the bill. But he is committed to ensuring that non-government schools open their doors next year with the benefit of government resources. He is also committed to ensuring that there is a national curriculum and that there are transparency arrangements.

We have discussed with Senator Xenophon, who is taking a constructive approach, some amendments relating to the minister’s power to refuse to authorise payment or to delay payment if the audit of a school or school authority is expressed to be qualified. Obviously, the government recognises it is a big thing to act in such a matter and potentially to delay or withhold funds. Senator Xenophon has raised the suggestion about this being a disallowable instrument. That is a constructive suggestion and one the government is prepared to work on. And, of course, the government is prepared to clarify that we have never intended the publication or declaration of individual funding sources. Anybody who has followed this debate would have heard me make that statement on a number of occasions.

While Senator Xenophon is dealing with this constructively in order to get funds into the hands of non-government schools, we have the shadow minister for education playing his petty politics, as he is playing right now. He is committing the Liberal Party to stand in the way of delivering $24 billion of resources into the hands of non-government schools. I know the shadow minister for education is irresponsible and committed to playing politics, but I do call on the Leader of the Opposition to try and instil in his political party some modicum of responsibility, particularly enough responsibility to ensure non-government schools have the government funding that we have promised them from the start of the next school year.