House debates

Monday, 22 July 2019

Private Members' Business

Education

7:04 pm

Photo of Julian LeeserJulian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, you may have heard, as I have, that, since achieving at the last election the lowest primary vote it has had since the Great Depression, Labor has embarked on a listening tour around the country. But, after what we've heard from those opposite, I have to say that they haven't listened very hard, because we've effectively heard the same tired talking points that we heard in the last parliament, and in this motion we're hearing the same ideas that Labor peddled in the last parliament. It's the same old Labor with the same old lines.

The Australian people didn't just reject Labor's $387 billion of new taxes at the last election; they rejected Labor's record of failure in relation to schools, higher education and skills training. Labor never tires of giving us lectures in this place about schools funding. But, rather than actually implementing the Gonski funding regime when they had the chance, they ran around the country doing 27 special deals. Their deals were largely criticised by those people who authored the Gonski funding. They flew in the face of Labor's rhetoric of equity, fairness and 'giving a Gonski'. As education minister in the former government, the member for Maribyrnong cut $1.2 billion from government schools.

Labor's failures extended to the time they last won government from opposition. Upon taking office, they promptly splurged $8 billion on schools halls. Most schools didn't want the money. It was money that could've gone to train teachers, buy school resources or invest in student wellbeing. They wasted $2 billion on their failed Laptops for Kids program. The member for Moreton comes in here and gives us a lecture about literacy and numeracy. Meanwhile, the seeds of the results that we're getting, where we're being beaten by Kazakhstan and Slovenia, were sown from the fruits of Labor's last policy, when they spent $540 million on a failed literacy and numeracy program. They even spent $16 million to recruit only 14 new teachers. Under Labor, grades went down and our global ranking suffered.

Then we heard about higher education. Labor doesn't like to talk a lot about this, but the truth is that in the last budget before the Labor Party lost office they announced cuts of $6.6 billion to higher education and research. They removed incentives from universities to meet performance standards. International educational went backwards under Labor and their failed VET FEE-HELP policy left thousands of students with massive debts and no qualifications. This caused enormous international damage to Australia's VET reputation—damage that had to be cleaned up by our government. We've cleaned up Labor's mess and we've delivered record funding in the school, university and vocational education sectors. We abolished the special deals Labor created and we created a genuine needs based funding arrangement: an extra $37 billion for all schools, an average increase of 62 per cent per student. This brings total school funding to over $310 billion—funding we can actually guarantee thanks to our strong economic management.

Schools in my electorate of Berowra are going to benefit to the tune of an extra billion bucks over the funding period of the next 10 years, and it doesn't matter whether they're independent, Catholic or government schools. Our government has also secured the agreement of every state and territory, including the Labor states, to this program. Funding for students with disability attending schools is at record levels and growing, and, by working with the Smith Family, we're committing an additional $4.9 million to boost the attendance of disadvantaged students who can least afford to miss out.

Labor often misses the point that quality education is not only about money; it's also about good teachers and best practice. That's why we're investing deeply in improving teaching with phonics. We're ensuring phonics is included in university teaching courses so new teachers can use it in their classrooms. We're investing $15 million in an excellent organisation, Teach For Australia, to train high-achieving teachers who'll become high-quality school leaders in rural, remote and disadvantaged schools, which will help improve performance. We're providing more funding to train teachers in STEM subjects to give the next generation of graduates the skills they need for the jobs of the future.

Labor's motion also says nothing about regional Australia, and that's largely because they don't represent regional Australia anymore. Only the Liberal-National government will spend $15 million this year to create five further regional study hubs, with additional Commonwealth supported places to support students to study their university courses in their local communities. I know that many coalition members who are regional members have been at the forefront of advocating for these very important regional study hubs. In universities we've increased funding by 19 per cent, and by 2022 that increase will be 28 per cent. We've invested $490 million to help students from regional Australia access universities. Our government is committed to a vision for Australia's education future. The Labor Party remains stuck in the past.