Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make a few statements in relation to the report. It was difficult during the COVID period —as many members of committees would acknowledge—to be able to conduct an inquiry and then, in fact, to have a report to table. At the outset, I do want to acknowledge the hard work done by so many to see the report that is before us today. In particular, I want to thank the secretariat for their efforts in pulling the report together. It's a comprehensive report. I also want to thank the many organisations and individuals who contributed, the many people who made submissions and the witnesses who attended the roundtables that we had in relation to this topic.

What we learnt, again, is that this is an issue that people really care about. The educational achievements of regional, rural and remote students continue to be lower than those of their metropolitan peers and have been so for many years. Despite this fact being well known and well researched, as our investigations show, little has been achieved to reverse this trend. We are still seeing the same outcomes.

For the most part, the Education in remote and complex environments report is balanced and reflects the evidence the committee received. However, the Labor members of the committee did feel that some of the recommendations lacked the urgency that many of the members on the committee felt the recommendations needed to reflect the evidence that was received. In our view, the evidence presented to the committee clearly indicates that the current government's 2014 decision to cut school funding associated with the former Labor government's Better Schools Plan funding model was the wrong decision, as it had a disproportionate impact on regional, remote and rural schools. This was highlighted in the evidence presented. One clear statistic that demonstrated this is that, by 2023, schools in the Northern Territory will be funded at 21 per cent less than the schooling resource standard. This is the government's own work. Yet these are the schools where the Indigenous population in the NT sits at 44 per cent. So, if you cut school funding in the way the government has, you directly impact the very schools that we're seeking to support. As the chair has said, the pandemic has exacerbated existing fault lines in the Australian education system and will impact students from rural, regional and remote communities more than their counterparts in metro, and particularly inner metro, areas. That is why we really do seek that the government take the recommendations of this report seriously and act sooner.

One other area I wish to highlight is early childhood education. The Labor members of the committee argued that access to education in ECEC should be universal—like primary school or secondary school—and currently it is not. The educational and developmental benefits of ECEC are indisputable; the science is in. Yet many families, including those in regional, rural and remote Australia, face significant barriers in accessing affordable ECEC. That is why we seek to highlight, in our additional comments, the areas that were not included or focused on in the report. Cost was a barrier talked about in much of the evidence. The cost of delivering ECEC in the regions was an issue, and the cost of attending these services was an issue. We believe that this needed to be a stronger focus in the recommendations.

Another area that was identified by the evidence presented to the committee was that low pay is a barrier to recruitment and retention of highly skilled, predominantly female, workers. Again we're presented with this issue—the fact that pay is a contributing factor towards why we're not attracting the highly skilled workers we need. It's a genuine barrier, and we need to have a plan as part of the workforce strategy. In our comments, we strongly urge the government to play a proactive role in supporting the sector's ability to increase wages in the workforce, as a workforce development strategy, to help combat recruitment and retention challenges.

The final area that I wish to highlight, because I know other members of the committee wish to speak now and in the Federation Chamber, is higher education. The university sector was unanimous in their criticism of the government and its lack of support for the sector during the COVID-19 crisis. Whilst they acknowledged that the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job-Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Remote Students) Bill 2020 would help, they argued the additional places were not being rolled out fast enough to meet the demand; nor would it address the dire financial situation that universities are in. The universities that were a part of the roundtable did, on many occasions, talk about the impact of not having measures like JobKeeper to help keep their staff. One of the key recommendations that the universities would like to see this government move on quickly is the uncapping of university places for regional universities. This would ensure that all regional students would have access to a university place, if they choose to study. This was a key recommendation of the Napthine review. If the government and the Minister for Education were serious about implementing the recommendations of their own Napthine review, they would move to immediately implement this recommendation, which would see more university places for our regional universities and encourage more regional students to study.

We would also like to encourage the government to consider the funding models for university, as highlighted by the evidence presented to the committee. We acknowledge that this is a complex area, but lots of research has been done, and we're in the place now where it is about action. We strongly encourage the government to take on board the recommendations in the report, as well as the additional comments, to help move us forward to ensure that every student, regardless of where they live, has access to a quality education. It appears to be the one thing that is universal, the acknowledgement that we want to do something about this complex area.