Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today on the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement. Twelve months ago, our minister, Jason Clare, announced that we had all states and territories signed on for the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, a 10-year agreement that fixes public schools' funding once and for all. I want to talk about this today because it's something close to my heart. It's close to my heart as an educator. It's close to my heart as a former principal. It is closer to my heart as the member for Lalor, because I've spent the last 13 years here in the federal parliament, having left schools, and in that time I watched the former coalition government let down my community and let down public schools across this nation. This sets that right.

This agreement means that I can be assured that the private schools in my electorate will no longer be funded more generously by the Commonwealth. Where that was happening in some of our private schools locally, I now know that that student resource standard is going to be met in my public schools. I'm going to know that, in all the schools in Lalor, every student is being supported as was envisaged with the Gonski review into school funding. Nothing could be more important than this, because education not only shapes lives but transforms lives. As the member for Lalor I need the certainty that all students in the schools in my electorate are getting their fair share of the resources and also getting resourced to a level that will see them all get the same opportunities. That's what's critically important.

For the parents watching at home, this is about what we call the Schooling Resource Standard. This is set as a minimum standard, a minimum funding level for every student. It is set at the estimated level of total public funding that each school should receive to meet the educational needs of its students. At the moment, the base per-student amount is $14,467 for a child in primary school and $18,180 for a child in high school. On top of that, there should be funding that goes to loading—loading that's contextualised around need, around location, around school size, around socio-educational disadvantage, around Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander students and around students with a disability. It means students from those priority equity cohorts attract additional funding above the base amount, and that varies from school to school. That means that now, in 2025, public school students receive, on average, about $21,376 in SRS funding.

That is not met fully by the Commonwealth. But what has happened here is that something that had been set in stone by those opposite has now been removed. Those opposite left government providing certainty for private schools and doubt for public schools, a system where private schools could be assured of 100 per cent of their Student Resource Standard from the Commonwealth while public schools were left with a cap of only 20 per cent allowed from the Commonwealth under law. In no-one's mind was this seen as something that was fair across the country. It left doubt for public schools and for states and territories, because those states and territories weren't guaranteed or given certainty around the level of funding that was going to be provided by the Commonwealth, because they were told they would be left to do all the heavy lifting.

In doing this, those opposite baked in disadvantage. They undermined our universal education system. They tried to create hard class barriers that would have meant that, as a society, whether you went to a public or a private school would become a determinant of how far you would go in life. Make no mistake: this was not an accident; this was planned, and it was implemented by the former government.

I want to make sure everyone at home knows where they can find all this information. If you go to the Commonwealth's My School website you can have a look at all our local schools. You can see how they're funded, who they're funded by and the levels of funding. You can also see their performance against the NAPLAN standards, not just as a raw fix of what happened at that school but also where they sit in terms of advantage and disadvantage and therefore what value adding they're doing in their classrooms. I can tell you, as the proud member for Lalor, that we have public schools kicking way above their weight, doing extraordinary work, with students making two-plus years of progress in the classrooms in our community. So I'd encourage everybody at home to look at that. Obviously a question I'm often asked is, 'Which school should I send my child to?' I am often asked that in my community, and my advice to those parents is always the same: 'Go onto the My School website and check out our local schools'—check out the funding models; you can see all of that information. You can also see how those schools are travelling, how they're progressing and how they're value adding or not for local families and local students.

So I want to make sure our community is informed about these things. I want to make sure our community understand that this government has the back of every child in our community and, most importantly, every teacher in our school systems, and it has a clear intention for education to improve; it has commitments.

We have committed to increasing the proportion of students leaving school with a year 12 certificate to 83.8 per cent, up from 76.3 per cent in 2022. This would be the highest rate of year 12 certification ever achieved. Under those opposite, guess what happened? Retention rates in schools dropped. That means fewer students finished year 12. Numbers dropped dramatically. They're on their way back under a Labor government, as I would have expected. We're going to increase the proportion of Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people aged 20 to 24 attaining year 12 or an equivalent qualification to 96 per cent by 2031.

We are setting targets to measure our performance and our schools' performance against. We're going to reduce the proportion of students in the 'needs additional support' NAPLAN category for reading and numeracy by 10 per cent and increase those in the 'strong' and 'exceeding' categories by 10 per cent by 2030. Again, that's a real, hard, fast target. We're setting a target to raise the student attendance rate to pre-COVID levels, up from 88.6 per cent in 2023. The target is to get that to 91.4 per cent.

The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement is truly an Australian effort. It comes together with the contribution of different levels of government, First Nations education representatives and independent education bodies. The reforms are key in achieving the Labor government's tertiary education target, ensuring that 80 per cent of the workforce have a university degree or TAFE qualification by 2050, because that's what this country needs us to do. The reforms will increase transparency for taxpayer funds and their distribution into bettering the education system. We're going to support our teachers to do the things that they and we as a government know will make a difference in our classrooms.

We're going to support school leaders to do that work. We're going to support every school in the country to do the best by our students. But, most importantly, we have we are righting a wrong—a wrong done under the previous government—that baked class systems into our education system, something that I know most Australians would never, ever want to see. I know that most Australians believe that our universal health system and our universal education system are the most important aspects of our egalitarian society, worth defending in every suburb, in every country town and in this place every day.

Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Education changes lives. I spoke about this in my very first speech. I spoke about both the impact on my own family's life that education had had and of my deep commitment to ensuring that all children can access a great education in this country and the opportunities that that education provides. As a great education can change individual lives, a great education system changes countries.

We are seeing this in Australia now due to our Better and Fairer Schools Agreement. I see this in my visits to our terrific classrooms in Chisholm, my electorate. When a child learns to read, their world opens. When a teenager finishes school, their future expands. And when a government invests in education at the forefront of its agenda, it invests in the country's future, prosperity and equality.

This week marks one year since every state and territory made a very important investment through the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement—an investment not just about now but about the future of this country. For the first time in the history of the Commonwealth, every government in Australia committed to putting public schools on a path to full and fair funding because, when it comes to investment in our children, funding should not be discriminatory. We should also be very proud of the legacy Australia and the states had, pre-federation, in establishing public education. It's the vision that Australia has always had about being fair and providing opportunity for all.

We want every child to have every opportunity to thrive and harness the power of education and knowledge. The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement represents the largest investment ever by an Australian government in public education. It means an additional $16.5 billion over the next decade and then another $50 billion in the decade after that. This isn't just about expenditure. It's about nation building. We know that funding alone is not enough and that it's how we utilise that funding that matters. That's why this agreement ties investment to evidence based reform that helps children catch up, keep up and finish school and that supports teachers and educators. I really want to thank all of the teachers, support staff and educators for the work that they do each and every single day in all of our schools, including in our public schools in Victoria. We want reform that ensures no child is held back and no child is left behind just because of their postcode or what school they attend.

One year on from this agreement, we are already starting to see great results. School attendance is going back up. After falling under the previous government from 93 per cent to 86 per cent, attendance is now improving again, having risen to nearly 89 per cent in 2025. We are seeing early improvements in NAPLAN results, with more students reaching the highest level of proficiency. This is really encouraging and this matters because, when children are in school, they learn and, when they learn, they succeed and find out who they want to be and how they can contribute to our shared Australian story. We're also seeing more young Australians finish school. In 2025, 12,000 more students completed high school than in the year before, so that means 12,000 more futures have been opened, that more opportunities have been created and that there are more ways that people can contribute to their neighbours and their society.

We're also seeing more people choosing to become teachers. I've got a lot of teachers in my family. I know what a fine profession it is. I know how hard the work can be at times, and it's really encouraging to see people wanting to take that step and pursue this very important career. After years of decline under the former coalition governments, where education policy kept chopping and changing—it was very inconsistent—we saw a 22 per cent drop in students choosing to study education. But now, in 2026, the numbers are rising again for the third year in a row, and that's because the Albanese Labor government understands that, if we want a great education system, we need great teachers. I'm sure everyone in this House can recall a teacher in their life who had a huge effect on them.

We need to support great teachers, and that's exactly what this agreement does. It invests in evidence based teaching, ensuring teachers have the tools that work. It supports early intervention, like phonics and numeracy checks, so we can identify problems before they grow. It funds small-group tutoring so no student falls permanently behind, and it strengthens wellbeing support so students are ready to learn. Education is not just about the classroom and academics. It's about building our children up as Australians, which means building up their confidence, providing opportunity and making sure they're treated with dignity.

Fairness is the foundation of this agreement, and, for too long, not every school in Australia has been funded to the level that it needs. That disadvantage has influenced outcomes. It's meant people haven't been able to access the opportunities that every Australian deserves. This agreement changes that. It puts every public school on a path to full and fair funding. It closes the gap and it ensures that a child's future is not determined by their postcode.

Talent is in our children and our educators everywhere in this country, and opportunity should be too. The benefits of getting this right are enormous. When students finish year 12, they earn more—about 20 per cent more over their lifetime. When more young people succeed, our economy grows. This is good for all of us. In fact, lifting completion rates could add $65 billion to the economy by 2050. So it's not just about education policy. This is about economic policy. It's about social policy. This is how we build Australia's future, a better future, which is the sentiment behind every single decision that the Albanese Labor government has made.

Amongst all of this, though, it's important to recognise that we're not quite there yet in terms of achieving what we can in this space. There is still more work to do, and that's why this agreement is not a quick fix. It's a 10-year plan, and it's a plan to lift literacy and numeracy, improve attendance and increase year 12 completion. It's also a plan to build a stronger, more sustainable teaching workforce. Most importantly, it's a plan to deliver real results, not just promises, as we've seen under previous governments. Importantly, we're measuring progress here. We're reporting progress. We're holding ourselves accountable.

This agreement operates in conjunction with our other education reforms—whether that be paid prac placements for teaching students, making the HECS system fairer or investing in infrastructure—so parents can see the difference, teachers can feel the difference, and students can live the difference and harness the power of education every day. At the heart of all of this is the idea that every child deserves a great education—not just some children but every child. When we get the settings right, when we make sure that every child has the chance to succeed, we don't just change lives; we change the country. A good education changes lives.

We're building something really big here: a great education system, one that builds a fairer society and one that secures Australia's future—a better future.

Debate adjourned.