Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement is reform that goes to the core of fairness, opportunity and the future direction of this country. When we talk about schools, we're not just talking about classrooms or curriculum, we're talking about the future of young Australians.

It has now been one year since every state and territory signed up to this agreement—one year since governments across the nation came together with a shared understanding that the status quo was no longer acceptable. When Labor came to government in 2022, the imbalance in our system was clear and deeply entrenched. Every non-government school was fully funded or on a defined path to reach that benchmark, but public schools, outside of those in the ACT, were not.

That gap did not appear overnight, and it was not going to fix itself. For communities like mine in Spence—in Elizabeth, in Gawler and across Adelaide's north—that gap can be felt every single day. Public schools in our community carry enormous responsibility. They support students from diverse backgrounds, students facing disadvantage, students who need additional support to succeed, yet they were being asked to meet that challenge without the full backing they deserved.

The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement changes that. It sets a clear pathway to properly funded public schools and it does so in a way that is deliberate, structured and enduring. It represents the largest investment in public education by an Australian government, delivering an additional $16.5 billion into public schools over the next decade, followed by a further $50 billion in the decade after that. This is not a short-term injection of funding. It is a long-term commitment to lift standards, expand opportunity and strengthen the system for generations. If we want a stronger economy, a more skilled workforce and a fairer society, then the place to start is in our schools.

Importantly, this agreement is not simply about increasing funding. It's about ensuring that funding is used effectively. It is tied to clear reforms, grounded in evidence and focused on measurable outcomes, because investment without direction does not deliver change, but investment with purpose does.

Already we are beginning to see the encouraging signs that these changes are taking hold. Student attendance, which had declined significantly in recent years, is beginning to recover. After attendance had fallen from around 93 per cent to 86 per cent, we are now seeing more students returning to school, re-engaging with their learning and rebuilding routines that support long-term success. We are also seeing more students completing their schooling, with approximately 12,000 additional young Australians finishing high school in 2025 compared to 2024, a result that is consistent across school sectors and across both boys and girls.

And, just as importantly, we are seeing renewed interest in the teaching profession. After a concerning drop of around 20 per cent in people choosing to study teaching, enrolments have now increased for the third consecutive year. This matters because, without a strong teaching workforce, no reform can succeed.

At the centre of this agreement for educators is a commitment to evidence based practice. It focuses on identifying learning challenges early, particularly in the foundational areas of literacy and numeracy, through structured checks, in the early years of schooling, that allow teachers to quickly understand where students may need additional support.

This is not about labelling students as gifted or struggling; it is about equipping teachers with the information they need to intervene early and effectively. That early identification is then matched with targeted support, including small-group tutoring that provides focused, individualised attention, helping students to catch up where they have fallen behind and maintain progress alongside their peers. The agreement also reinforces the use of teaching practices that are proven to work, ensuring that classroom instruction is grounded in evidence, rather than trends, and that teachers are supported with the tools, training and resources they need to deliver high-quality education.

In a case study conducted in South Australia, we are already seeing what this approach can achieve. Through the introduction of system-wide literacy and numeracy checks, South Australia has embedded early identification into everyday practice, ensuring that challenges are recognised early and addressed quickly.

The literacy guarantee supports effective reading instruction from the earliest years, strengthens professional learning for teachers at every stage of their careers and provides resources for families so learning continues at home. At the same time, the numeracy guarantee is strengthening mathematics teaching through targeted professional development, specialist support for school leaders and improved curriculum resources. Together, these initiatives demonstrate how early identification, high-quality teaching and targeted support can work in combination to lift student outcomes over time.

This agreement also recognises that education is about more than just academic performance. It strengthens access to wellbeing supports within schools, acknowledging that students cannot succeed in the classroom if they are struggling outside of it. By supporting the whole student academically, socially and emotionally, we create the conditions for genuine learning and long-term engagement.

Importantly, this agreement sets clear national targets—targets to increase the proportion of students achieving strong results in reading and numeracy; targets to reduce the number of students requiring additional support; targets to lift year 12 completion rates and ensure more young Australians leave school with the qualifications they need; targets to rebuild attendance to pre-pandemic levels and close the gap for students who have been disproportionately affected, including First Nations students, students in regional areas and those from lower socioeconomic or lower educational backgrounds; and targets to strengthen and sustain the teaching workforce, including increasing participation in teacher education and supporting more First Nations educators into the profession. It strengthens access to wellbeing supports within schools, acknowledging that students cannot succeed in the classroom if they are struggling outside of it, because when a young person feels unsafe, when they feel excluded, when bullying goes unchecked, learning becomes secondary.

That is why the national antibullying implementation plan is such an important complement to this work. It recognises that safe and respectful school environments are not optional; they are foundational. When students feel supported and included, they attend more regularly, they engage more deeply and they are far more likely to achieve strong outcomes.

There is a clear connection between health and education. Students experiencing poor mental health are significantly more likely to disengage from learning, and, as this report states, by year 9 those students can be between one and nearly three years behind their peers in literacy and numeracy. That is not just a statistic; that is a warning—a warning that, if we do not address wellbeing, we cannot expect to lift educational outcomes.

The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement responds to that reality. It embeds wellbeing into everyday school practice, not as an afterthought but as a core component of learning. It supports schools to put the right help in place at the right time through better access to specialist staff, stronger connections to health and community services, and approaches that are tailored to the needs of local communities, because what works in one school may not work in another and flexibility matters.

Alongside this, governments are working together on nationally coordinated efforts to promote safe, respectful school environments, because tackling bullying, supporting mental health and strengthening engagement requires a collective effort. When we get this right, and when students feel safe, supported and connected, they show up. They participate. They succeed. That is what this agreement is about—not just results on a page but creating environments where every young person has the chance to thrive. That is fairness in action.

These are clear, measurable goals that governments will be held accountable for achieving, because what gets measured gets delivered. For communities like mine in the north, that accountability matters. It means that fairness is not just a principle; it is something that is tracked, reported and realised over time. It means that a child growing up in Spence can expect the same level of support, the same quality of teaching and the same opportunity to succeed as a child anywhere else in this country.

The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement is about fixing a system that was out of balance. It's about investing where the need is greatest. It's also about backing teachers, supporting students and strengthening communities. And, ultimately, it is about building a future where every young Australian, regardless of where they live, has the opportunity and the chance to succeed. That is what fairness looks like, and that is what this agreement delivers. We know this won't be an easy or quick task to complete across the nation, but this first progress report for the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement is a step in the right direction to continue to support communities like mine in the north. I thank the House.

Mary Aldred (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to respond to the ministerial statement on the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement. As the daughter of a primary school teacher, I've been raised in a family that appreciates how important better educational outcomes are, and improving education outcomes in my region is something I, as someone who was proud to serve on the inaugural Gippsland Tertiary Education Council some 15 years ago, am particularly passionate about. I strongly believe that your postcode should not determine your educational outcome in life. In my region, at that time, we dealt with a number of challenges, including having little more than half the state's average for higher education participation rates. May I add we've got some wonderfully gifted teachers and some dedicated teacher support aides and staff in the Monash electorate who I'm very proud to represent. I want to commend their ongoing work to lift and strengthen education outcomes.

But this statement, I really have to say at the outset, deserves a resubmit, because what we've heard in the statement provided is a story and it's riddled with inaccuracies, omissions and a fundamental failure to level with the Australian people and, indeed, face up to the challenges that I and families across my electorate deal with every single day. Let's deal with the first central claim that seems to be on repeat by the government, and that is that the coalition cut funding to public schools, which is just not true. Under the coalition, school funding increased. It increased every single year. In fact, it nearly doubled, from around $13 billion in 2013 to over $25 billion in 2022. The coalition support investment in education. We support lifting standards. But what we do not support is a narrative that rewrites history, because what matters is not just how much is spent but what is actually happening in our schools today—where that money goes, how it's spent and the objectives that it seeks to support.

Right now, particularly in my home state of Victoria, we have serious problems. The Prime Minister has claimed every state and territory is on a pathway to full funding. This is simply not correct. Victoria remains the only jurisdiction without a clear pathway to reach the Schooling Resource Standard. There is no certainty. There is no long-term agreement. As a result, Victorian government schools are now the lowest funded in the country outside of the Northern Territory. This has real consequences. This has a lasting impact, and my fear is that it will have intergenerational consequences for young people, families and people seeking to get the skills and qualifications they need to attain a job or a career and stay within the Gippsland region that they grew up in or, indeed, have moved to.

In 2026, Victorian students will receive hundreds of dollars less per student than their peers interstate. This could be up to $1,700 less than students in Tasmania. This is not a theoretical gap; it is a gap in resources, in support and in opportunity, and it is Victorian students who are paying the price for the failure of both the Albanese and Allan Labor governments. But funding is only part of the story, because outcomes are going backwards. The minister claims reading is improving, but NAPLAN data tells us a different story. Schools have declined in recent years, including a year-on-year drop under the current government. International data shows the same trend. Australia's reading performance has fallen over time.

In Monash, getting an education isn't just about what happens in the classroom; it's about distance, access and the pressure that growth is putting on our local schools. Rapid population growth in Warrigal and Drouin, which Bernard Salt, the demographer, notes are the fastest growing towns anywhere across Australia, is driving significant growth in school enrolments in those schools, with classrooms reaching capacity, portable buildings becoming more common and growing pressure on shared facilities like libraries, playgrounds and specialist learning states. I want to commend my state Liberal colleague the member for Narracan, Wayne Farnham, who's been working with a range of schools in the west Gippsland area, particularly Drouin Secondary College and the marvellous principal and teaching staff there, to address some of those challenges. Schools are working hard to absorb the growth that we are seeing in population, but it is placing a real strain on teachers, with larger class sizes, increased workload and less time available for individual student support.

I'm very proud to represent a region that stretches all the way down to the southernmost point of mainland Australia: Wilsons Prom and Foster. We've got some remarkable schools there. I was at the Foster Primary School not so long ago. In South Gippsland, access to education is shaped by distance, with families often travelling long distances to access secondary schooling and subject choice. In towns like Foster and Korumburra, I talk to families and students who are regularly commuting daily to larger centres for schooling, adding hours to their day and limiting their ability to participate in extracurricular activities. In many parts of my electorate, you can't jump on a train and there are limited bus services, so, with the cost of fuel going up, this is placing additional pressure on families moving around their community, certainly families taking their children to school of a morning. For many families, this also means managing additional costs and balancing work commitments around school access. In today's economy, I hear so often that you've got to have a dual-income household to be able to meet the cost-of-living challenges, and that places additional pressure on parents who are trying to juggle job demands as well as giving their children all of the support they need in and around their schooling.

Access to specialist subjects, support programs and pathways can be more limited in smaller regional schools, and that means that students often have to leave their local community to access the same opportunities that are available to students in metropolitan areas. In South Gippsland, education is shaped by geography as much as it is by policy, with distance playing a huge role in access to opportunity. Families in towns like Foster and Korumburra, which I've mentioned, have a significant challenge in being able to meet those demands. I regularly talk to families where the daily commute is easily over an hour each way, and I know that this has had a real impact on student wellbeing in participation and outcomes. It limits involvement in after-school activities like sport, tutoring, music or part-time work. We've got some very gifted athletes and young people in all parts of my electorate, but there are quite a few in South Gippsland as well. I really do take my hat off to their determination and commitment because they have to meet a higher hurdle to be able to engage in that training and those activities than perhaps students and athletes from metropolitan areas in the same situation.

I want to also acknowledge the challenge that smaller regional schools face in offering the full breadth of subject choices, specialist programs. This can mean fewer pathways in areas like advanced science, VET programs or emerging industries requiring students to relocate, to travel, or compromise their study options. We have a great number of great TAFE campuses, but we have a terrific TAFE in our region that I know works very closely with industry and high schools to engage young people in a range of skill offerings. Our workforce pressures are felt locally, with schools competing to attract and retain teachers in those regional areas, particularly in specialist subjects.

I was at Ripplebrook Primary School recently in West Gippsland, where they really have gone above and beyond to provide Japanese as a language offering to their very small school. I just want to commend the ingenuity and creativity and determination of the principal and the teachers at Ripplebrook for being able to deliver that. This is an important topic, but let's not rewrite history. I'm proud to be part of a coalition that has and will continue to invest very strongly in better educational outcomes for young people across Australia and in my electorate of Monash.

Debater adjourned.