Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Xenophon. I think there are actually two issues there rather than, as you have described them, the issues around schools such as the Brethren schools that were in the weekend’s media. The issues are those that were partly referred to by Senator Hanson-Young as a component of the review, which is how well the current mechanisms operate in allocating schools into different categories. But I think the issue that you are also raising is whether some schools have inappropriately been categorised. I will take advice from the department on that second point, but I want you to understand that it is an issue at both those levels that you are raising.

On the issues around the Gonski review I might also need to take advice on whether perhaps the second component of what I have described as the query you have made has actually been before the committee. Certainly the first has, because it is all of the issues around the SES model and funding maintained schools and funding guaranteed schools, but the second one as to whether the current mechanism is inappropriately categorising schools is one that I would need to take some advice on, which I will briefly do now.

Senator Xenophon, it seems as if the Brethren schools may actually be funding maintained schools, in which case, yes, it is an element of the existing system rather than a mis-categorisation of the schools. I suppose you could say it is an issue of the integrity of the system. So, it is the first of those—that our current system with all of its flaws, issues and problems is generating the problems that are occurring with the Brethren schools. They are getting too much funding in the sense that that is what the current system allows for because it is a very complex and complicated system. This is one of the issues.

It may help this debate a bit if I paint the broader context. The government’s transparency agenda is determined to deal with these issues and highlight these issues and difficulties so that the Gonski review is able to address them. With our transparency agenda via My School, we have been able to spark these debates at a very welcome time because it is as the Gonski review is occurring. This is one of the reasons why the government is determined to have the My School 2 information out and available during the Gonski review process so that we would be able to have an open, transparent and public debate about the anomalies that exist under the very complex existing funding arrangements.

At this point in time I feel assured that the issues raised around the Brethren schools are indeed the system rather than the integrity of the system, if you understand that distinction. But I will still take it on notice to confirm that issue. As I understand it, it is the current mechanism that is generating those anomalies, and the Gonski review is most certainly looking at those problems.