Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Moore, I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

Given the pre-election promises made by the Coalition to support the Better Schools Program and its public statements committing to a "unity ticket" on the Better Schools Program, the need for the Government to honour its pre-election promises to avoid the dire consequences for equity, improvement of achievement and opportunity in Australia if the Government does not keep those promises.

The question is that the Senate take note of the actions of the government in regard to schools funding, and I think the Senate should be aware of just how deep the hypocrisy runs within this government concerning school funding. Frankly, it is breathtaking. Today we have seen the third policy announced by this government inside a week. The double backflip we have seen in the last two days is nothing short of extraordinary. The Prime Minister has backtracked, displaying extraordinary levels of duplicity. The deviousness which the government has presented is amazing. In doing so, what the government has done is break yet another election promise, because on 5 September the government said there would be no cuts to health, education or pensions.

What we hear announced today is that the government says it will come up with 'perfectly sensible' savings—'perfectly sensible' is the new code word for a broken promise—of an extra $1.2 billion to fund the school funding commitments that have been made to Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. We ask the simple question: where are these so-called sensible savings going to come from? They are going to come from the education budget, breaking a promise that the Prime Minister said they would not break.

We know that the coalition's election promise on school funding could not have been clearer. The Minister for Education—the opposition spokesman, as he was at the time—said during the election campaign:

Every single school in Australia will receive, dollar for dollar, the same federal funding over the next four years whether there is a Liberal or Labor Government after September 7.

But today what do we hear from Senator Abetz? That there is 'no need' for schools to be worse off. That is the extent of it.

We know, of course, that the government has changed its position. It has moved away from Labor's Better Schools plan, which would have delivered an extra $9.4 billion. That is the level of commitment the government has to match if it is to maintain its election promise: $9.4 billion over six years. This is funding that is designed to improve the outcomes for students and to ensure that money goes to those students who most need it, because the fact is that in this country the levels of inequality are truly extraordinary. We know that 80 per cent of students from working-class backgrounds go to government schools, that 85 per cent of Indigenous students go to government schools and that 78 per cent of students with a disability go to government schools. But who is it that this government is targeting for its funding redistribution and reprioritisation? Government schools.

What authority do I have for saying that? I have the education minister in New South Wales, a Liberal minister, saying that is the intent of the government's policy position. We have the new minister saying that they want to return to the SES model. I know it is dressed up in so many different ways and under so many different guises, but he essentially says a good starting point is the Howard government policies. He also says that equity is not an issue in schools in this country. That is an incredible proposition to advance given that we have such high levels of inequality in this country. It is incredible that he wants to rely on the completely dysfunctional and discredited funding model that was presented under the Howard government, which saw the wealthiest private schools in this country increase their funding by between 50 and 90 per cent; which saw 1,075 schools maintain their funding despite the fact that their circumstances had fundamentally changed, because that was a commitment made by Mr Howard early in the piece; and which saw 60 per cent of schools in the Catholic education system outside the funding model. It is a funding model which, in the most comprehensive review of schools funding we have seen in the better part of about 40 years, was described as being totally inadequate and totally opaque. It is a funding model that showed that there was considerable duplication across the system.

So what we have is a model that was accepted by conservative governments in Victoria and in New South Wales, supported by Labor governments in South Australia and in Tasmania—a majority of school students covered by the system—but of course rejected by the governments in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland for blatantly political reasons. They were told—and they made these public comments—they would get a better deal under Mr Abbott. The situation in Western Australia is that the Labor government offered $920 million. So what is the better deal that Mr Abbott is offering, given that the total amount that he is suggesting today is $1.2 billion across Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia? How can it possibly be that there is a better deal? Well, there is not. What we find is that the government of Western Australia has been duped as well. Why shouldn't they be? Everyone else in the country has been.

We have a circumstance now where this government totally lacks credibility and authority when it comes to schools funding. In fact, it is outright treachery that they should go to an election trying to neutralise their political position, because they knew that the Labor Party's position was miles ahead and they wanted to ensure that their whole political position in terms of the election was neutralised while they made commitments such as that every single school in Australia would receive, dollar-for-dollar, the same federal funding over the next four years, whether there was a Liberal or a Labor government after 7 September. That is a commitment that has been repudiated and not reinstated by today's announcements. In fact, what we see is the Victorian Premier, for instance, saying, 'We will fight tooth and nail to have the deal delivered in full. We will fight for the agreement that will be implemented and signed with the legitimate government of the day,' namely the Labor government. The Victorian education minister made clear, along with Victorian schools and the schools community: 'We expect the Commonwealth to honour this funding which was agreed on 4 August.' Why should they feel it necessary to say that? Because the Commonwealth government has repudiated those agreements. We see similar statements being made in New South Wales. The Premier of New South Wales feels it necessary to say to the new Prime Minister, 'Start acting as a government. Stop pretending you're still in opposition. Start actually running the country on the basis of the needs of all the people in this country. Stop pretending that you can play these partisan political games with the welfare of students of this country.'

What we know now is this: the Liberal Party attacks school funding as a political issue that has to be neutralised before the election. Of course, their real position is exposed after the election. When the minister puts his foot in it repeatedly, the Prime Minister has to try and sort it out, but in so doing he makes further breaches of promise and provides no way near the commitment that he made before the election. On 3 August he said:

As far as school funding is concerned, Kevin Rudd and I are on a unity ticket.

There is the nonsense that it is just about the money. Of course, it is not just about the money; it is how it is distributed; it is about who gets what, when and why. These are the fundamental principles of politics: who gets what, when and why. This government is saying that the people in government schools ought to get less. This government is saying that the people of Western Australia should get less than they were offered.

According to the Leader of the Government in the Senate today, there is no need for people to be worse off. What a firm commitment. What rock-solid guarantee is there? We know that this government treats everything as a political exercise. There is no commitment to the fundamental principles of equity. There is no commitment to the fundamental principles of ensuring prosperity for all the people of this country. It is about developing the partisan politics that we have seen in the past—the sectarian politics of the past. A government that did no work in opposition is now relying upon the failed and discredited policies of the Howard government. It is a government that has no commitment to the future of Australia but is all about trying to get past the next opinion poll, and on the basis of what? On the basis of some shoddy arrangements it made prior to the election. (Time expired)