Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to set the record straight on funding. Both the minister, Senator Payne, and Senator Bernardi have said that Labor's task of adding a few dollars to the system has not actually worked. I would like to draw the Senate's attention to a Grattan Institute analysis, which basically says that over a decade from 2002-03 to 2012-13 all governments have put in more dollars in real terms. In fact, funding has grown by about 37 per cent. In this environment where we are being tagged with, 'An international study has given us a bad result; you put too much money in.' We ought to take this a whole lot more seriously. The inequity question is there. As the aspiring minister for common sense, Senator Bernardi, said, it is all about teacher quality.

Senator Bernardi interjecting—

How do you get teachers of quality to commit to places of disadvantage? I have had the fortunate experience of visiting a number of outback schools and have met some wonderful principals in places that are fairly remote. One of the things they always say is, 'Retention of good teachers is our core problem.' The other thing they say is, 'Not having enough teachers to spend time on the students who are disadvantaged is our next major problem.'

Flinders View Primary School in Port Augusta West has a brilliant principal—an absolutely committed star principal of great quality. The school services an area of the least advantaged people in that community. The school used its funding under the BER to get an early childhood centre built because the school figured that if it did not get those kids into the school system earlier, there was very little hope of them achieving higher results than their parents in primary school at the very least.

So we do need to look at the equity issue. To say it is not just a matter of money is absolutely misleading. We do need the resources in the right places to conquer, as Senator Carr said, the inequality that is in the system. In the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, people do not even come to school with English as their first language, so you cannot just say we simply need teachers of quality. We need special resources. We need dedicated programs to engage these people who, as I have said, come from the least advantaged families and communities in Australia.

Mr Pyne's 'whatever it takes; it doesn't matter; it's only the place you get to at the end' is really upsetting to a whole cohort of people in education, whether it be principals or parents on representative councils. It does matter. You need a clear, cogent plan for what you are going to do to fix the inequity in the system identified by the Gonski review and, most importantly, to advance the educational standards that our country needs to take us higher up the international ranking system.

You cannot have the shambolic performance of: 'It's gone. It's in. It's out. I'll change my mind. I've got an envelope. We won't change the amount that is in the envelope but we're not going to tell you where it's going.' There are lots of people who want to know that in providing for the most disadvantaged schools in our community and those disadvantaged communities they are going to be treated equitably and fairly.

We would like to know that funds are going to be made available for those areas and, importantly, for those students and school communities. I think they deserve to have the comfort that they may or may not have taken from the election commitment: 'We're at one with Labor. There's not a skerrick of difference between us. The funding is there. We will deliver on education.' Well, let's do it.