Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I am in continuation on the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2014, Mr President. I just felt that as I finished in the middle of a sentence it would be appropriate to come back and wrap it up, just for the history!

What I was saying last night about this bill was that, of course, this side of the parliament is supporting the bill. It raises important issues about support for Indigenous students in boarding schools. It also talks about the incredibly important element of providing effective support for students with disabilities and it talks about maintaining discussion so that there can be effective discussion about what happens in this area.

As I was saying last night: despite efforts from people on the other side there has never been any doubt about our position on this bill. What we have said consistently, though, is that we wish that the bill did not have to be discussed. If, in fact, the promises that were made, not just to us but to the community, around the Gonski reforms were actually maintained by the government of the day there would be no need to be discussing this bill. Each of the elements that are the core elements of this bill were part of the agreed Gonski process. There was a clear understanding around the issues of Indigenous education and boarding school support. There was an acknowledgement of the special needs for people with disabilities and the need to ensure that that was actually tied down so that the appropriate support would be identified, resourced and implemented.

As I was saying last night, a practical issue—an issue that actually did take sensitive negotiations over a period of time—was the implementation of school improvement plans. This was actually a practical aspect of making sure that across the board—across all elements of schooling and across state borders—there would be an agreed process. One of the ideas was—and we said it consistently through our process in education—that it does not matter what kind of school you go to and it does not matter where you live; you should be confident that you will have an effective, a responsive and a personal education that gave you options. That was the basis of the Gonski process. I know I should be talking about 'Better Schools' but I think Professor Gonski is now going to be in history as linked to these school reforms! So just for the sake of process I will continue using that term.

There is no doubt about our position. We continue to raise our concerns. We continue to hope that many of the things that were negotiated through those many years of discussions—with considerable difficulty in some cases—will be implemented and that through the ongoing process of funding, not just in the first four years but in the following years of a long-term investment in the nation, that the outcomes will be achieved; that the effort and hope that went into the development of the education plan will be fulfilled and that we will have the kinds of adaptations that are in this bill as a matter of course.

So we support the bill. We regret that we had to be doing this process, but there has never been any doubt that we would put it in danger. It has been said that we were somehow 'endangering the future' by not supporting it. That was never a point, and I hope that will be understood when we vote on the process.