Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to speak for 20 minutes.

Leave granted.

I want to speak tonight about the role of the Australian Greens in the recent election campaign with regard to education policies, specifically their policies for non-government schools. The Australian Greens are fond of portraying themselves as the people of principle in Australian politics. Listening to Greens members and senators and candidates at all levels, one senses a certain righteousness about their cause. Greens members and senators and candidates seem to believe they have a consistency of principle, a clarity of vision which sets them apart from representatives of the ‘old parties’, as they are fond of calling members of this chamber at the moment.

I have met a great many constituents and others who swallow this grand image of the purity and purpose of the Australian Greens hook, line and sinker. It is to those people I want to address a story about the way in which the Australian Greens handled this issue of non-government education during the recent federal election. The policy of the Greens on this is very specific. It could be found during the election campaign, as it can now, in their policy platform on their website. At paragraph 61 under the ‘Education’ heading it reads that the Australian Greens will:

… end the current arrangement for recurrent funding to non-government schools by no later than the end of 2010.

They say they will:

… implement a new model for recurrent funding to non-government schools based on the following:

and they list a number of principles. They then go on to say, in paragraph 65, that they will:

… support the maintenance of the total level of Commonwealth funding for private schools at 2003-04 levels (excluding that re-allocated under previous clauses), indexed for inflation.

They say, in paragraph 63, that they will:

… ensure that non-government schools in receipt of government funding:

do not discriminate in hiring of staff or selection of students;

have an admissions and expulsions policy similar to public schools including an obligation to enrol.

I want to draw to the attention of senators what that actually means. First of all, to return non-government schools to the level of Commonwealth funding that applied in 2003-04 represents a very substantial cut in funding. It is a cut of hundreds of millions of dollars annually. To further tie that funding to certain conditions places a very heavy onus on non-government schools. Saying, for example, that schools may ‘not discriminate in hiring of staff or selection of students’ means that schools with a religious bias are not able to say, ‘We will only take students of that particular faith into our school.’ Having an admissions policy similar to public schools means that schools that pride themselves on choosing students of a certain academic standard, for streaming of those students, is not possible under Greens education policy. This represents a very radical departure from government funding policy in Australia at the present time.

This policy caused a great deal of excitement in the ACT during the recent election, for obvious reasons. The ACT enjoys the highest rate of participation in non-government education of anywhere in the country. It fluctuates between 45 and nearly 50 per cent of the school population at various times, so it is a very high level of participation, and concerns were raised almost immediately when the issue of the Greens policy was brought to people’s attention. When this policy was drawn to the attention of the public, during the last three weeks or so of the campaign, the Greens candidate defended the policy of her party. She said, ‘The current mix is inequitable and needs to be reviewed and changed.’ That was on about 4 August this year—about three weeks out from the election. On 5 August, something happened. There seems to have been some attack of panic in the Greens camp when they perhaps realised that, with such a high level of participation in non-government schooling in the ACT, this policy might not have been the best way of bringing in votes for the Greens candidate in a tight election. So an announcement was made by Senator Bob Brown, the leader of the Greens, and the ACT Greens candidate. The story in the Canberra Times reported:

The Greens will no longer shift any funding from private to government schools, saying the mining tax and a carbon tax will mean there are plenty of resources to boost the public system.

Senator Brown is quoted as saying:

I won’t be taking funding from the private school system to fund the public school system now that we have the mining tax alternative. It is a much better way to go.

The ACT Greens candidate said that no money would be taken out of any Canberra private schools. She was quoted as saying:

We believe because we have access to the resources now, we can afford to fund every part of the school system really well.

When I heard that, I was pleased and reassured for ACT schools that were no longer facing the axe; but, I must confess, I was a little bit disappointed that an issue of distinction between the Greens and Liberal Party had disappeared. However, the picture got a little bit less clear as the days went on. A few days later, another article appeared in the Canberra Times. It said:

Independent schools are calling on the Greens to clarify their private schools funding policy …

Ms Hatfield Dodds—

the Greens candidate—

challenged Senator Humphries yesterday to a debate on education policy.

She said the current school funding arrangements were inequitable and unfair, but could not be changed until the end of 2013 because of an agreement between the major parties.

What we have here seems to be a slight shift. No longer are the Greens saying that they are opposed outright to the reduction in funding to non-government schools, but they are saying that these inequitable and unfair arrangements cannot be changed because of the position of the major parties. That is a slight shift from saying that they no longer intend to proceed with the policy but, fair enough, that is a position which at least has some understandable elements.

Later the same day, Ms Hatfield Dodds said in a radio interview:

Gary’s been out saying that the Greens are planning on ripping money out of the private school system. That’s not true. In fact, there will be no action on the inequitable and unfair funding, because both the Liberal Party and the Labor Party have put off the schools funding review.

It seems to be clear from this statement that the Greens actually do stand by their policy of changing what they call the ‘inequitable and unfair funding of non-government schools’ but they cannot implement the policy because the two old parties, the Liberal and Labor parties, have conspired to prevent any review of funding arrangements. This is all a little bit unclear. Do they support the policy as articulated on their website—a policy which had not changed despite Senator Brown saying that they no longer intended to take any money from non-government schools? Or do they intend to implement the policy but at some later date, under certain circumstances? This confusion was highlighted a few days later in an article in the Sunday Age. I quote from that article:

THE Australian Greens are internally fractured over their policy to remove millions of dollars in funding from private schools.

In an internal Greens email leaked to The Sunday Age, party leader Bob Brown’s senior adviser Prue Cameron complained on August 3 that the policy was making the federal election campaign more difficult.

Last night Senator Brown backed away from the policy to reduce private school funding to 2003-04 levels.

‘‘That is our party’s policy. What we have argued, though, is that circumstances have changed since that policy setting was made a number of years ago,’’ he said.

‘‘The mining tax ... would mean we could put some billions of new money into the public sector and that would mean we don’t have to take $1000 per student from the private schools.’’

               …            …            …

His position appears to put him at odds with NSW Greens upper house member John Kaye, who said last night that the party’s ‘‘principled stand on education funding’’ had come under ‘‘intense attack from the very powerful private school lobby’’.

Ms Cameron’s email, sent to the national election campaign committee of the most senior Greens campaigners around the country, said the Senate policy team was “spending an inordinate amount [of] time” defending the policy.

               …            …            …

Her email attached a press release from a private school representative body in NSW complaining that the policy “punishes independent school students and parents”.

But Dr Kaye hit back immediately, defending the “unique and principled stand” of the Greens and saying he was surprised at the Senate team’s attitude.

The exchange suggests a wide divide within the party between idealists and pragmatists over education policy.

Indeed, it does. We have here evidence that this strange jerking backwards and forwards in Greens education policy statements was a reflection of some tension inside the Greens on this question.

A few days later the situation was made even murkier. On Monday 16 August, Senator Brown was interviewed for ABC News 24 by Virginia Trioli. She said:

… you actually had a much tighter and harsher policy plank in place for the last number of years, and that is to reduce private school funding to 2003 and 2004 levels. Now these days and these last few days you don’t believe that’s writ in stone anymore, do you?

Senator Brown replied:

No that policy stands, I made that clear. If you read that news story you’ll find that that’s the case Virginia. So have a look at the detail there.

We were told that the policy had changed and they would not be proceeding with the policy. Now Senator Brown says, ‘No, that policy stands.’ What is going on here? Ms Trioli persists:

But you also said in the last little while that circumstances have changed, so it’s not as necessary to pull away $1,000 per student as say it was, in order to achieve that reduction in private school funding to those levels.

Senator Brown responded:

So circumstances have changed. We can’t pull away any money from that system because as I explained five minutes ago the government is not going to change the formula, nor is the opposition. Better still, better than both of them, the Greens will use the mining tax which we levy at 40 per cent to help give the public school system, where 70 per cent of children go, the funding boost that they need.

So here we have this further iteration of Greens policy. They apparently stand by the policy but they cannot implement a review of the funding because the major parties oppose that. But they can use a mining tax at a higher level than then being proposed by the government to fund more money for the public school system.

It does not take anybody a great deal of nous to realise there is an incredible contradiction in this. They cannot implement their policy on changing the funding arrangement because the major parties will not support that, but they have extra money to put into public schools in Australia—not apparently now at the expense of non-government education—because they support a raising of the level of the mining tax from 30 to 40 per cent on certain commodities: iron ore and coal. They have the money to do that because they want that higher tax, even though the major parties do not support that happening. How do they get their policy through when both parties oppose it on the mining tax but have to surrender their policy on funding non-government schools because both major parties oppose it? It simply does not make any sense.

The following day ABC online reported that Senator Hanson-Young denied that the Greens wanted to cut educational funding. The article also said:

The Association of Independent Schools of South Australia says that the Greens education policy would put at risk the financial viability of many non-government schools.

               …            …            …

The association’s executive director, Garry Le Duff says the 96 non-government schools in South Australia would lose almost $75 million.

Incidentally, if this policy were to be implemented in the ACT, that figure would be $60 million annually. Will it be implemented or won’t it if the Greens have access to power? That simply is not clear.

A few days later at a public debate in the ACT, the Greens candidate insisted that no ACT non-government school would lose any funding. According to a journalist, he had been told by the candidate that the Greens would be changing their policy on the website very soon. This was two days before the federal election; they left it a little bit late to make any change. The policy had not changed before the election and, as of a few hours ago when I checked, the policy has still not changed. The Greens still stand for a massive reduction in funding for non-government education  according to their website, and nothing that the Greens have said in the election period or since makes their position on this any clearer.

The Greens have said that they want to raise another $2 billion in the mining tax to fund their promises in public education. This was something Senator Brown said in the National Press Club on 17 August. It was the same day he flatly denied that there was any change in the Greens education policy with respect to non-government schools. The question that people in this country who use non-government education need to ask themselves is this: what will happen if the Greens do not succeed in increasing the mining tax and raising the extra $2 billion that they say they want to raise? It is certainly the policy of the coalition not to allow the tax to be raised to that level—in fact we oppose the tax at the level that is proposed by the government. But let us assume that the government does not deviate from its present position, which is to leave the tax at the rate presently announced by the government: what then for the Greens non-government education policy?

If the Greens do not have available to them the additional $2 billion generated by this mining tax, which nobody but them appears to support at that level, do they revert to the policy on their website which they variously defended and backed away from during the election campaign? If the Greens revert to that policy and have the balance of power in this place from 1 July next year, it is not scaremongering to suggest to people who use Australian non-government schools that their position is under great threat by virtue of the Greens policy, which would take hundreds of millions of dollars out of non-government education.

The Greens have said at other stages in the course of the debate that, because the major parties do not support their position, they cannot implement their policy. But in a whole series of areas during the recent election campaign the Greens announced that they would implement policy on the basis that they had the balance of power in the Senate, which they confidently declared before the election they would have—and that they will indeed have from 1 July next year—notwithstanding the fact that the major parties, the ‘old parties’ as they sometimes refer to us, are opposed to that position. So it is entirely reasonable to call on Senator Bob Brown and the Australian Greens to clarify precisely what the policy of the Australian Greens is on non-government education.

This policy has the potential to affect the position of millions of Australian families, and those that look to the decisions that will come out of the new paradigm in Australian politics are entitled to some clarity on those issues. Has, for example, the question of the funding of government and non-government schools come up in discussions between Senator Brown and the Prime Minister? Those discussions, we understand through the agreement that has been published, are to be held on a weekly basis when the parliament is sitting. Has this been discussed? If so, have any proposals being floated? If so, has anything been suggested or agreed to in this context? I think we are entitled to know.

Non-government schools provide enormous diversity in our education system and a very rich educational product which many Australians choose to use. In these circumstances, Australians are entitled to know whether the product of a Greens-Labor alliance in the Senate gives them any cause for concern. Based on the published policy of the Greens on their website and on their confused and zigzagging policy approach during the election campaign, the question richly deserves to be asked and, I think, to be answered.