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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Human Services (Senator Payne) to a question without notice asked by Senator Carr today relating to schools funding.

The OECD report released today highlights, if ever there was a need to highlight, the importance of why we should have Labor's school reform plans put in place. The report shows beyond a shadow of doubt that equity remains a major issue in Australia, despite what the Minister for Education said only last week:

I don't believe there is an equity problem in Australia.

The report has found that at the very lowest levels of socioeconomic background, students in Tasmania and the Northern Territory score substantially lower than those in other states. Disadvantaged students in Tasmania and the Northern Territory are some 1½ years behind their peers in other parts of Australia.

Overall, Australian students from the lower socioeconomic groups are about 2½ years behind those from wealthier backgrounds. Indigenous students are some 2½ years behind non-Indigenous students. Students in remote schools are almost two years behind students in metropolitan schools. Students in the independent school sector achieve results significantly higher than students in the Catholic or government school sectors. Students in the Catholic school sector score significantly higher than students in government schools.

The report said one of the most important indicators of equity is the strength of relationship between the social background of students and their educational achievements, despite what the minister said today. The report goes on to say:

If the relationship is strong, the education system is not acting to produce more equitable outcomes, but is instead reinforcing educational privilege where it exists by conferring higher scores and denying the potential to achieve where privilege does not already exist.

That is a fundamental concern of the Australian education system. The Gonski panel's review of Australian schooling, the most comprehensive study of Australian schooling for the better part of a generation, found that the school-funding policies pursued in the Howard era, the socioeconomic status model, was inefficient and unfair. It found the policy led to outcomes that disadvantaged poorer students and, perversely, increased funding for the wealthiest schools by between 50 and 90 per cent. It also found that 1,075 private schools had their funding preserved, whereas 60 per cent of the non-government and Catholic schools were outside the socioeconomic status model.

This is the model that the government champion. Whatever weasel words they use, this is the model—the John Howard model—they now seek to champion. It is a model that has failed. Government schools in this country enrol 80 per cent of students from lower socioeconomic groups, 85 per cent of Indigenous students and 78 per cent of students with disabilities. In 2009, only 56 per cent of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds finished year 12, compared to 75 per cent of children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. The Howard-era policies, which were highlighted in the OECD report today, are about perpetuating inequalities. That model of funding is about building privilege, rewarding those who are already well off and ensuring that the divisions in Australian society are enhanced and not reduced.

We need a funding model that ensures that money goes to people who are most in need. Essentially, the Labor model was about making sure we had significant reform and real equity in Australian education. That is exactly what Labor's model gave. That is why the government's abandonment of its pre-election promise is heinous. It is a commitment to reinforce privilege. It is about making sure that the wealthy and powerful continue their dominance of our society. The Gonski model was about ensuring that we had loadings for people with disabilities, Indigenous students, those in small or remote schools, those who came from disadvantaged households and those who had limited English. Those are the people who need most support. Under the Labor model, that is what they got, but that is not what they will get from this government because this government has abandoned its commitment to fairness, justice and equity. This government has abandoned its commitment to the Australian people.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can tell that Senator Carr's heart is not in this portfolio area. You can tell he is not prepared to do the hard work and heavy lifting, because he asks questions during question time which have been pre-prepared. He asks supplementary questions which have already been addressed by the minister. Then he takes notes of answers with a pre-written speech which he reads verbatim. It is an extraordinary display of hubris, arrogance and outright laziness from a very sloppy opposition shadow minister.

The shadow minister said that he believes there is not equity. I would suggest to him and those on the other side of the chamber that equity is having good outcomes. It is not about throwing good money after bad; it is about delivering outcomes. That is something that those on that side of the chamber have been abject failures at. Senator Carr suggests that the money should go where it is needed. Let me suggest to Senator Carr that the money is needed for Queensland students, who those on the other side of the chamber neglected to fund. The Labor Party were going to rip $1.2 billion out of education funding under some guise of a national agreement which was not national at all. I ask: what do they have against the people of Queensland? Are they so embittered by their experience of the former Prime Minister from Queensland, Mr Kevin Rudd, that they do not want to support the Queensland people who elected him? It is a shameful indictment, and the embarrassment is written across all of their faces.

Senator Bilyk interjecting—

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, on my left!

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are not vigorously defending the Rudd legacy, let me tell you that. Let us have a look at Mr Rudd's and Ms Gillard's legacy—the legacy left behind by those on the other side. Labor's performance in education can simply be described as a dismal failure. The PISA results—as the shadow minister asked about and as the minister articulated—indicate just how great their failure has been. In maths we have dropped from 15th to 19th on the PISA table; in reading we have dropped from ninth to 14th; and in science we have dropped from 10th to 16th. It is a shameful indictment on their lack of ability to deliver outcomes.

The left of the political spectrum has this belief that borrowing more money and throwing it at a problem without actually applying it in a disciplined and meaningful way is somehow going to give you a different result. It does not. Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. The PISA report found that teacher quality is absolutely important and is integral to delivering outcomes to students. Your problem is that you are not interested in the outcomes. You are more interested in 'the art of seeming' than the art of actually delivering. That is what the fundamental rejection by the Australian people of Labor's brand of politics has been about. You were all spin and no substance. You know that, Senator Furner; I can sense it. And that is why education in this country is in the state that it is in now.

What I find extraordinary is that shadow ministers cannot come in here and debate the substance, in a meaningful way, of the topic of the questions they have asked in their portfolio areas. They have to have a prewritten, pre-typed speech to deliver—with all the passion of an undertaker, I would suggest. It is an extraordinary indictment and a suggestion—

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Arthur Sinodinos could not give a straight answer to the question. What does that say about Arthur?

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note the interjections from someone who should not be giving us lectures about delivering outcomes and things. In fact, it has always been my policy and my belief that it is better to remain silent and only be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. That is what I would suggest to you.

Teacher quality is critically important. Teacher quality is absolutely critical. The Australian school system needs better teachers. We know that. It needs a consistent approach, and that is exactly what the coalition is intent on delivering. We are re-applying $1.2 billion that Mr Shorten ripped out of education funding. We are making sure that school students in those areas which were neglected by the Labor Party are being adequately funded so that their education can deliver better and more meaningful outcomes for all of us. (Time expired)

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We seem to be having an argument about equity, and I note that Senator Carr seems to think that the solution is to just give more money and it will make everything okay. I think, Senator Carr, the answer to that is: more money does not deliver equity. We have to remember that equity is not just about equity in inputs; it is about equity in outcomes. So we need to look at the outcomes that we are trying to achieve and, if we can get equity in those outcomes, then we should stop worrying about how much we are putting in and make sure that everybody has an equal chance of a good education.

I note, once again, that this argument is about money—and we have talked about the Program for International Student Assessment that was recently released, and it is the subject of the question we are supposed to be taking note of today. The assessment produced some extraordinary results suggesting that Australia's education standards have been slipping significantly. I note that these are the worst results that Australia has ever had since this particular test has been in place to measure student outcomes. I would suggest that adding money is not going to deliver better standards.

What will deliver better standards is to make sure that the teaching children receive is exceptionally good. If we can get high quality and equity in teaching standards, we will go a long way towards achieving equity in the outcomes that we are seeking, rather than throwing a whole heap of money at the problem and not worrying too much about where it goes. I truly believe the premise to better education is to better teaching standards. We have to work out the best way to achieve that. Without doubt the people that are at the grassroots, at the coalface, the ones delivering education, the parents, the students and the communities where they live, are in a far better position to determine what is in the best interests of their particular community, school and class of students than we are, standing here in Canberra.

If we want to start looking at the issue of equity, then we also have to recognise that every school will have something different, something special. A school in remote Australia is not going to have the same conditions, circumstances and methods as a school in a CBD. As has been rightly pointed out by both sides of this chamber, people in different circumstances will be in different socioeconomic groups because of the location of schools, whether they be in cities, rural and remote areas. So we have to accept the fact that centralised control from Canberra is not in the best interests of delivering equity outcomes for our students. For us to be standing here and suggesting that the Commonwealth and the people in this place know better and know best about what is right for students living in outback New South Wales, Darwin, the Riverland, the area that I come from, or Western Australia is the height of conceit and arrogance.

If we are talking about equity in outcomes, we have to give all jurisdictions and states the same access to achieving these outcomes. Denying three jurisdictions—Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland—access to the funding to achieve some of these outcomes does not strike me as even trying to achieve equity. In fact it flies in the face of equity, and the $1.2 billion that was removed from the budget that would have otherwise gone to these states absolutely underlines the fact that equity cannot be delivered if you exclude some groups from getting access to the things they need.

In the report that was handed down from PISA in the recent past, it was obvious that money does not deliver equity; in fact, all of the evidence shows that better outcomes are achieved by lifting the quality of teaching, ensuring we have a robust curriculum, expanding principal autonomy and encouraging more parental engagement. (Time expired)

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Payne, Senator Bernardi and Senator Ruston all said that three states did not receive extra funding. There is a reason they did not receive that extra funding: those states chose to use those students as political pawns, and refused to sign up to it. They refused to sign up to hundreds of millions of dollars of funding, simply to score a cheap political point against the previous Labor government. Let's not forget that. The Liberal Party and the National Party of those states and federally were happy to use those children. I think it is absolutely atrocious that they would risk money for education and use children as political playthings; to put their education and future outcomes at risk for their own selfish ends.

I have to say that the first few weeks of a new government are always really interesting. You can usually tell in those first few weeks a lot about how the government is going to perform. It is quite sad to see that there has been a continuing pattern of quite bad behaviour that has become apparent with the new government—not least of which is that of Minister Pyne, who had to be saved from making even more faux pas than he had already made by the Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, who had to jump in and save him.

The debacle around education in the past few weeks has been atrocious. Minister Pyne has had more positions than my daughter's ballet classes had. It is absolutely atrocious. It is just atrocious that the Prime Minister and the education minister are blaming the people of Australia and blaming the media for what has been going on.

Senator Abetz interjecting—

I did not hear that, Senator Abetz, but I think you should be taking this issue quite seriously for the people in Tasmania. I do not think they would be that impressed with you—possibly; I don't know what you said, and I am not that interested.

I will be challenging you to come with me to some of those schools in Tasmania whose funding you took away and tell those kids why you are putting their future at risk. If you want to have good teacher outcomes, you put money into education.

The Gonski reform was an amazing report. But of course not many people can find out about it, if they have not already read it. It is a bit hard to find. It has gone. It has been expunged. It has been taken away. The website is not there any longer. Let me talk a little bit especially to those students up in the gallery who might be really interested in what their future education could have been like under a Labor government. The Labor government was prepared to ensure that every school in Australia would receive consistent funding per student. They were prepared to have additional loadings that would apply to provide extra resources for disadvantaged students—for example, any student that might have poor English proficiency or students with a disability or students with learning difficulties, Indigenous students or students from disadvantaged backgrounds or students from small regional or remote schools. We had the process. We had the review that had 7,000 submissions to it. They are all gone from the website; you cannot see them anymore. Thirty-nine schools were visited through the Gonski review and 71 education groups were consulted with. All that work has been wiped, just because those opposite do not want to implement anything and give the previous Labor government credit for anything they did.

In case any of the students or the teachers up in the gallery are interested in the Gonski review, there is one place I found that you can still find it. Thanks to the Australian Primary Principals Association website, you can go on and have a look at the Gonski review. I would recommend that all teachers have a look at it, if they have not already. I am presuming that most teachers in Australia have looked at it. But it is also great for the children to know what those opposite intend to do about their education.

I do not think those opposite really understand the importance of education. They do not understand that it is the single most determining factor in improving life outcomes for people. Education funding, therefore, should be based on need, to ensure that all Australians have an equality of opportunity, to give everyone a fair go. If you want to help teachers, you can help teachers by ensuring that that funding is needs based— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.