Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A letter has been received from Senator Moore:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

"The Abbott Government's plan to abolish universal access to free public education."

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about the Abbott government's plan to abolish universal access to free public education. Specifically, a leaked copy of the federation green paper shows the Abbott government's plan to cut all Commonwealth funding to schools, means-test public education and force the re-introduction of fees for public school students. This is a government which is arrogantly out of touch. This is a government which is failing the Australian people at a time when we should be investing more money in education, but what do we see from this government? It wants to deregulate the universities; it wants to stop anyone who does not have a large credit card from going to university; and now it wants to stop free education in this country. It is absolutely outrageous.

The government is also considering incomprehensible damage to Australia's education system. We all know, as do the Australian people, that before the election there were a number of commitments and promises made by this government, and one of those notably was that there would be no cuts to education. Another promise was a unity ticket on schools—a unity ticket on the Gonski reforms. But what have we seen? We have seen the exact opposite from those in government. There will be a massive increase in fees for children going into the public education system and there will be changes to non-government schools' funding as well. Alongside these disappointing and highly disturbing revelations today, we have seen $30 billion cut from our classrooms over the next decade—which is the biggest cut ever made to education in this country—and that, Senators, is nothing to be proud of. We have also seen the failure to deliver the Gonski agreements, which directly hit students that need the most support in our schools. Obviously not satisfied with abandoning Gonski and cutting $30 billion from education last year, Mr Abbott and his team are setting a new target, which is to attack and cut funding to public schools and to end the provision of free schooling altogether.

This is a disappointing and disturbing revelation, and it shows that the $30 billion cut in last year's budget was just the beginning. Even more disturbing is that we will lose the ability to meet the economic challenges this country faces. As I have said, this is a time when we should be putting more money into education and we should be ensuring that we have better trained teachers and that all parents in this country have the ability to send their children to the world's best schools. It is very clear that the Abbott government does not value public education. We on this side have always known that, and the Australian people have known that, but they were misguided and lied to by those opposite at the last election when they were told there would be no cuts to education—just as they were told there would be no changes to the pension. What have we seen? Nothing but borne-out lies from those opposite. Every Australian child has a fundamental right to expect to have access to the world's best education system. We are a rich country; we can afford to put more money into education. The Australian people are paying the price of the betrayal of Mr Abbott and his government. Mr Abbott cannot be allowed to get away with abandoning this funding for public education. He intends to charge hundreds of dollars to thousands of parents to send their children to the public schools in this country.

This government claims they have had a proper discussion with the states. But this has nothing to do with improving education outcomes for children and everything to do with cost-shifting and privatisation. We know the more pressure this government can put onto states by cutting education and cutting health the more it will force them to have to look at the GST and increasing that. We know that what this government cannot do through the front door they will do, by whatever means they can, through the back door.

To have a world-class education system in this country, we needed this incoming government to live up to the commitment that they gave by fully rolling out the Gonski initiatives. That was the only way we were going to have the best outcomes for every Australian child. Every child, no matter what their education ability, needs to be able to reach their highest academic achievement. But they also need to have access to drama, to sport, to music, to have those extra teachers in the classrooms, to have smaller classrooms. I really do not think that that is too much to ask from this government. But, as we have seen in so many other policy areas, we know that Mr Abbott still resides in the 1960s—and that is where he is taking education in this country.

We have fought Mr Abbott and his government on a whole range of things since we have been in opposition. We did it when he wanted to cut the pension, which would have cost Australian pensioners $80 a week. We stood up with the Australian people—and we can do the same here and now. I know that Labor will always stand up for public education. We will always stand up to ensure every Australian child has the world's best education system in this country. I also believe that the Australian community will send a very strong message to this government that they will not stand by and see this government attack public education in this country.

We know that there are some students who struggle to meet their academic achievements. What they need is more help and assistance. They need more highly skilled teachers. They need to have teachers' aides. They need more money put into education so that they can reach their personal achievements and their personal ambitions of having the best education they can. We know that there still needs to be more money put into numeracy and literacy in this country. We also know the benefits that come from participating in sport and having access to music in our education system. We always know that students do much better with smaller class sizes.

I, for one, and those of us in opposition will never trust Mr Abbott and Mr Pyne to deliver a good education system in this country. It does not matter whether you are talking about education and cutting funds to the states, or whether you are talking about deregulating the universities. We know those opposite have always believed—it is in their DNA—that you should not be able to go on to university if you cannot afford to pay your way. They want to see us go down the path of the American system.

In my home state of Tasmania, where we have a very low retention rate when it comes to tertiary education, we should be doing more. Having met with the vice-chancellor of the University of Tasmania very recently, it was reaffirmed to me—and it is something even I know—that instilling the value of education and ensuring that you have as many students as possible going on to tertiary education starts in primary school and is then continued on in the high school years. That is the way that we are going to get more Tasmanians going on to tertiary education.

This quite clearly is another election promise that has been broken. This is an election promise that has been broken just as the one was with the attack on pensions in this country. It is fundamentally every Australian's right to have the best education possible.

Senator Bushby interjecting—

We also know—and we have the interjections from the other side—that you cannot trust anything they say. Even Mr Abbott said himself: if it is written down, then you can believe it. We know that you cannot believe anything this government says about the election commitments that they gave on the eve of the election—that there would be no change and no cut to education and no change to pensions. They have done exactly the opposite to that.

I, along with my colleagues, will fight this every step of the way to the next election. The Australian people know, because they know our reputation on this. They know those in political parties like the Australian Labor Party will always put education first. They will always put their money on a Labor government delivering better outcomes in education.

Senator Bushby interjecting—

I am really disappointed with Senator Bushby from Tasmania. He should be working with us to ensure that every Tasmanian has the best opportunities to achieve their personal ambitions. (Time expired)

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The old saying goes: lies, damned lies and statistics. But, perhaps, the saying should be updated to: lies, dammed lies and speeches from Australian Labor Party senators. What we have just heard, and it has continued throughout the day, is a hysterical reaction from the Labor Party—a reaction that is completely based on mistruth.

I think it is important, in relation to this topic, that we do try to have a sensible discussion. Certainly the government is trying to have a sensible discussion with the Australian states and territories about how the federation operates, about what our responsibilities are as a Commonwealth and what the responsibilities of the states and territories are, and how we make sure that we eliminate waste and duplication and get the best possible results in terms of the delivery of services right across all of the areas of government responsibility, including, and especially, good educational outcomes for students, and school students in particular.

Let us have a look at the discussion paper that has triggered this wave of outrage from those opposite. I will give you a few quotes from it. Firstly it says: 'The Constitution by virtue of section 51(xxiiiA) and section 96 has allowed the Commonwealth to increase markedly its involvement in education which is generally regarded as a state and territory responsibility.' It goes on to say:

… the current arrangements have … undoubtedly blurred the lines of accountability to the general public …

As result it is not always clear who ultimately is responsible for the delivery of high-quality services. This shared space on policy and funding has also led to duplication, waste and poor targeting of investment and effort. I would hope that those opposite, that anybody who cares about the future education of our schoolchildren and the management of our school and educational system, would want to eliminate duplication and waste and would want to make sure that investment and effort was well targeted to get the best possible outcome for students. This of course is framed as part of a broader discussion, though. This is not just a review in school funding; this is a review of the entire federation and how it operates. It is having a look at the health sector, it is having a look at the education sector, it is having a look at revenue—how governments have the revenue to access funding for the future.

Through all of that, it is trying to find a way to ensure services are delivered in the most efficient and effective manner possible without having that waste and duplication that we have seen. The problem with this level of waste and duplication and this lack of clear accountability for who is responsible—because currently you have every level of government tipping funding in different and disparate ways to every different level of education—is that nobody ends up being held effectively to account for outcomes. What we have seen, as this discussion paper goes on to say, is:

Spending by all Australian governments grew by 37 per cent, in real terms, in the ten years between 2002-03 and 2012-13.

But we now have fewer higher achievers and more low performers than a decade ago and average scores have declined. We are now equal 17th in mathematics; we were equal second. We are equal eighth science; we were equal third. And we are equal 10th in reading; we were equal second. So, while how much funding schools get is important, it is not the silver bullet to achieve better results. How it is spent matters more.

Senator Wright interjecting—

I will happily take that interjection, Senator Wright—and where it is spent, indeed. So, as a federal government, we have tried to make sure that a lot of our education reforms are focused on the 'how it is spent' question—how it is spent to make sure that we do deliver the appropriate policies that increase school autonomy, ensure that our curriculum is robust and relevant, promote parental engagement in children's learning and improve the quality of teaching; things the Commonwealth can clearly do. We are providing record funding—$69.5 billion to schools over the next four years. So the funding is there in record levels, but we are trying to tackle the policy measures that can help to ensure it is spent in ways that get better outcomes and redress the decline in our performance over the last decade.

We also want to make sure that the funding is used as wisely, effectively and efficiently as possible. That is why we have in this discussion paper, as it is across all elements of the Federation, canvassed the whole range of options that are available. Option 1 that is canvassed here is that states and territories become fully responsible for all schools. Of course, if that were to happen—I hear the hysterical reaction already—you would need to make sure that states and territories had the funding streams to be able to fund all schools, that they actually had the revenue to make up for where the Commonwealth was stepping back, and that of course would be part of any structured arrangement around Federation reform. Option 2 is that states and territories are responsible for funding government schools and the Commonwealth is responsible for funding non-government schools. That is essentially a finessing of current arrangements where the states and territories take the bulk of responsibility for funding the government school sector and the Commonwealth, as it has for decades, takes the bulk of responsibility for funding non-government schools. Option 3 is that there is reduced Commonwealth involvement in school programs—essentially, a level of maintaining the status quo in terms of some of the funding but with less Commonwealth interference in how schools are operated. Option 4 is that the Commonwealth is the dominant public funder of all schools on an equal and consistent basis. Option 4 would be saying that the Commonwealth would take a much greater role in terms of the amount of funding it would provide to education. Of course, the Commonwealth would need to consider how and where it got that revenue from and how it delivered this. But you can see from those four options that the whole spectrum of scenarios is there under consideration, yet we have an opposition—and, frankly, it includes the Greens and the unions on this topic—that is hell-bent on a misleading campaign suggesting that this is part of some strategy for the government to cut school spending.

Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolutely.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Wright says, 'Absolutely. There we go. Mr Acting Deputy President Whish-Wilson, through you: Senator Wright, we will only achieve any reform of the Federation if the states and territories agree. That is why they have been involved in the development of this discussion paper, that is why the Prime Minister is sitting down with state and territory leaders in July, and of course that is why I am pleased to say that the states and territories are being far more sensible about this than any of those opposite, because they know that it makes sense to try to get clearer lines of accountability if it is possible. The South Australian Labor Premier has not endorsed Senator Polley's hysteria, nor Senator Wright's hysteria, nor the hysteria of many others in this space. South Australian Labor Premier, Jay Weatherill, has rightly said:

… it's only a discussion paper.

We've been asking them—

'them' being the Commonwealth—

to canvas the broader range of options …

So we have canvassed the broadest possible range of options. Premier Weatherill went on to say:

There's a broad debate going on about Commonwealth/state relations, which is a good thing.

And it is a good thing to have this debate and it is to the shame of all of those opposite that they do not want to have a sensible debate about this, that they want to turn it into a scare campaign and that they do not seem to care about whether or not funding going to the school system is wasted. They would rather run a scare campaign. They do not care about the fact that our educational standards are slipping because of this wastage, because of these inefficiencies. They want to run a scare campaign. We will not accept a scare campaign. We have been crystal clear today to make sure that everybody understands that there are no plans from this government to reduce support to schools. That is why we are providing record funding. We have no intention of charging people to attend and access free public education. But we do intend to have a proper discussion with the states and territories to see whether the Commonwealth can actually manage to operate and run the education system, and the schooling system, and the funding thereof, more efficiently—in partnership with the states and territories. That is what this is about—trying to get better outcomes for Australian taxpayers and for state taxpayers—

Senator Wright interjecting—

but more importantly, Senator Wright, for students and parents, and to make sure that they are getting the best possible resources. It is to the shame of all those opposite that all they are interested in is a scare campaign on this—rather than achieving the best possible outcomes for Australian students, which is what this government wants to deliver.

Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Abbott government's plans to abolish universal access to free public education, as revealed in the leaked chapter of the Reform of Federation green paper today, but first—

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Complete bullshit! What rubbish! Could you just not start with an outright lie?

Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First, let me go to Senator Birmingham's discussion and contribution, because 'lies, damned lies, and statistics' is what it is all about today. We had Senator Birmingham in question time again repeating Minister Pyne's oft-repeated claim that school funding has increased by 40 per cent in the last 10 years. I interrogated this claim in Senate estimates recently, and the Associate Secretary of the Department of Education and Training, Tony Cook, said that the source of that claim was table 4A.7 in the Report on government services 2015 published by the Productivity Commission. Don't leave, Senator Birmingham. You might want to correct what you say publicly after you hear this. That table shows an increase of real funding—that is, adjusted for inflation—of 21.7 per cent—about half of that particular claim—between 2003 and 2012. That is half the figure claimed by Pyne. But let us unpack that a little bit more. That figure of 21.7 per cent was for aggregate funding for all schools—public and private—and made no allowance for increasing student enrolments. Surprise, surprise—with more students you have to spend more. And in fact, a later table in that report—table 4A.17—shows that the figure for real funding per student, adjusted for inflation, was only 12.7 per cent—about a third of the figure that Minister Pyne and Senator Birmingham keep claiming.

Let me come back to the debate. Sometimes in debates like this it is hard to find the right words to say, because it is hard to find another way to communicate how awful and how brutally cruel this government is, and how low it is willing to go. As one of my colleagues said to me this morning, after we had all woken up to hear that the government was floating a proposal from the so-called Centre for Independent Studies—a right-wing think tank—that would means-test wealthier parents if they wanted to support the public education system: 'just when you think this government can't get any worse, they do.' It can be hard to find words to defend what should be, in Australia, an inviolable right. It is hard to believe that any government would canvass, even for a second, such a radical proposal—to end Australia's proud history of universal access to free public education. Australia has been built on free, compulsory and secular public education. It is the foundation of our country and has been the envy of other nations for decades. This should not and must not be eroded.

Minister Pyne has now tweeted his opposition to means-testing this morning—after having floated it. This is the same man, mind you, who looked us in the eye and promised us a unity ticket on Gonski. Why would we trust him on anything? We have had the Prime Minister out there too, keeping this idea ticking along, and backbenchers, like Andrew Laming, tweeting support for a price signal on education—a signal to send wealthier parents away from the public education system into private education, perhaps. Simply and sadly, we cannot trust this government. And it is clear why: it is not just about flagrantly broken promises; it is about ideology. We have Minister Pyne very clearly on the record saying that this government has an emotional commitment to private schools. We have the Prime Minister saying: 'We have a particular responsibility for non-government schooling that we don't have for government schooling.' This government seems to have forgotten the most central platform for its existence, and it will do so at its own peril. It is here to govern for all Australians—not just those who are more wealthy, not just those who are more privileged, but all Australians. The government must not abandon the two million students who attend public school.

Public education is a right. Private schooling is a choice. Yet at every turn, as with every policy issue that arises, this government has shown they are more interested in defending the interests of the wealthy and the privileged. Their failure to implement a true needs-based and sector-blind funding system, despite their promises to do so, will further entrench privilege and entrench advantage in our schools. Why is this government afraid of real merit—real equality? What do they have to fear from universal, quality public education? The federation paper actually asks all the wrong questions. No wonder it is coming up with the wrong answers! The Abbott government are actually looking for a way out of being blamed for declining education standards, rather than looking at what they can do to make sure every Australian school is a great school. It is a fundamental right of every Australian to be educated in public schools free of charge. (Time expired)

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the MPI this afternoon around the plans that we have seen outlined in papers today to abolish universal access to free public education. I think we all got a shock last night—those of us who were catching up on the news—to see the stories come in around the leaked document—the green paper for the reform of federation—which outlined some pretty outrageous options for the future of education in this country. Those options included: giving states and territories full responsibility for all schools; making states and territories fully responsible for funding public schools, while the federal government funds non-government schools; reducing the Commonwealth involvement in schools; making the federal government the dominant funder of all schools; or withdrawing the federal government entirely from the funding of public education. Anyone who has watched the education funding debate since education funding actually started being a negotiation between the states, territories and the Commonwealth back in the 1960s, would have seen how fraught the area of education funding is, and how difficult it is to resolve issues of who funds what and how much to fund it. But I think the one thing that most Australians agree on is that there is a role for the national government to be involved in the funding of all schools for every child in Australia.

The option that was outlined as one of the ideas in this green paper was that means testing be introduced. I see that in question time today the Prime Minister came out and said that he does not support that, after being a little evasive on the subject this morning. The education minister, Christopher Pyne, came and said that he did not support it, and I note that the Prime Minister has now backed him. I think everyone in this chamber would support the clarification that has been provided today, but, that one issue aside, it would seem at the moment that one of the underlying themes of the Federation reform process is that the Commonwealth removes itself—whether in a funding role or in any kind of responsible role—from the areas of education and health. Indeed, I touched on this in my first speech, which I made last week, when I said that Federation reform should not be used as a way of prosecuting one government's political agenda over others and forcing unreasonable expectations or responsibilities on the states and territories and the smaller governments, which do not have the revenue-raising capacity that the national government does.

Indeed, having been involved in some of the early discussions around Federation reform, I fear that that is exactly what we are seeing happen now. We are seeing a Prime Minister who has a fixed view, and his view is that the Commonwealth should, to use his words, 'get out of education and get out of health,' and leave it to the states and territories. For one, I think that if you ask the average person in the street, they would believe that there is a role for the national government in the areas of health and education, they would expect the national government to be there, and they would expect that the Commonwealth cannot, in a sense, abrogate its responsibility to the citizenry of this country by removing itself from two of the most important areas that any government is involved in.

I do note that the green papers on education, health and tax reform will be released in due time. I am not saying there is no opportunity for Federation reform—I think that there is. But I do not think that it is a reform that is going to be progressed with leaks to the paper and federal ministers ruling the most outrageous initiatives out, but leaving some of the still very significant changes on the table to be agitated over prior to anybody getting the details.

The first budget of this government, the 2014-15 budget, was delivered when I was still Chief Minister of the ACT. I am a previous education minister as well, so I do have a level of detailed knowledge about the funding of the education system and responsibilities between states, territories and the Commonwealth. What we saw in that 2014-15 budget, after being promised no cuts to education in the 2013 campaign, was the removal of $80 billion out of agreements that had been signed in good faith by governments. I signed the paperwork. I believed that that drew the Commonwealth to the table to provide a funding commitment to schools in the ACT for a six-year period. One of the first financial decisions taken by this government was to remove it—$50 billion in health and $30 billion in education.

I attended—I think a week or so after that budget came down—a meeting of all of the first ministers in Australia, bar WA. It did unite across party divides, as all first ministers—apart from Premier Barnett—came together to try to understand what had just happened to the agreements, which we had also provided money for, in my previous role, to bring to the table; to try to understand what was going to happen into those out years; and to make a commitment that we would not let those cuts stand. However, the 2015-16 budget has been handed down and we see that, as those years come into the budget estimates, those cuts remain.

One of the most important things around the agreements reached between state and territory governments and the Commonwealth government—the truly revolutionary aspect of what Prime Minister Gillard actually delivered through those agreements—was the uniting of the education sector on the best way to fund the system, regardless of what system or jurisdiction a child was in, in terms of school make-up—private, independent, Catholic systemic, Catholic congregational or public schools. We were able, through that negotiation process, to unite the sector in what has been, in my experience, a very difficult area to reach agreement on.

We had the advocacy bodies for independent schools, for the Catholic schools, the Australian Education Union and the stakeholders for public schools all coming together. It was not only about funding—and this is something that is always forgotten. It was also around quality teaching, and it was going to the issues that Senator Birmingham outlined around value for the extra money put in; this was recognised in those agreements. It was also about delivering better student outcomes, giving flexibility for principals to make decisions in their schools, and transparency and accountability about where that money goes and what it is being used for. Most of all, it was about a needs based funding system for children so that—regardless of what school your child attends and wherever they attend in Australia—your child gets the level of resourcing that they need to get a great education. That was the true success of that agreement. That is what the state and territory first ministers signed up to, and that is what the Commonwealth said that they would deliver upon. That was removed unilaterally. In fact, we had a COAG meeting a week or two before the 2014-15 budget was handed down, and not one word was said about this massive change to agreements that had just taken two years to negotiate

That is the form. That is where we start. And now, not only do we not have Gonski or the National Education Reform Agreements, which provided a level of funding and some changes across the system that, at that time, we were all committed to implementing, but when we see the green paper it is supposedly going to come out and say, 'You are not even going to have that. We are actually going to look at removing ourselves entirely from this space and leaving it up to the states and territories.' I note the Prime Minister said today that states and territories run the system. I can tell you, if you get Commonwealth funding in those schools it comes with strings attached. You get told how that money is to be spent. If you do not spend it that way you do not get it. So it is not entirely true that the states and territories have all the say. But I look forward to the green paper being released eventually. I look forward to the debate, but I think we should all go in with our eyes open to the fact that there is an agenda that is being pursued through this process that cannot be supported. It cannot be supported in the interests of children's education in this country.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, like everybody in this debate, support 100 per cent the right of every Australian child to be educated in an excellent school. For the one million children who are educated outside capital cities in this country, 660,000 of them, the majority of them, are in state schools. They are located right around regional Australia. My communities, my party, and my own family is invested in ensuring that there is excellence in state education right across this country. My own experience as a university lecturer within the education system gave me the privilege of training so many of the young teachers who are going to head out into state schools. And I want to confess that, in my own experience as a schoolteacher, I never taught at a grammar school. I only taught at state schools, because I believe that every child should have access to excellence in education.

Our government is the best friend the state system has ever had. We have had record funding across state school systems, and we have done more than that. We have not just thrown money, because we know that just throwing money will not make a difference and will not stop the decline in standards that is occurring despite filling up the buckets of money—it is how we target it. It is also different policy settings, or whether it is the national curriculum or the minister's TEMAG initiatives, which are actually going to ensure that there are quality teachers in our state schools and that quality teaching occurs within our state schools. If you want to ensure that every child has the best chance to succeed and the best chance for quality outcomes, the one thing this government can control—we cannot control the type of family they grow up in or where they grow up—is the quality of the teaching they receive, and not only in the Catholic and independent schools, which have so much more freedom and so much more autonomy on how they staff their schools than state school systems do. What we, the Commonwealth government, can do is ensure that our public purse is significantly subsidising the tertiary education of every teacher who is graduating from our universities, and that every teacher who is in front of an Australian child, whether in the state school system or in Catholic or independent schools, is of high quality, because that is the thing that we know will make the biggest difference.

But it is only the ALP and the Greens who will actually come in here and attack the fact that there is a range of ideas and options out there, that there is not a one-size-fits-all policy solution to this very complex and vexed issue of how we actually have a sustainable federation. We saw their approach to a tax review: we will have a tax review, but we will keep the most contentious parts of our tax system out of that public conversation. And so when you see the Henry tax paper, it neglected to actually deal with the complexities of the tax system as a whole. We are not afraid of ideas. We are not afraid of options. Just because they are on the table does not mean they are going to be taken up. But to actually restrict public debate before you have even started to have it really says more about you than it does about us. We respect diversity and we respect choice.

We welcome the initiative and we welcome and support an incredible, excellent public education system. What we also want to do is give freedom to our principals to hire and fire, to ensure that those quality teachers are actually in front of the classrooms. We want to ensure that public schools have the independence and autonomy that Catholic and private schools enjoy. I think if you want to talk about excellence in public schools we really need to look no further than my home state of Victoria, where you see, for instance, Balwyn High School—a fantastic public school. House prices just within that catchment area have increased by $250,000. There is an assumption that if you are a wealthy person you are going to head off to grammar and pay upwards of 25 grand a year per child to have an education, but why would you do that? There are a lot of parents in Victoria who are choosing to send their children to excellent public schools, and I applaud them for that. And they are prepared to pay the price for that. I look at Mac.Rob, a high-performing public school in Victoria, and at Melbourne High and Nossal High. Excellence in public education is something that we should all be championing, and I thank the minister for his strong support of state school systems.

We have heard today about issues around needs-based funding models. Even Senator Gallagher said, 'We do not have the Gonski model.' The reality is we never had Gonski. We never had the model envisaged by Gonski, because the political reality and the political mettle of the leadership of the Labor Party at that time saw us end up with 27 different agreements around what constituted a needs-based funding model when it came to public education in this country. So for those on the other side to somehow, once again, try to steal the rhetoric and the public debate and conversations, and somehow reframe reality now, is absolutely abhorrent. We never had the Gonski model. It was 27 funding agreements because people would rather play politics with public education.

Senator Wright interjecting—

Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, Senator Wright: rather than actually focus on what is best for students, what is best for schools, the Labor Party in partnership—hand in glove—with the Greens went to the last election desperate for deals with the states and ended up making promises they could never keep: that no school would miss out; that no student would miss out.

When you put parameters on this sort of needs based funding model, I am sorry: it is absolutely unachievable. What we saw was an absolute dog's breakfast. This government came to power and has actually given more money to Queensland, to WA—money that you ripped out of those schools, that you were not going to provide to those schools in desperate need in those states. I find it a bit rich at this end of the debate.

How do we move forward? We all spruik how wonderful the Finnish system is, and indeed it has a lot of good things going for it. We need to get serious in this place and stop being political and partisan about school funding and have a bipartisan approach which puts students, teachers, school communities and parents at the forefront of any policy discussion. The reality is: the Commonwealth government provides about 15.6 per cent of the funding for state schools.

So, Senator Wright, you might actually be in the wrong place. If you care so much: run for state parliament, get the balance of power and make all your dreams come true.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Governments should ensure that a great education is available to every poor kid in Australia. The current approach is not necessarily the best way of achieving this. So I welcome the news today that the government has prepared an open-minded discussion paper on school funding and is consulting with the states and territories. I find it disconcerting that certain parties respond to this news by immediately asserting their support for the status quo and attacking anyone who dares to consider alternatives.

The Liberal Democrats believe the Commonwealth government should play no role in school funding. The Commonwealth has no constitutional responsibility in this area, runs no schools and has no monopoly on the raising of taxes. But, if the Commonwealth government is to play a role in school funding, we believe funding should be provided according to the circumstances of the children and parents. It should not be provided according to who owns the school.

Don't be fooled by the Gonski cheer squad: current funding arrangements do not provide funding according to the circumstances of the children and parents. A poor child in a government-run school gets the most funding: more than a poor child in a church-run school, which is more than a poor child in a privately-run school. This results from two levels of government working at cross-purposes, from generous grandfathering arrangements for

church-run schools and Gonski's intentional discrimination between government-run and non-government-run schools. Those defending the status quo are clearly more interested in point-scoring than in the welfare of our poorest kids.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise—sadly—in support of this motion that has been put forward by Senator Claire Moore. It will be Labor that stands up for education and access to education in an equitable way for all Australians over and over and over. It was on Labor's watch that the most significant analysis of student success in schools was undertaken and it resulted in the Gonski review, which indicated very clearly after significant research that the way in which we could invest in the future of our young people is to make sure they get a fair crack at a decent education.

The last time I looked when I was heading off overseas, I had an Australian passport, not a passport for New South Wales—nor, as far as I know, Deputy President Whish-Wilson, as a proud Tasmanian, for Tasmania. We belong to a country which requires all of us to have access to a great education. It should not be so different from state to state, which is one of the problems we see with the American model.

Today's article by Matthew Knott in both The Age and the Canberra Times bells the cat on what this government really want to do, and I have heard it over and over and over at Senate estimates—an abrogation of responsibility from the federal government of key areas, particularly health and education. I have heard minister after minister stand there and actually proudly declare that it is rightly the responsibility of the state, completely abrogating any sense of national responsibility for the education of our nation into the future.

We live in a global economy. We have got a country that is diverse. We do not need to fracture it anymore by creating different levels of education across the states. With regard to the state of New South Wales, it was a bit of a shock to me to have heard in question time today claims that the states were responsible for this green paper. Is it a draft? Is it the real one that went out? But we heard today, clearly, that the states were involved in drafting it. I don't think anyone from New South Wales was involved in drafting it, because in the Financial Review today an article by Geoff Winestock said:

Ms Berejiklian called on the Abbott government to reverse a decision in last year's budget to slash payments to the state for education and health, which will start to take effect by the end of the current forecast period.

Ms Berejiklian said:

The changes to health and education funding the federal government announced last year are not sustainable, and we will be fighting for the people of NSW to ensure this State gets its fair share both now, and into the future.

If that is the case, there is no way they could have participated in the green paper, because that is the complete opposite of what this government is telling us here today.

Mr Piccoli is on record as saying, if the Commonwealth funding, the Gonski agreed funding—and it is agreed; it was agreed and they are still fighting for it for the children of New South Wales—is threatened:

would be threatened.

threatened.

threatened.

threatened.

The funding impact on the state of New South Wales is a loss of $2.8 billion. For Victoria, it is $2.1 billion; for Queensland, $2 billion; Western Australia, $570 million; South Australia, $450 million; Tasmania, $200 million; the ACT, $30 million; the Northern Territory, around $200 million; and, overall, for Australia, $8.3 billion. This is what is at stake—money of that scale.

I can tell you, as a former teacher: the resources that we need, as teachers—as professionals who can diagnose students' learning abilities and needs—are so often not available. Currently, as to the disadvantage of teachers who are teaching in remote settings and teachers who are teaching young Aboriginal kids or children from a background where the English is not their first language, Gonski proved once and for all that those children need particular additional resources—and teachers know it. There are great teachers out there already doing the very best that they can with the resources that they have, but, for many teachers, it is an insult to go to schools day after day and not have what they need. (Time expired)

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a refreshing change it is that we have a federal government that actually wants to consult and negotiate with states and territories. I think back immediately to the Rudd prime ministership, as to hospital funding, in which he put a gun to the head of all of the states and territories and said: 'In return for some GST money, I will do something; if you do not do it—if you do not sign up—that is the end of you.' Thank the Lord there was one coalition Premier left in this country at the time, in Colin Barnett, who said to Mr Rudd: 'No you won't. The management of hospitals actually resides with the states. And thank you very much for your measly offer!'

But what do we see today? Again, what an incredible scenario, as presented—that the federal government would want to sit down with the states and territories, who have responsibility for the delivery of education in this country, and say to them: 'How can we work better? How can we actually reduce duplication? Is it necessary that we have in excess of 4,000 staff in the federal department of education when they do not actually teach a single child? Is that the best way to expend the taxpayers' money? Is that the best value for children in this country?' It may be or it may not be, but have a look at the manner in which this process is being undertaken.

We heard from Senator Birmingham this afternoon of the South Australian Labor Premier Mr Weatherill complimenting the government and the minister, Minister Pyne, and saying, 'What a refreshing idea it is that we would go through this process.' But I again remind those who might be listening that the provision of education services and delivery in this country, under the Constitution, is for the states.

I know that Senator Cash will be very interested in the comments recently of our state minister for education, Peter Collier, when he made these observations, not 72 hours ago, that, in our state—because Western Australia genuinely believes in provision of education delivery—these are the stats: we have the highest per-capita resourced schools in the nation; our teachers are the best-paid in the nation, and, according to Peter Collier, that is by a country mile.

But let us see the outcome of this, if we can. The trend of reducing attendances in our public state schools in Western Australia has been reversed, and we are now seeing a net increase in the attendance in our public schools. Why do you see that circumstance? There are three words that explain it, and they are: Independent Public Schools. Of the 799 public schools in Western Australia, 441 or 55 per cent of them are now independent public schools and another 92 have applied to join. What are we seeing? We are seeing principals with autonomy in terms of decision making, school communities very much more involved in the management of their school, and principals and their staff and the school community having the capacity to say, 'This is where we want to direct our resources; this is where our particular school needs the educational opportunities,' whether in disability or languages, and, of course, having the capacity to select their staff—to advertise for the teachers that they want. That is what we are seeing in our home state of Western Australia.

In response to the area we speak of, Mr Collier has already come out and said: 'Education is a state based issue; we won't be charging children or their parents to be going to school in the state schools.' So there is the excellence of a system led by a Premier and a minister who put education first.

Indeed, if Senator O'Neill has the long list of complaints and issues that she has got, then she should turn to the state authorities. They have ripped enough of Western Australia's GST money out; they should have sufficient funds to put into education.

But I go to the state of Queensland and to some figures given to me just recently in this debate, and those are on Queensland year 9 NAPLAN tests. And what do we see, Senator O'Sullivan—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President Whish-Wilson? We actually see, at the median SES level, no difference in the NAPLAN performance between state schools, Catholic schools and independent schools. So there are the circumstances.

To return to Western Australia again—because Western Australia and the Territory missed out badly in the last round of negotiations under the previous governments—these are the points I need to make. There are no cuts to Commonwealth government funding, and $69½ billion is to be expended over the forward estimates—and this includes funding for the Indigenous boarding initiative. How wonderful is that? We spoke for years in this place about the limited opportunities being offered through the independent system to take young Aboriginal people from the remote and rural areas and bring them down to the boarding schools—certainly, in my own home state, and, I know, in the other states. Now we have got sufficient funding to expand that program so that these young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children can get a full education, and the statistics that we saw on the success of that program previously, are of success at year 12 level—the level of going on to higher studies or to education and employment.

The Abbott coalition government—far from all the gloom and doom we heard from Senator O'Neill in this place a few minutes ago—has restored the $1.2 billion that the previous Labor government took out of school funding in the forward estimates. But it is better in our state, which, as Senator Cash well knows, missed out last time. You, Senator Cash—through you, Acting Deputy President—will be interested in these figures. The total Commonwealth funding to government schools in Western Australia will grow by $1.9 billion—a 36 per cent increase from 2014 up to 2018-19. For non-government schools, it will grow by $2.2 billion by 2018, a 23.4 per cent increase. Across the board, it is a 28 per cent increase. No-one who can stand up here and say to me that this Commonwealth government is not totally focused on those three areas. Teacher quality, school autonomy, engaging parents in education and strengthening the curriculum are the four pillars that are so essential in this debate.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to participate in the matter of public importance discussion titled 'The Abbott government's plan to abolish universal access to free public education'. I congratulate Senator Moore for raising this matter. Despite the education minister rejecting the proposal in the government discussion paper to make wealthy parents pay to send their children to public school, it is clear that this option floated in the federal government discussion paper, which considers a radical overhaul of the nation's education system, is on Minister Pyne's and Prime Minister Abbott's list of things to do. This plan to make wealthy parents pay to send their children to public school's is just another attack on a fundamental Australian social right, namely, an attack on access to free public education. It goes hand in hand with the ideological political attack the Liberals have carried out on universal access to public health care and access that young people have to higher education.

While Minister Pyne is on social media saying his government does not and will not support the means test for public education, we are smart enough not to trust a word that comes out of his mouth. This is the same man who tried to make our young people pay $100,000 for their university degrees when there was not one word of warning before the last election. Mr Pyne's leader Mr Abbott is the Prime Minister who promised there would be no cuts to education before the last election. But in his first budget he announced cuts of $80 billion to health and education over the next decade, including a $5 billion—20 per cent—cut to university funding and deregulation of uni fees and schools funding. That is in addition to the Liberal Party's promise not to cut the budgets of health, ABC, SBS and pensioners entitlements.

The public education system in Tasmania is struggling, despite the fine effort of teachers, teachers aides, school principals, parents and parent helpers. The last thing Tasmanians need to hear in the media is the Prime Minister sidestep the issue of means testing. The Prime Minister is reported by the ABC as saying:

I think it's good that some of the states and territories at least are thinking creatively about how they can responsibly fund their operations …

Given the Abbott government's blatant disregard for the truth and lack of integrity, if means testing of parents for public schools is in a Liberal discussion paper now, you can almost be guaranteed, because of past behaviour, that should the Liberals be returned as a government after the next federal election, means testing for public schools will be introduced. There is absolutely no doubt about that.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time for the discussion has expired.