Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) (12:46): I rise today to speak on the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2017. It is a pleasure to follow my good friend from the other side of the chamber, the member for Gellibrand. We have a few things in common. We are both public school educated. Unfortunately, he took a wrong turn. He barracks for the Bull Dogs. I have continued my passion for the Sydney Swans after they moved from Victoria. I welcome his contribution. I disagree with a lot of it, but I do welcome his contribution.
This bill will mean record funding for schools in the electorate of Gippsland. It will actually improve the way schools are funded. I would like to commend Senator Simon Birmingham, the minister in the other place, for the way he has approached what has been a very difficult task in coming forward with what I think is an excellent long-term outcome that will provide certainty and security for the education sector moving forward. This will mean that Gippsland schools will be funded in a way that is fair and equal into the future. Not only will there be no cuts to education funding; but this funding is locked into the budget. It is fully accounted for, unlike Labor’s unfunded and empty promises. So I come to the dispatch box today with a very simple message: no school in Gippsland will get less funding under the coalition’s education reforms, and I would encourage parents who have students at schools in my electorate to listen to both sides of the story before they cast a judgement in relation to the scare campaign which is being run by those opposite.
One of my favourite jobs as a local MP is meeting school children from the electorate. Just this week, I have had the pleasure of catching up with the students of grade 5 and 6 at St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Yarram, who are here on their Canberra camp. Incidentally, their funding goes up by $32,000 between 2017 and 2018. At other times, I go into the classrooms and I meet with the students and talk to them about my role in parliament and their future aspirations. Every one of those students has the chance to achieve their full potential because of the high quality of education they already receive in Gippsland, whether it is in the Catholic, government or independent sector. It does not mean there is no room for improvement. I believe that there are huge opportunities for us to work more collaboratively with our school communities and for parents to be more engaged with children’s education. Simply throwing money at problems around literacy and numeracy has not proved to be a solution to the situation. We need to see greater engagement from all levels of community in our children’s education.
The reforms that we are debating here today will target the areas that need it most, and I think that is essentially why the legislation is fair. These reforms underpin the intention of the original Gonski needs based changes. So the question is: what do these changes look like on the ground? In my community in Gippsland, it means that principals and teachers will be able to use the funding provided to their school in a way that best allocates the resources and addresses the needs of their students so that they can be responsive to the needs in the local community.
That greater autonomy means they can choose to invest extra funding, if required, into a speech pathologist or a specialist literacy or special needs teacher according to the needs of their school community. As the husband of a wife who works as a teacher’s aide, I directly understand the challenges that she faces in helping young people in the primary school sector catch up when they have been left behind. Providing resources to allow that to occur is a fundamental principle of the need-based model which we are delivering through this legislation.
The previous speaker mentioned the jobs of the future. The jobs of the future will require a high level of technological literacy. It is essential to equip our school students with a strong foundation in literacy and numeracy, science and technology, engineering and mathematics—the STEM skills we often talk about in this place. This government has outlined an ambitious reform agenda for Australian schools, in our Quality Schools, Quality Outcomes, in the areas where evidence shows that it makes a difference. Those areas include strengthening teaching and school leadership, developing essential knowledge and skills, improving student participation and parental engagement, and building better evidence and transparency.
I would add one other key criteria, and that is getting our school community to open itself up to the wider business community and local communities and to be part of the community more generally. We have to open the doors our schools to utilise the skills of the business and trade environment that is available locally in many of our regional communities and to seek more opportunities to have older members of our community come back to school as mentors to engage with young students. We have seen that work very successfully in many different parts of Gippsland in the past, and I would love to see that extended into the future.
It is important in this debate that both sides remain transparent. I say that because I note the concerns raised in the media by the National Catholic Education Commission, including an opinion piece in today’s Australian. I want to stress that no other Catholic school in Gippsland will get less money in 2018 than I did in 2017. In fact, some Catholic schools in Gippsland stand to get between $22 million and $23 million more in funding between 2018 and 2027.
Personally, I deeply value the role of the Catholic school system—and I understand that some of the smaller parish schools have pretty lean budgets as well—just as I value the role of the independent school system and the public education system. It is the right of a parent to choose where to send their child, and that child has a right to receive a high standard, well-funded education. I know that many parents in the broader Gippsland region would not consider themselves to be well-off. They work hard and often families have two incomes, and they spend whatever they can, when they can earn extra, on school fees to give their children the best start in life. They work hard to send their kids to the schools of their choice, and they rely on the Commonwealth to fairly and adequately provide taxpayer funding for their schools.
Before summing up, I want to refer to the opposition’s misleading claims of cuts. There are two aspects to this. Every time Labor claim that there are claims, they are knowingly misleading parents in my electorate. Labor are not only misleading parents but also the students.
Opposition members interjecting—
I note the interjections. Claiming there is a cut is a bit like going to your boss and saying, ‘Boss, I want a $100 pay rise,’ and your boss saying, ‘I can’t afford $100 but I will give you a $75 pay rise.’ So you have actually had a pay rise but you claim it as a cut. It is bizarre. Funding is going up year on year on year. Those opposite are making unsubstantiated claims and false promises to their communities.
Some older students will listen to these debates in parliament and watch the news and read posts on Facebook and see orchestrated campaigns from the likes of the Labor front GetUp! and some may actually believe what they read or hear: that there are cuts to education, despite the funding going up each year. This will affect a student’s state of mind. It affects their confidence in the school system, and that is not fair. It is not fair of Labor to be scaring people and scaring families unnecessarily. It is not fair for Labor to play politics with the lives of students purely for political expediency. But, sadly, this is a growing trend within the Labor Party. This win at any cost no matter what the collateral damage may be type of approach is part of Labor’s deficit of trust in the community.
In conclusion, I want to refer to an editorial in The Age—not known as a great supporter of the coalition or our side of politics, the old Melbourne Age. But in this edition yesterday, relating to the coalition’s education reforms, The Age editorialised:
We believe the policy presented in recent days by the Coalition government, a package being referred to as Gonski 2.0, is a good compromise – and is the best chance our nation has of moving to a needs-based funding model.
Opposition members interjecting—
I am shattered to hear the members opposite disagreeing now that they have backed away from their claims of a cut and they are saying there is something wrong with doing a compromise. The Age also noted that opposition leader Bill Shorten’s stance suffered a ‘credibility deficit’. Mr Shorten, the Leader of the Opposition, claims he would spend $22 billion more than the increases which the coalition has actually budgeted for. Unfortunately for those opposite, they have not budgeted for it. Years 5 and 6 of Gonski—2018-19, which contained even higher leaps in funding—were never funded by Labor, and those opposite know that. Labor is simply spending money it knows it does not have. Nor has it any realistic hope of raising it without higher taxes or making cuts in other areas.
Those opposite will have the chance to speak during the continuation of this debate. I am quite happy for them to come in here and explain which taxes are going to increase or which cuts they are going to make to pay for their unfunded $22 billion. I am quite happy for them to come in here and explain it. I think what you will find, Mr Deputy Speaker, is not one of them will actually have a plan for how they are going to fund their unrealistic approach to this debate. It is not fair to the families, it is not fair to the students for Labor to be raising false hope and making false claims.
Our position is completely transparent. We being honest, absolutely, with the Australian people about our education reforms. That is why, as I said earlier, I encourage all parents to hear from both sides of the debate, listen to the details and avail themselves of all the facts. From that point on we can have a well-informed opinion on these reforms that will deliver record funding for all schools in my electorate and provide a real needs-based funding model to the students who need it most.
I thank the House.