Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2014. Labor believes that every school can and should be offered the opportunity to support and to nurture their students to the best of its ability. Schools have a right and an obligation to offer the highest standard of education and support, just as students have the right to expect a quality education, tailored to meet their needs, attributes and abilities.

It sounds too good to be true, but believe it or not, such a program was underway and becoming a reality under the previous Labor government. The needs based school funding model, known as the Gonski model, provided this support and care to our schools and students by allocating funding and resources where they were most needed.

Before the last election the current government promised that they were on a unity ticket with Labor on a needs based funding model but, unfortunately, they have since broken this promise to the Australian people and have refused to fund years 5 and 6 of the program. Not only have they breached the trust of the Australian community but they have also breached the signed agreements with the states and territories. They signed a six-year agreement, not a four-year agreement with the federal Labor government.

One can imagine that Labor Party members and Labor Party governments would be upset with this broken promise but, indeed, we do not have to look too far to see that it is Liberal state governments who are also very upset about this broken promise. When it comes to school funding, we have seen Premier Napthine still demanding answers from the Abbott government regarding its decision to scrap years 5 and 6 of the Gonski model. And Minister Piccoli from New South Wales has been on the record on many occasions, raising the issue of the Abbott government abandoning the Gonski model and the funding that goes with it.

So if the government acted as the adults they profess to be and if they said what they meant and did what they said, then we would not necessarily be in a situation where schools are facing uncertainty into the future, state governments are facing uncertainty into the future and—what is worse—students in areas that need resources the most are potentially going to miss out.

And if the government had kept their promise to deliver the full disability loading in 2015, we would not need to debate amendments relating to funding for independent special schools. We have heard nothing from the government about their progress in the rollout of the full disability loading. We have not heard a new time frame or a schedule; all we know is that it seems the disability loading will not be on schedule or on time. Indeed, there does not seem to be replacement money. While Labor was in government, we put funding in for that gap for students with a disability. Not only have the government broken their promise to rule out the full disability loading by 2015 but they are offering no extra support for schools in state systems or indeed for independent and Catholic systems to actually assist those students with a disability.

The government had a coherent schools policy and if they cared about classroom outcomes I would not need to stand here and fight for students with a disability or defend Labor's Gonski reforms and argue for greater transparency and responsibility in school funding. All in all, when it comes to real reform within our schools, better support for students with a disability and better support for those students that need the extra support, this government has no record to defend except a litany of broken promises.

The bill in front of us today enables the minister to make payments to schools for reasons outlined in regulation. The government have already announced that they will facilitate the payment of around $6.8 million in support to boarding schools in 2014-15. This will assist schools with more than 50 Indigenous boarders from remote communities or where more than 50 per cent of boarders are Indigenous and come from remote communities. Labor supports this and supports any reasonable measure that closes the gap in school education. But supporting boarding schools cannot be used as an argument to leave other schools in rural and regional communities behind.

Every child in every school must have the resources they need to enable them to do their best, not for four years but ongoing. This is what the Gonski school funding model is all about. It absolutely applies to schools in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities throughout Australia and, indeed, all rural and regional communities throughout Australia.

It is disappointing to see the Nationals when it comes to the Gonski funding model, again roll over and accept a bad deal for rural and regional students. Because we know that under the Gonski funding, there would be loadings to help rural and regional schools, to help schools in lower socioeconomic areas, to help those with higher enrolments of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander's, and to help those students with a disability. What we have seen is this government walk away from that. A key priority for the government—and what you would expect—is: regardless of where our students live and whatever school they attend, they can get a world-class education.

Closing the gap in educational attainment of Indigenous Australians requires a lot of effort. Really, we need to see resources go to every single school right across this country. Labor is fundamentally committed to this goal. Boarding schools are part of the solution for students in communities who want to use them. Boarding does play an important role in helping our predominantly high school Indigenous students access subject choice and opportunity that otherwise might be unavailable. Support for Indigenous students attending boarding schools is consistent with Labor's policies in government and we therefore support it. But we call on the government to reinstate years 5 and 6, as I already mentioned, of the Gonski school funding that would give extra funding to schools that need it, particularly in rural and regional areas, and would attract all those different loadings to support students with the resources they need.

Before the last election, the government promised to implement Labor's Gonski school funding reforms, including the loading for students with a disability in 2015. Instead, the government have cut support for students with disability and are delaying changes that would make sure every student with a disability gets the support they need to achieve their best. Days before the election, the now Minister for Education promised:

If elected to government the coalition will continue the data collection work that has commenced, which will be used to deliver more funding for people with disability through the 'disability loading' in 2015.

Since the election, however, students with a disability together with their parents and carers have been somewhat ignored by this minister and by this government.

In the Treasurer's budget, the government cut $100 million from the More Support for Students with Disabilities program and has since failed to replace it with the promised additional funds. Stakeholders are now also reporting the government has dropped the ball when it comes to the finalisation of the full Gonski loading. Consultation is thin on the ground and when it does occur, it seems to be rushed, sloppy and secretive. Because of this, the government will not deliver the promised additional funding together with the full Gonski loading for students with a disability by the beginning of next year. We will not see the $100 million in support of More Support for Students with Disabilities from 2015.

The Australian Education Amendment Bill seeks to change the funding transition guidelines for independent special schools so their funding is indexed by at least three per cent a year—coincidentally the same level of guaranteed indexation under Labor's Gonski reforms. Yet again we see before us another change that would otherwise be irrelevant if the government implemented the full disability loading for 2015 as promised.

Under the Gonski reforms there were six additional loadings, including for: small schools; remote schools; Indigenous students; students with low English; students from disadvantaged backgrounds; and students with disability. Each of these loadings, with the exception of students with a disability, were fully defined when the Australian Education Act was introduced.

The full implementation of the loading for students with a disability was scheduled for 2015. This was to allow time for data collection, along with further work with the states and schools to ensure the final disability loading would give students the adequate resources they need to achieve their best. Current definitions of disabilities that attract extra support vary significantly between jurisdictions. The ongoing collection of data is designed to create a streamlined and uniform system across Australia, where the same or similar disability in different states is treated with parity.

In the interim, Labor had funded $100 million per year for the More Support for Students with Disabilities program, ensuring those students would have access to assistance they required while the state, territories and the Commonwealth worked to finalise the full Gonski disability loading in 2015.

This matter does need attention by government to ensure that we see the rollout is properly done, that the data is collected, that consultation has occurred, and that this work is done thoroughly and not ignored and put to the side. We support the funding of independent special schools next year but we reject the government's broken promises that they cannot deliver a loading for students with a disability. I urge the minister not to put this on the backburner. Do not put this to the side as you have done for the last year. Put it back on the agenda and give some attention to it rather than adopting a piecemeal approach that does not reflect commitment and drive. That is what this matter needs and I urge the minister to do so.

Another key component of this bill will delay the implementation of school improvement plans by one year to January 2016. We know that the government likes to advertise that this is all about tackling bureaucracy, but in reality it about the watering down of accountability and transparency in our schools. We have all heard in this place the Minister for Education tell us how money alone will not improve our schools, but what we are now seeing from this government is a sneaky move which will not improve student results. It was the school improvement plans that worked with schools on how to improve results and how to spend the money to improve results. With this delay the government are taking the education sector down a path of hands-off and a no-strings-attached approach to school funding. Quite frankly, this is a backwards step and, despite what the government will argue, these plans are really important. They are really important to parents. I do not know if the minister has spoken to a parent any time recently but parents are saying that they want to know what the plans are for their schools. They want to know where the school is being taken. They do not want someone in Canberra to overly manage them. We know that school communities can manage themselves but parents want to know what the plan is for the future and how their school is going to get better. These were a very important part of a nationally consistent approach. It seems, once again, that the government are walking away.

The school improvement plans are making sure that money invested in our schools by the federal government actually reaches the classrooms and improves results, a critically important thing. One would think that a minister who professes to care about education would want that. The evidence that sits behind these plans has been independently developed and enforced by all states and territories, both Liberal and Labor, and by the Australian Council for Educational Research. We need an appropriate level of funding to ensure these reforms do what they are designed to do, to help every child in every school improve their results and performance. I am very pleased to say that the vast majority of schools are already making improvement plans to track their progress. Most schools will not have to do anything in order to satisfy these requirements. Once again, it seems illogical but it seems as though it is the federal government that is not interested in ensuring that we have every school performing well. It is very disappointing.

In conclusion, there are elements of this bill that Labor does support, but we certainly will not be sitting back and taking these cuts in years 5 and 6 of the Gonski reforms. We will hold the government to account.

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