Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased also to be speaking on education, and I acknowledge the member for McMillan's contribution. Before I start addressing the bill I would like to say one thing in response to him: it would be wonderful if this House could be bipartisan at all times, but the unfortunate truth is that we on this side of the House to not agree with the direction that the government is taking on education. We do not agree with the walking away from the full Gonski reforms, we do not agree in the cuts to early childhood education, and we do not believe that the approach the government is taking to education is going to put our children in the best possible place in the future. It is our duty as members of this place to say so. That is actually what we do here. I would love for us to be able to be bipartisan. We thought we were on Gonski. Immediately prior to the election the opposition of the time, now the government, were saying they supported Gonski in full. We had a moment, we thought, of bipartisan support for what had been tens of thousands of hours of consultation and a program of improvement that had the support of stakeholders all around the country. We thought we had that immediately prior to the election. But immediately after the election the government walked away from its bipartisan commitment to Gonski. The government broke its promise. We are here today debating a bill which exists because the government broke its promise. It exists because the government said one thing before the election and walked away immediately after. If they had kept their promise to implement the Gonski loading for students with disabilities, for example, in 2015 and provide extra resources—a very clear promise—we would not be here today looking at a makeshift, short-term answer to compensate schools for cuts in funding because the government walked away, ran away some would say, from that commitment.

Let us now look at the bill in a bit more detail. The bill does provide extra support for Indigenous students in boarding schools, and that would have to be seen at face value as a very positive thing. Boarding schools play an incredibly important role, particularly for Indigenous students from remote communities. They provide access to curriculum flexibility that students need in order to go on to higher education. So they are incredibly important for remote students.

This new mechanism will allow the minister to make payments to schools for a reason prescribed by regulation and it will facilitate the payment of $6.8 billion this financial year to non-government boarding schools with more than 50 Indigenous borders or more than 50 per cent of boarders who are Indigenous. Again, it must be seen as a positive thing for the students who will actually attend what in most cases are very large private schools such as grammar schools. There are a couple of schools in my electorate that would meet those requirements.

It is consistent with the policies by the previous Labor government, except that we were also constructing new boarding schools to help students from remote communities access boarding school education. Again, nobody in this House could argue against the provision of $6.8 million to the larger boarding schools to assist Indigenous students who are attending school there. From the man who wanted to be the Prime Minister for Indigenous affairs, $6.8 million for Indigenous children who are largely going to large private schools cannot be criticised, but, in light of the half a billion dollars in cuts to Indigenous funding, there is a great deal that needs to be said about this. Closing the Gap needs more than just finding a few of the larger boarding schools. In fact, it needs a great deal more, and what can be criticised other cuts to Indigenous funding that rip away other support that help children prepare for school, do well at school and go on to further education.

Cuts to Indigenous funding at up to well over half a billion dollars and it includes $9.5 million from support for Indigenous languages in schools. So we have lost $9.5 million for support for Indigenous languages, which must be seen as incredibly important also, and we have $6.8 billion going into boarding schools. So, again, you compare what has been cut in order to fund this. The questions must be asked about the wisdom of cutting programs which assist Indigenous children in many other ways.

The government has also ripped $46 million from the Remote Jobs and Communities Program to fund a truancy army in remote Australia. We have lost $46 million from the Remote Jobs and Communities Program, also an incredibly important program. In the case of early childhood, which the member for McMillan also referred to, the previous federal Labor government invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the National Partnership Agreement on Indigenous Early Childhood Development. The purpose of that money was to make sure that young Indigenous children would get the best possible chance at life by establishing 38 children and families centres around the country. We know from all the research that the work that is done in that zero to four age group sets a child up for school. The improvement in a child's capacity to learn is greater than the entire first seven years of primary school. It is more important to the outcomes of education than perhaps any other part of a child's life, and yet the Abbott government has abandoned those centres. It refused to fund them when the partnership expired on 30 June this year, and we know from talking to those centres that many of them face a real prospect of closure.

We have had hundreds of millions of dollars ripped out of early childhood services for Indigenous Australians. Again, what has been cut in order to fund this $6.8 million for Indigenous students in boarding schools? On the subject of Gonski, before the election there was not a cigarette paper—not a sliver of light—between the two parties. There was bipartisan support for Gonski, but the Gonski model provided a special Indigenous loading to ensure that those schools with Indigenous students were properly resourced to provide the best possible education for Indigenous students—and the government, of course, has walked away from that.

Universities are incredibly important. In my electorate of Parramatta, the University of Western Sydney surprised me when I first ran for parliament in 2004. They told me that the number of Indigenous students enrolled at the University of Western Sydney had decreased under the 12 years of the Howard government. Rather than seeing an improvement in the numbers of Indigenous students attending university, we actually saw a decline during those 12 years of the Howard government. But, under the former Labor government, there was a 26 per cent increase in Indigenous students going on to and graduating from university—again, quite a big change in what is a relatively short period of time and, again, we have seen the Abbott government cut the funding from those programs. Where is the actual commitment to Indigenous education? We are seeing hundreds of millions of dollars cut out of Indigenous education by this government. You cannot argue with the positive side of $6.8 million going into boarding schools that house Indigenous students, but we need to look at it from the helicopter view of what else is going.

Also in this bill are some changes to funding for students with disabilities. Under the Gonski model, there were six areas of need that received extra loadings: small schools, remote schools, Indigenous students, students with poor English, disadvantaged schools and students with disabilities. The first five were fully funded; disabilities, though, the sixth one, required extensive consultation and was delayed. If you look at it, states have different approaches and current state models range from $4,000 to $40,000 per student depending on a broad range of factors. So it was an incredibly hard policy area and we wanted time to implement it for 2015. As an interim measure, though, Labor funded the $100 million transition program, which was called More Support for Students with Disabilities. The minister says that the $2.4 million which is going to special independent schools is required to prevent a funding cut because the safety net will disappear. But the safety net that he is talking about is actually that Labor transition program, More Support for Students with Disabilities, which the government have decided not to continue. So they cut the safety net and then, because the safety net is cut, provide an extra $2.4 million to ensure that schools do not go backwards.

How far we have fallen in the debate on education. How far we have fallen from just a year ago, when we were talking about lifting every boat and making sure that every child had a better education. How far we have fallen from standing in this House, looking at providing $2.4 million so that independent schools that deal with children with special needs do not actually go backwards in 2015. By 2015, the Gonski loading for children with disabilities was supposed to be in place, and the government, then in opposition, prior to the last election promised it would be. They promised that in 2015 it would be ready because they would do the work required to implement that loading. Instead, we are standing in this House today voting on a bill which provides $2.4 million to make sure that those schools do not go backwards.

This week is the National Week of Deaf People. Putting aside the debate that I know goes on in my community about whether deafness is a disability, these are young people in the early stages of their lives who need the extra assistance that the Gonski loading would have provided. They needed it; we promised it; the opposition, now the government, promised it—and they have walked away from that.

The member for McMillan called for bipartisanship, which would be wonderful. If we want bipartisanship in this House, there is a very easy way to get it, and that is for the government to honour their election commitments and fully fund Gonski, as they promised to do, and do it in the timetable in which they promised. Then we would revert to the bipartisan position that we were in just over a year ago. That is how long it has been—a year ago, we were in agreement. A year ago, schools were expecting to get their loading. A year ago, schools were making plans. Now they are not and we are in this House looking at ways to ensure that schools do not go backwards. We are looking at a bill that provides $2.4 million to ensure that schools do not go backwards. We are looking at a bill that provides $6.8 million for Indigenous students attending boarding schools, but we are doing that in the context of billions of dollars in reductions of funding to schools because of the decisions that the government have made since they came to office.

I say to this government: we would love bipartisanship. Please come to the table and do for education in Australia what we as a nation need and what our students need. We need an education system which can compete with the world. We do not need to be in here looking at ways to ensure that funding does not go backwards as an interim, bodgied-up measure because you could not keep your election promises.

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