Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Also, I appreciate the support and the information given to me by Principal Belinda Tregea. This is what Loganlea State High School has done with the Gonski funding—and I promised that I would read this out in parliament today:

In more recent years, the ''Gonski Funding'' in the form of the I4S (Investing for Success) program … has enabled us to build on our many successes from the NP program. As a school community we chose to invest the additional funds in ''people and programs''. Our goal was to improve attendance (we jumped from 79% to 86% in two years), improve students' Literacy and Numeracy and to improve Senior Schooling outcomes. We want to ensure our students complete Year 12 and ensure they are well positioned for a successful pathway beyond secondary schooling. We employed an engagement officer to improve attendance, a Transition officer to improve retention and post-secondary pathways, and additional Guidance Officer to assist with social/emotional challenges, a Literacy Coach to improve reading outcomes, a Numeracy Coach and a Head of Indigenous Education to support our students to effectively access classroom learning.

All of this is at risk with the coalition government's failure to fund the full Gonski funding.

How do we know that they are cutting $22.3 billion? We know because their own document says so. The document that they produced and put around the Press Gallery is called, 'Key funding figures and qualifiers - 30 April agreed costs'. It says here—this is the total recurrent funding:

So if the minister at the table here cares to have a look at his own document, it might be a good thing. There are savings, or costs, to the education system in this country—they are actually not delivering $22.3 billion. This is not produced by the national secretariat of the Labor Party; it is a government document which says they are cutting funding for students around the country in primary and secondary schools.

We should never forget that the Gonski reforms were introduced by the former Labor government. It came about as a result of the 2011 Review of funding for schooling reports, chaired by David Gonski. The reports identified serious flaws in the way resources were allocated across the Australian education system. It made clear that Australia's education standards were slipping, putting at risk our status as one of the world's top performing nations in that respect. There is a definite and incontestable link found between students' circumstances and their academic performance, with those from disadvantaged and low-social-economic backgrounds, from regional locations and from Indigenous and or Torres Strait Islander heritage not receiving the support to perform to their potential.

There was a clear need to coordinate funding arrangements between the federal and state governments to make sure that the arrangements were coherent and effective at achieving outcomes for students. This is really, really important. At the same time, we saw 45 per cent of school principals report their schools were under-resourced and underfunded. Put simply, there was not enough money going to the right places, and students were suffering academically and were not achieving their potential. So the then Labor government heard the message loud and clear. We committed $37.3 billion in funding to implement the Gonski reforms in full, on time—not years down the track.

Who can ever forget, as I said last night, those banners, the bunting and the corflutes from the coalition in the September 2013 election campaign saying that if elected the member for Warringah and his colleagues, the Liberal and National parties—would match the Labor government's commitment dollar for dollar. It did not happen; they broke their commitment in the 2014 May budget, and today coalition MPs, as you will hear in speech after speech—we have heard this already—are coming in and saying, 'It is great, we are putting a bit of money back; fantastic, we are getting some more money.' But they are starting from the baseline of having committed the sin of cutting $30 billion out of the education funding of the country. They talk about 27 deals around the country—of course there are different arrangements and different systems. It may shock those opposite to hear this, but we actually have a federation with different states and different state education systems. There is the Catholic system and there is the independent system. The Catholic system is up in arms on this issue.

The government have ripped away $22 billion from education—the equivalent of $2.4 million from each of the 70 schools in my electorate of Blair in South-East Queensland, and equating to 22,000 people losing their job across the country. I mentioned Loganlea State High School—people's jobs are at risk there as well. They ripped up the agreements that were achieved by the Labor government which saw real and concrete funding being delivered over the next two years to bring under resourced schools up to fair levels of funding. That funding will fall off a cliff as a result of this government's proposal—95 per cent of the funding will not begin to flow for 10 years. In Queensland, in my home state, schools will not even receive this funding until at least 2027, meaning that a whole generation of students will miss out on any tangible increase in support. Schools in Queensland cannot wait 10 years to get their fair share of funding—they need it now, whether it is big schools in my electorate, like Bremer State High School with nearly 2,000 students or a little school with a couple of dozen students like Linville State Primary School in the upper Brisbane Valley.

The government's model will see less than 50 per cent of extra funding going to public schools, or state schools as we call them in Queensland. It is simply unfair. This is in contrast to the Labor Party's plan, which would provide 80 per cent of additional funds for state or public schools. I know that seven out of 10 children with disability go to a state school; I know that seven out of 10 children for whom English is a second language go to state schools. I know that eight out of 10 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are in public schools. One of the most egregious aspects of the government's proposal in this legislation is that many schools in the Northern Territory, which has so many remote and regional areas, with kids in small country towns like Maningrida, Mutitjulu near Uluru and places like that, will suffer. The Northern Territory gets left out terribly as a result of this; the same with Tasmania. There are tens of billions of dollars not flowing to Tasmania. It is outrageous that the schools in the areas where the need is so great are going to lose out. It is simply unacceptable that the government will keep these people disadvantaged in the sense that their school is under resourced. I remember being in a school up in Mutitjulu with Warren Snowdon, the member for Lingiari, when I was the shadow minister for Indigenous affairs in the last parliament. We were talking with the school principal and looking at the challenges that particular school faced. Schools in those remote areas deserve as much help as we can possibly give them.

The impact is certainly being felt in the Catholic sector. In my electorate, we have some fantastic schools in the Catholic system—schools like St Peter Claver College, St Mary's Primary School and St Mary's girls high school, at St Mary's College in Ipswich, and St Edmund's boys college. They are fantastic Catholic schools with great reputations. There are also the little Catholic schools like St Joey's, the nickname for St Joseph's Catholic Primary School in North Ipswich. They are fantastic schools. About one in five Australians send their kids to a Catholic or parish school. We want kids to have the opportunity to go to an excellent school, whether it is a state school or a private school. Parents should have that choice. Hitting them with real funding losses is not the way to go. Those opposite really threaten the good work being done with those schools, whether it is literacy and numeracy training or professional development.

I make it a point after every election—I was first elected in 2007—to visit as many schools in my electorate as possible. I have about 70 schools, from way up at Mount Kilcoy, north of the Sunshine Coast, down to the urban parts in the eastern suburbs of Ipswich around the growing suburbs of Springfield. I visit as many schools as I possibly can after every election. That is my task for the first few weeks after every election.

When visiting school principals I talk to them about what the Gonski money is doing for their schools. They invariably tell me that it is going towards literacy and numeracy training, professional development education, guidance officers and teachers aides. All of that is at risk from a government that does not understand or appreciate the need for kids in these remote and regional areas, and for kids in lower socioeconomic urban areas like Ipswich, to get the help they need. They need funding certainty, to be able to commit funds for schools in the next few years—not the decades ahead.

With this particular piece of legislation, the Prime Minister is trying to send us back decades: robbing schools of a clear and transparent funding model. The Minister for Education confirmed as much in his Press Club speech, where he made clear that the government would not be obligated to work with the states on this funding model. The states, ministers and premiers across the country, both Labor and coalition, have not wasted a moment in criticising the government's plan. I commend the New South Wales coalition government for the fact that they have been standing up for kids in remote and regional areas in New South Wales and in Sydney, in the Illawarra and in Newcastle. They have been standing up to their colleagues and comrades here in Canberra, telling them that they are not actually delivering what they promised to kids in New South Wales.

The consequences of this $22 billion cut are clear: fewer teachers in classrooms, bigger class sizes and inadequate support for those students who need it most. I commend the campaign of the Queensland Teachers' Union. I think they have done a terrific job in what they have done to stand up for kids—not just for teachers but for kids and parents, particularly those in state schools around my electorate and across the state of Queensland.

Fewer teachers means not just lower class sizes but more industrial action, potentially, and less individual attention to those kids. There is a link between class size and student outcomes that is indisputable. I commend the education unions for the campaign. Small class sizes are important for all students, regardless, but particularly for those who are from disadvantaged backgrounds. I support the amendment and I ask the government to revisit this whole issue and to do the proper and full Gonski funding.

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