Page 1703 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 May 2013
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regional location—and yes, at times this does require us to rise above our local interests and care about children that are educated in remote locations in, say, Adelaide, for example, because I think that my child who goes to school in the ACT deserves a certain level of funding, but I also believe that a child her age in kindergarten in a school in Adelaide deserves the same amount of funding. I think that is good for the country—that every single child gets a level of resourcing. And that is what these negotiations are about.
The ACT is in the extremely fortunate position—unlike other jurisdictions such as Victoria, New South Wales and, indeed, I think, every other jurisdiction with perhaps the exception of WA—that we resource our schools very well, whether that be in the non-government system or the government system. On any measure—and this was acknowledged around the table by first ministers—the ACT resources its education system now.
This debate cannot degenerate into “What slice of the pie is mine?” It cannot. That is not what the debate around national education funding is about. It is about equality across the system and equality for all children. That is what this debate is about, and that is the debate that the opposition continues to avoid.
Do you think that is good? Your education policy going into the last election says it all. You did not support needs-based funding in the election campaign. You went with a policy that, if you were elected and it was implemented, would give significant increases to schools that are already operating above the school resourcing standard as outlined in the discussions, without care or consideration as to whether it was fair to do that for all school students in the ACT. We did not go with that.
I attended a number of meetings in education—and a number of difficult meetings, particularly with the non-government school sector. As is their right, they were seeking further contributions over and above current contributions from the ACT government. I attended those meetings and said that we would make increases to the non-government school sector but that they would be targeted, and they would be targeted around issues of socioeconomic status, additional educational requirements, Indigenous status and disability status. I said that would be how we would target the extra dollars going into education. We find ourselves here negotiating with the commonwealth when the vast majority of our schools—I think 70 per cent or more of our schools—are operating at above the school resourcing standard.
As I said yesterday in question time, there are three categories here in terms of funding going forward should we reach agreement with the commonwealth—and we have not reached agreement with the commonwealth. There are those schools that are operating below the school resourcing standard. My understanding is that the majority of those are in the Catholic systemic system, the primary schools. There is a handful, less than one handful, of government schools operating in that space. There are those schools that are operating at the school resourcing standard now. And then there are the vast majority, 70 per cent of our schools, in the government and non-government sector who are operating above.
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