Page 1707 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 May 2013
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them, their students, their families and their communities. The ACT Greens have had many positive meetings with these stakeholders over the years and we continue to enjoy an honest, robust and productive relationship with both the government and the non-government sector.
In the course of those meetings, and particularly in more recent conversations, I have been given to understand that the level of dialogue between all players has been increasing and is considered to be generally constructive. The problem facing many people, however, including the government, is that the state of play is still changing. That is why I cannot support Mr Doszpot’s motion as it currently stands.
Having recently attended two different standing councils with my interstate colleagues in the commonwealth, I have a growing respect for the difficulties inherent in reaching consensus across different jurisdictions and differing sides of politics. I also have a real respect for the need for this consensus to be reached on viable reforms such as this, as noted by Minister Burch yesterday, and DisabilityCare Australia, previously known as the NDIS.
The problem with the motion before us is that, according to the advice I have received, not all of the details requested in the motion are still relevant, may not be available due to the commonwealth’s position or are subject to change as the negotiations continue. The Australian government has repeatedly said that it will not implement a model which leaves any school worse off and will work to ensure that any model is adjusted or transition arrangements are in place so that no school loses a dollar per student as a result of any changes. The Chief Minister has also echoed this by recently stating she will not be doing anything that will disadvantage the ACT and will be looking for the best results.
The Greens believe that the better schools reforms are vitally important to the future of the nation. I would not be supporting the reforms if I believed the ACT would be unfairly disadvantaged comparative to other states. As members will be aware, the parliamentary agreement outlines broad support for this legislation and calls for a needs-based funding model. We must address the educational achievement gap that is so clearly identified in the Gonski report and our own inquiry into this issue from 2010.
I believe the needs-based loadings approach is the best step we as a society can take to achieve this. We support the concept of the school resource standard and the need for a much more transparent system. We support the calls of the non-government sector in particular for greater certainty in relation to indexation, which is again being addressed in the negotiations currently underway. I think that due to the changing nature of the negotiations the information requested may actually confuse the issue and has the potential to damage the current process.
We saw a good example of this last year when tabloid newspapers leaked the outcomes of what would happen to each school in the country if the full Gonski recommendations were implemented. The figures were raw and quite shocking, selling many papers, no doubt. They also created great anxiety, confusion and distress. But the figures were also quite out of date, relying on 2009 financial data and were
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