Page 1474 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2016
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I am dismayed that we continue to see the federal government walk away from that in what was widely accepted as being a real breakthrough for education funding in this country. There is no unity ticket on this issue. Anyone who comes in here and says so is again cherrypicking their arguments for their own political purposes.
What is particularly concerning about the education announcement we saw on the weekend from the minister, Simon Birmingham, is that the federal government has linked ongoing funding to the implementation of a reform agenda for education, a reform agenda that has been released without consultation with the states and territories or with schools. The first I heard of it, as the education minister, was in the radio news on Sunday morning. There was a series of new conditions being attached to the education funding. As you would imagine, I immediately contacted the directorate to find out the details. The directorate had not been advised of those details.
What we have seen is that there will be new conditions attached to our education funding which we have not been consulted on and which we do not know the full details of. Now that we are going into caretaker mode after the Prime Minister takes the drive down to see the Governor-General on Friday, heaven alone knows how we are going to finalise those details with the commonwealth government in caretaker mode.
But certainly I will be discussing these reforms and the funding issues with the local public, independent and Catholic school stakeholders, with the Australian Education Union and with the various people who understand this well, all of whom celebrated the Gonski funding model, knowing that this was an intellectually sound, fair and sensible way to proceed with education funding in Australia.
I will certainly continue to advocate on behalf of this government, because it is an item of the 2012 Labor-Greens parliamentary agreement. Both our parties recognised that this is a way to proceed. I will continue to advocate on behalf of this government and this community for that education funding model to be restored.
It is worth noting that the Greens have always stood by that position. I am very pleased to see that the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, has also adopted that position as the Labor Party position for the federal election. We know that that is what the community supports and we know it will deliver the best outcomes for our students.
I will not be supporting Mr Hanson's amendment today. I do not think he expected anybody to support it in the way it is written. I do not think he honestly anticipated that. Some of the very points of it, particularly his continued refusal to accept the need to invest seriously in quality public transport in this town, mean that I cannot support this amendment.
I encourage people to tune in at 8 o’clock tonight when Senator Richard Di Natale, the leader of the Australian Greens, gives his response to the federal budget, to hear how a truly fair and sustainable budget would be framed.
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