Press conference - South Australia

MINISTER FOR EDUCATION, JASON CLARE: It's absolutely fantastic to be here in SA today with the Premier of South Australia, the great Peter Malinauskas, my dear friend, Blair Boyer, fantastic Education Minister of this great state. I'm here also with Correna Haythorpe, the head of the Australian Education Union; Kirsty Amos and Tobias representing the great principals, primary and secondary, here in South Australia; and of course, my Labor Caucus colleagues, for what is a really big and important announcement. 

You would have heard the Prime Minister announce this at the Press Club only just over an hour ago, that South Australia has become the next state to sign up to the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement. 

And Premier, can I start by thanking you, mate. Peter, you are a bloke who gets things done, and just like the Prime Minister, you get it. You get how important what we're doing here today is for the next generation of Australians, to make sure that every child in this country gets a great start in life; that's what education does, that's what early education does. It changes lives. A good education changes lives, and a good education system can change countries, it can make sure that every child in this country gets a great start in life and make the most of every opportunity. 

And that's what we're announcing here today fundamentally is all about, making sure that we fund our public schools properly. This is a big deal for South Australia, it means an extra billion dollars in Commonwealth funding for public schools in South Australia over the next decade. 

It's not a blank cheque. This money is tied to real reform. We want this money to get results. The work that Blair and I and other Education Ministers have done over the last two years or so has been about putting the building blocks together for this day, working on what the reforms are that we should fund with this billion dollars. 

And so, we've set ourselves targets in this agreement as well, to lift the attendance rates of kids right across the country, to lift the results that kids get in NAPLAN results right across the country, and to lift the number of children who finish high school across the country. 

If you ask me about the thing that keeps me up at night, it's the fact that over the last decade the number of kids, the percentage of kids finishing high school has dropped. Not everywhere, not in non government schools, but in public schools, from 83 per cent to 73 per cent. This is about turning that around, because if we want to build the country of our imagination, we need to make sure that more young people finish high school and get a crack at TAFE, get a crack at university, get a crack at the job of their dreams. And ultimately that's what this is about. 

Today the Prime Minister announced that South Australia had signed on to the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement. Victoria has signed on to that, will sign on to that agreement as well, and what that means is the Commonwealth has agreed to increase our investment in public schools in South Australia and Victoria from 20 per cent to 25 per cent. And for the states, they've agreed to invest the remaining 75 per cent but to no longer take advantage of that old 4 per cent rule where they could count things like capital depreciation in their investment in their schools. 

So, what that means is more investment from the Commonwealth, more investment from the states, the Commonwealth Government's stepping up and the states are stepping up as well. This is real team work between the Australian Government and the South Australian Government and the Victorian Government. This builds on the agreements that we've already struck with WA, with Tasmania, with the Northern Territory and the ACT.  

We want to strike the same agreement with New South Wales and Queensland as well and get all states and territories signed up, make sure that all children who go to public schools get the benefit of this agreement, because it's going to mean more help for kids in our schools, it's going to mean more support for our teachers in our schools, and it's going to be mean more confidence for parents that the school around the corner's got the resources that it needs to make sure that your child doesn't fall behind, and if they do, we're going to help them to catch up. 

The sort of reforms here that this is going to fund are going to be game changers for our country. Here in South Australia, and Premier Malinauskas knows this because he's led this work, you're already rolling out phonics checks in Year 1 and now you're rolling out numeracy checks in Year 1, and that's all about identifying kids really, really early to see if they're falling behind, and this agreement helps to roll that out that South Australia started right across the country. 

But that's the first step, you've got to identify kids that need extra help, then you've got to provide it for them, and this extra funding provides the resources that we need for that individual support that extra children need, to help kids who might fall behind to catch up and to keep up, and then help more kids finish high school. 

That's what things like evidence based teaching and catch up tutoring are all about. If a child falls behind in a class of 30, you get them out of that class of 30, a couple of days a week for 40 minutes a day, provide them with that individualised support. We know that if you do that right a child can learn as much as in six months as you'd normally learn in 12 months, and that means that they catch up and they've got a better chance of finishing school. 

And so that's what this agreement is all about: real money, real targets, real reform, to make sure that we can build a better and a fairer education system and make sure that every child in this country gets a great start in life. That's why this is important, that's why this is such a fantastic day. 

I'll hand over to the Premier to say a few words, and then Blair and Correna, you might want to say a few words as well. 

PREMIER PETER MALINAUSKAS: Well, thanks very much, Jason. Can I start from outset by expressing my gratitude to Minister Clare and Minister Boyer. There has been an awful amount of work that has been going on now for many, many months to be able to arrive at the point that we have today. 

Today we announced the most substantial funding agreement for South Australian public schools that we have seen in generations. And most importantly, it's all orientated towards the next generation, and it's taken collaboration and thoughtful leadership from both Blair and Jason to be able to land this. 

But the person I really want to express my gratitude towards is the person that's making the announcement in Canberra today at the Press Club. 

Going right back to our first National Cabinet meeting in 2022, Prime Minister Albanese made clear that he wanted to work with states, not against them. And he said that in the context knowing there are some big challenges and also some big opportunities before the country, and none is more important, frankly, than the way we contemplate the future, and nothing underpins that more than, of course, education policy throughout the federation. 

Right now in South Australia we have more economic opportunity before us than we've had pretty much at any other point since the early 1990s. But to be able to realise that opportunity, we've got to make sure that young children are leaving our school and education system with the skills and the attributes that will allow them to be able to embark upon the pursuit of those opportunities that lead to a better life. 

There is no point in having economic policy that provides more opportunity to more people if we don't have more young people fulfilling their intention when they come out of high school with all the skills that they require. 

And that's why this agreement is so fundamentally important. And it layers upon the other efforts that the State Government's investing in. We're here at Modbury Heights Technical College, which is due to open this time next year. This represents a major capital investment on behalf of the State Government to provide more choices to more kids for all the extra opportunities that are coming their way. 

But programs like this one are part of a broader investment that we're making, and the biggest one that we're making in the state of South Australia, of course, is what we're doing in the early years with the roll out of universal access to three year old pre school. 

Now at the heart of that policy is the objective to make sure that we reduce the level of development delay that we see amongst young people in this state and make the early interventions to put their life on a different course than would otherwise may be the case. 

Early interventions matter. When we get access to a young person and identify an additional need they may have, if that is intervened with in a positive way early on, it can completely recalibrate their trajectory through school and lead them to a better life. But that can only happen in a more wholesome and thorough way if we see the greater investment that was always planned for under the Gonski proposition.

Today we  realised that funding. Today we see over $1 billion of additional funds coming from the Federal Government, matched by additional funds from the South Australian Government to lead to better outcomes for young students across the state, with a particularly keen eye on every last child, particularly those that otherwise might fall behind because they don't get access to the early interventions that make a big difference. 

Through this additional funding in collaboration with the State Government, we will see all kids getting Year 1 phonic checks, getting Year 1 numeracy checks, to identify kids who might have an additional need, intervene early, and set them up for a better future. 

Now what's more important than that? What's more important than that? Every week that goes by out and about in the community I hear from teachers. Teachers are under the pump. It's a profession that has more demands on it today, not less. They are crying out for support. Again, this reform will heed that call and provide them the support they need to get to more kids early. 

So, this is a big win win. And it hasn't been easy, let's be honest about it. Like, reaching a point like this one in a negotiation that sets us up for a decade between the State and Federal Governments takes a degree of collaboration, takes a degree of compromise. 

It's also taken a bit of holding out from both parties, but here we are, and it's a really big win for young people, for educators in our state that sets us up for the long term. 

You know, I think politicians have to exercise a degree of caution when we throw numbers around in dollars, dollars doesn't necessarily translate to an immediate meaning for so many people in the community. But understand this: this isn't millions, this is a billion of extra dollars going to our public education system with real tangibles attached to it: phonics, literacy, numeracy, better supports for our kids at every level, and that means a better future for our state and our country. And I can't thank the Albanese Government enough for their stewardship and their partnership, and with this type of attitude, we're going to get a lot more done for this state and our country, long may it continue. 

Blair's enthusiasm for this deal and this arrangement, I've got to say, is beyond most people's comprehension. Blair and I are actually in contact on a frequent basis, but that's gone to a whole other level over the course of the last two months. Every second day   sorry, it feels like every second hour I've had a text message from Blair, "Where are we at, where are we at," as Blair and Jason's work filtered its way up to my level and the Prime Minister's, and his enthusiasm for this has been unyielding because he knows how important it is. So, I thank Blair and hand over to him to say a few words. 

MINISTER BLAIR BOYER: Thanks, Pete. As I honestly thought that this was a day that might never come, the prospect of us not finding a way through negotiations and reaching agreement on how we get South Australian public schools to 100 per cent of that figure that David Gonski set all those years ago, I can say that it's haunted my dreams for the last year, because we do have a very, very clear choice here in the political sense, and I know politicians are fond of talking about all elections being really important ones and decisive ones, but when we are talking about that in the context of public education, public schools and the young people who attend those schools and the staff who teach them, this Federal Election, I think, is shaping as the most important in the context of public education, because there was no other way we were ever getting that extra billion dollars over 10 years that the Premier and Jason have spoken about there if we had a different Federal Government, or even if we didn't have Jason Clare or Anthony Albanese. 

And as the Premier said, and I think he is absolutely bang on, it's easy for us to talk about big figures that sound impressive, I'm not sure they mean that much to people out there at the coal face, out there at the coal face, whether it's a parent, a student or a staff member who is teaching them. 

But if we want to put it into a little bit of context around what this means, it means for that kid who's struggling with their reading, as Jason said, more time out of the classroom one on one so they can get on top of it and continue with their schooling. 

To the child who might be neurodiverse, who might have autism, and they're struggling with school, and their family are wondering how they are going to support them and what they will do later on when they get to high school, this is about more individualised support in the classroom and the school for them. It means for that young person at a country, in a regional or a remote school, and we've got so many of those in our state, and they are wondering about how they might get the same opportunities that city kids take for granted, or the same subject choices that city kids might take for granted, it's about making sure we can deliver on that. 

This is, as the Premier said, your education is the footings of the rest of your life. If you don't get that right, it is like getting the footings in your house wrong, and everything you put on top of it is going to be shaky. There is no better place to invest public monies, I think, than in education, and this money that is being guaranteed here today, across not just the ten years that's the life of the agreement but beyond, is going to make sure that politicians like me and Jason and those who follow us can actually look parents in the eye and say that we can give your child the support they need to actually thrive. 

I'll just finish by saying that it is also easy on occasions like this as politicians, I think, to try to make it about us, but it's not. I do want to, though, offer my personal thanks to Jason, and to Correna Haythorpe. We have been very fortunate to have the National President of the Australian Education Union as a South Australian, and a very, very proud one. If it wasn't for the personal relationships that we built between Jason, me, Correna, and the Premier and the Prime Minister, I don't think we would have made it through this negotiation. There were many times when I thought we weren't going to get there, but it was the strength in our collective belief in this being the right thing to do and something we had to do that finally got us there. 

But having said that, make absolutely no mistake, this is a win for people in public education. This is a win for the students, for the parents and for the staff who have told their stories about where this money has to go, for years and years and years and years, and have knocked the door down until we have got ourselves to this point today where we get to make this historic announcement. Thank you. 

CORRENA HAYTHORPE: Well, thanks everyone, and Premier Malinauskas, Minister Clare and Minister Boyer, it's an incredibly emotional day today. 

A decade ago, agreements were struck, and here in South Australia it was one of the very first states to adopt a Gonski agreement, and as a consequence of the 2013 election those agreements were ripped up by the Abbott Government, and the reason that we are here and the reason that our schools have been denied so much money has its genesis from there. 

So it's a great privilege to be here today in South Australia as the first agreement is struck under the new offer of a full 25 per cent of SRS funding as set out by that Gonski review so many years ago, and also that this agreement now, it gets rid of that accounting trick that the Morrison Government brought in in 2018 that has denied our schools further money. 

So, I think, Premier, you spoke about money as sometimes it's hard to quantify it, but let me tell you that next week, as teachers go back to school, as 2.6 million students return for their education across the nation, this agreement here today is not only significant for South Australia, but it's significant nationally. It is an absolute iron clad guarantee that our schools from now on will be receiving genuine funding every single year going forward. It's not contingent on an election, it's not contingent on a commitment, but it upholds the Prime Minister's election commitment that we would have a genuine pathway, and this agreement today has cemented that in. 

And I want to say congratulations to the South Australian Government and to the Albanese Government for getting this agreement done, but also to Victoria, and now our call is to all other state governments to get on board. 

The Prime Minister has put forward a new offer, a very good offer that does what we need it to do for public schools. Our teachers, our education support staff, our principals, everyone has been giving 100 per cent, but they've been doing it without the resources that they need on the ground. 

Now's the time, let's get this done for the kids of Australia, and let's make sure that public education has a fantastic future. Thank you.

KIRSTY AMOS: Just before questions, then. Look, I could probably talk while that's happening. This is absolutely the most exciting advancement that we've had in education for a really long time. There have been a lot of people that have been fighting hard   fighting's probably the wrong word   advocating hard for what is right for our young people. 

We know that in our classrooms there are a minimum of one in four that have additional needs, and this funding will allow all of our staff – so that's teachers, ancillary staff, allied health – all of the people, the leaders, everybody in schools is completely committed in doing what is best for all of the young people in their care, whether they are three and a half starting pre school, or whether they're 15, maybe being lucky enough to come to a technical college. All of those young people have different trajectories, they come with different skills, they have come with different needs, and you could have 30 young people in any class at any one time, and these extra funds will allow the people that are looking after them to think very deeply about what each of those young people need and provide it for them. 

So, hear hear, thank you very much. It is an incredible joy for me, and I'm sure for all of the educators out there who have been hoping for this, because they are so passionately committed to all of the young people that they educate. Thanks. 

TOBIAS O’CONNOR: Well, firstly, let's congratulate the Albanese Government, and also the South Australian Government for reaching this historic deal. Of course, what can I say, but everyone loves some money, and it's absolutely amazing that we've been able to recognise the investment that's needed for South Australia that's now been put on the table. 

We've had a number of students who have started their primary school years and finished their primary school years, and then some perhaps even their secondary years, never having attended a public primary school that's been fully funded. And so this deal is going to change that. 

Our teachers, we ask an impossible task every single day to turn up and support our students to be the very best that they can be, but not necessarily with the resources that they need to be able to do that work. 

So this deal gives our teachers, hopefully, the resources that they will be able to   need to be able to support the students and also, you know, keep them in the job, 'cause we have a number of teachers who are perhaps, you know, voting with their feet around not being able to do this work well. 

So, with the additional resources that have been announced today, we hope to see that strengthen our workforce here in South Australia. 

Thank you to both governments for the investment of South Australian children, and in particular for primary children. Thank you. 

JOURNALIST: Last year you were pretty firm that you weren't going to go above 22 and a half per cent, warning that the deal had lapsed. Why have you caved in to the states? Is it a sign of [indistinct] the election?  

CLARE: What we've got here is both the Australian Government and the State Government stepping up. I've listened. I've listened to Peter, I've listened to Blair, I've listened to Correna, I've listened to principals, listened to teachers across the country. They know how important this is that we get this done. I know how important it is we get this done. 

I'm a product of public education and damn proud of it, and I'm the first kid in my family to finish high school. I'm the first person in my family to finish Year 10. My mum never went to high school at all. I'm only here because of the teachers who educated me in that public school back last century.

When I talk about the fact that education can change lives, that it's the most powerful cause for good, I mean it; I know it because I've lived it, and I want that for the next generation of Australians. 

And so, this is about team work, both of us chipping in more and tying that funding to real reform. This is the biggest reform of the school education system in decades. You know, this is a big deal, and it's going to change the lives of kids who aren't at school yet, who aren't even thought of yet. Their lives will be different because of the education they can get because of the decisions that we've made here today. 

JOURNALIST: Does it link the other deals that are already done? 

CLARE: Yeah. What it means, and I've already spoken to Western Australia and Tasmania, they'll get the opportunity to take advantage of this deal as well. 

JOURNALIST: How much does it cost [indistinct] across the board, and where are you at with New South Wales? 

CLARE: So the negotiations are very advanced with New South Wales and Queensland, the Prime Minister spoke about that today at the Press Club. The final number will depend on the nature of those final negotiations. 

JOURNALIST: If this   if the Gonski report was commissioned in 2010 and we've only finally made it to 100 per cent, does that leave a generation of South Australians who are under educated? 

CLARE: What it means is the last Liberal Government shouldn't have ripped the guts out of school funding for public schools. As Correna said, if they hadn't done that, we wouldn't be fixing this now, but we are where we are, and we've got to fix it, and that's what this is about: fixing the funding and tying that to real reform. 

Really what this is about, I think Peter and Blair made the point that it's not just about numbers that are sometimes difficult to get a handle on. Get a handle on this number: the percentage of young people finishing high school today in public schools has dropped from 83 per cent to 73 per cent over the course of the last decade, and this is happening at a time when it's more important to finish high school than it was when we went to school. 

Bob Hawke and Paul Keating lifted the percentage of young people finishing high school from 40 per cent to almost 80 per cent, and we now know that by the middle of the century, we need 80 per cent of the workforce to finish school and then have a TAFE qualification or a uni degree, and we're not going to get that done unless we do this. 

Peter talked about the importance of early education, and there's some fantastic reforms around three year olds that you're delivering, another example of Peter's great leadership. 

The Prime Minister, and the Premier rightly points out this has only happened because of Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister has said if we win the next election there's a three day guarantee for every child in early education, to make sure that more kids are ready to start school. 

At the other end of the system, we've also said that we'll cut the cost of your student debt by 20 per cent, and we're going to reform the funding of universities. 

But this is the critical linchpin in the middle. At the moment about 50 per cent of young people have a uni degree, but not everywhere, not where I grew up, not from disadvantaged communities, and reform needs to happen in tertiary education. But the same is true in school education. 

Let me give you another example, just so that we understand how important what we're doing here today is. One in ten children today are below the minimum standard that we as a nation set for literacy and numeracy, but it's one in three kids from disadvantaged backgrounds. And guess what, most of those kids are in public schools. 

So that's where the challenge is three times as big, that's where the real heavy lifting has to happen. Non government schools are funded at the level that David said they should be at. Public schools aren't, and this fixes that. And I've got to tell you, of all the phone calls I made today to let people know that this was happening, the happiest was a bloke called David in Sydney, David Gonski, when I told him that we're finally getting this done, and you could just feel the pride and happiness oozing over the phone. 

JOURNALIST: If the money is prioritised towards keeping attendance or pushing attendance records up, how actually does that transpire   how does money make people go to school? 

CLARE: All the evidence is if you're keeping up at school, if school makes sense, you're more likely to be there, right? So that's the key part of it. 

One of the things I didn't mention that we're going to invest in with this funding is more mental health support at schools. You ask kids in high school what are the biggest challenges they face, they won't say vaping, they won't say social media, they'll say mental health. Sometimes they're not ready to learn, they carry a lot more in their school bags than just their lunch. 

And kids that have got mental health challenges are less likely to be at school, so more likely to fall behind, and so extra investment in mental health workers, in counsellors, in nurses, paediatric support in our schools, sometimes what's called a full service school in some schools, can make a world of difference, not just in attendance, but in academic achievement. 

When we look at kids with mental health challenges, we can see by the age of Year 9 they're about a year and a half to two years behind other kids in the class, so they're less likely to finish high school. 

And that's why this investment, tied to things like mental health support and catch up tutoring when kids are young, is critical to boosts attendance, getting better results and making sure that more children finish high school. 

JOURNALIST: Is it tied just to reforms, or also results now    

CLARE: No, no, it's tied to the reforms. I've been asked this question a bunch of times. "Will you rip money out of a disadvantaged school if they don't hit a target?" No. Because that would be counterproductive. I could imagine if that happened to the disadvantaged school that I went to. It's not about that. 

But what this is about, and this ten year agreement over the middle of the agreement provides the opportunity for people like Blair and myself or our successors to say, "Hang on a sec’, that investment didn't work, let's invest the money in somewhere else". We've got to be nimble enough, agile enough, ready enough to say, if that's not working, let's invest it in another way. 

JOURNALIST: Premier, could I please ask [indistinct]. Just looking at brutal politics of this, is it taking advantage of a government heading towards an election year to get more money for    

MALINAUSKAS: That suggestion completely undermines the fact that this has been a cause, been a work in progress that's been going on for months, and it also negates the simple truth that when it comes to a partnership that we've got between my government and Prime Minister Albanese’s, it's actually values based. It's not a transactional relationship, it's a relationship underpinned by a common set of values, and the aspiration to use the power of public policy and a government to actually translate that to making a difference. And that's why we're    

JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] negotiations    

MALINAUSKAS: That's why we've been working   that's why we've been working so hard to get to this point. There was a little period before Christmas, I thought we were almost there, but there were a couple of little minute details that we had to negotiate the detail for, and we've been really pleased to do that, and some of the advocacy, I wouldn't mind saying, from principals and teachers through the AEU has made a difference in that regard. 

And sometimes these big national agreements, the detail, it really matters, and dare I say the devil can often be in the detail, and we wanted to make sure which got that right, and a bit of work done over the Christmas New Year period has allowed us get to this point and we welcome it. 

JOURNALIST: I've just got some questions for Blair. So, how much I know it's a billion dollars over 10 years, so is that 200 million each year for South Australian schools?

BOYER: The phasing will be different, Shashi, so we're working on what the phasing of the money is when it comes online from the Federal Government and when it comes online from the State Government in the funding envelope which Jason's spoken about, that, you know, more   billion extra over 10 years is locked in, and that was the, you know, key sticking point in negotiations. 

JOURNALIST: Yep. 'Cause initially I believe during negotiations it was going to be 190 million per year. Is that now more? 

BOYER: Well, the $190 million a year is roughly what the 5 per cent was worth to South Australia in initial money, so the difference between us being stuck at 95 per cent of that figure that David Gonski set and being at 100 was about $190 million of extra funding per year. 

But remember, this isn't just, you know, the Federal Government agreeing to increase its offer from 2.5 to 5, we have to do some heavy lifting as well with removing that depreciation of assets clause that was put in by the former Liberal Government. So, the figures are different to what we were previously saying publicly, 'cause to be honest the 4 per cent hadn't been really front of mind. It's fantastic that it's here, but it is a newer development than the 5 per cent. 

JOURNALIST: Right. And does it mean, because, you know, in theory this is money that South Australian schools should have been getting anyway, are they going to be playing catch up now? 

BOYER: Well, there was, you know, a whole lot of that states weren't at 100 per cent. You know, we had a trajectory to get there, and you know, thanks to the [indistinct] from the Morrison Government, that was cut up, and thanks to some deals struck by the former state Liberal Government here, along with the Morrison and Turnbull Governments, I think it was, that original deal was changed, so the trajectory for South Australian schools were changed as well. 

But in terms of getting to 100 per cent of that schooling resource standard, we are playing catch up. All states and territories are basically playing catch up. But you know, it's important to remember 5 per cent might not sound like much, but when you talk about that plus the 4 and more than $190 million and a billion over 10 years, it is a lot of money and it can mean, you know, we can do a lot more good in a whole heap of different areas that will actually change the lives of the young people who go to our schools in public education.