Second Reading Speech - Better and Fairer Schools (Funding and Reform) Bill 2024

This is a Bill to increase funding for our public schools. 
I am a product of public education and proud of it. 
Education is the most powerful cause for good in this country.
It doesn’t just change lives. 
Its impact ricochets through generations. 
It changes communities and it changes countries. 
It’s changed ours. 
And it’s public education that does most of that heavy lifting.  
More than 6,700 public primary and high schools across the country.
Full of children from every background, every religion and every culture. 
And mums and dads up and down the income scale.  Doing every sort of job. 
That’s part of what makes public education special. It is for everyone. 
But it also does something else. 
It plays an outsized role in educating the most disadvantaged children in this country. 
The children who are most likely to start behind or fall behind. 
The children who need our help the most. 
And these are the schools that are the most underfunded. 
One in 10 children today are below the minimum standards we set for literacy and numeracy. 
But one in three children from poor families are below that standard. 
Most of those children are in our public schools. 
Many never catch up. 
And many never finish school. 
Over the last eight years the percentage of students finishing high school has gone down not up. 
From 85 percent to 79 percent. 
That drop isn’t happening everywhere. 
In non-government schools the percentage of students finishing school is either pretty flat or going up. 
Where the drop is happening is in our public schools. From 83 percent to 73 percent. 
And it’s happening at a time when it’s more important to finish school than ever before. 
Where more and more jobs require you to finish school and then get a qualification from TAFE or uni. 
This is what we have got to turn around. 
This is what we have got to fix. 
And this is what this legislation is about. 
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In 2011 David Gonski delivered the report that recommended a new funding formula for schools. 
What we now call the Schooling Resource Standard - or SRS. 
The SRS sets the estimated level of total public funding  each school should receive to fund the cost of schooling each year. 
At the moment, the base per student amount is $13,570 for a child in primary school and $17,053 for a child in high school. 
As part of the model that David Gonski recommended, additional funding is also provided for:
•    Students with disability
•    Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students
•    Students experiencing socio-educational disadvantage
•    Students with low-English proficiency; and
•    School size and location.
These are called loadings. 
For most non-government schools, the base per student amount is reduced depending on the median income of the parents of the children who attend the school. 
This means for example that at a non-government school where the median family income of the parents is very high the school only gets 20 percent of the SRS base amount.
All of this is what’s often described as the Gonski model or needs-based funding. 
At the moment all non-government schools are funded at the level David Gonski set all those years ago, or they are on track to get there, or they are above it and coming back down to it. 
But most public schools aren’t. 
The Commonwealth Government provides 80 percent of the SRS funding for non-government schools and the State and Territory Governments provide the other 20 percent. 
For public schools it’s the reverse. 
The Commonwealth provides 20 percent of the SRS funding and the States and Territories are supposed to provide another 75 percent. 
Some do. Some don’t. 
That means there is at least a five percent gap. 
At the last election we promised “to work with all states and territories to get all public schools on a path to 100 per cent of the SRS.”
What that means is both the Commonwealth Government chipping in more and the States and Territories chipping in more to fill that gap. 
To do that we have to amend the Australian Education Act.
At the moment, the Act says the Commonwealth Government will provide a maximum 20 percent of the Schooling Resource Standard to public schools.
This Bill turns that maximum amount into a minimum. 
It turns that ceiling into a floor. 
It enables the Commonwealth government to ratchet up funding for public schools.
And it makes it harder for future governments to rip that money out. 
It means that when the Commonwealth government does a deal with a State or Territory to increase funding to public schools, that bigger Commonwealth share becomes the new floor for that State or Territory. 
It is locked in and it can’t go backwards without changes to the Act. 
We have done three of those deals so far this year. 
With Western Australia, with the Northern Territory and Tasmania. 
All of them involve the Commonwealth government chipping in more and the State and Territory governments chipping in more. 
All of them mean more funding from 1 January next year. 
In the case of Western Australia it means every public school there will be fully funded by 1 January 2026, just over 12 months away. 
In the case of Tasmania it means every public school will be fully funded by no later than 2029. 
And in the case of the Northern Territory it means something that promises to be truly transformational. 
At the moment Northern Territory public schools receive approximately 80 percent of the funding they are supposed to get under the Gonski model. 
Less than anywhere else in the country. 
It means in effect that one in five children in the Northern Territory are not receiving any funding. 
The agreement I signed this year fixes that. 
It doubles the Commonwealth’s investment in public schools in the Northern Territory.
It brings forward the day that all Northern Territory public schools are fully funded by more than 20 years. 
And it means that some of the most disadvantaged public schools in this country will now be some of the best funded. 
To make this happen though we need to pass this Bill. 
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There are some people who say that funding isn’t important. We just need practical reforms.
And there are others who say the opposite. 
The truth is both are required. Funding and reform. 
As David Gonski said in his report: “resources alone will not be sufficient to fully address Australia’s schooling challenges and achieve a high quality, internationally respected schooling system. The new funding arrangements must be accompanied by continued and renewed efforts to strengthen and reform Australia’s schooling system.”
I agree. 
That’s why the agreements we have struck with Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory are not a blank cheque. 
They are tied to real, practical reforms.  That includes:
•    Phonics checks and numeracy checks in Year 1 or earlier, to identify children early who are behind and need additional support. 
•    Evidence based teaching and catch up tutoring to help children catch up and keep up. 
•    Funding extra mental health and well-being services in schools. Including counsellors, psychologists and full service schools. 
•    Providing access to high-quality and evidence-based professional learning for teachers and school leaders and providing quality-assured curriculum resources that have been developed in partnership with the teaching profession, and
•    Paying experienced teachers more to work in schools that need additional support. 
All of this is part of the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement that the Commonwealth and the States and Territories have developed together. 
It also includes targets and measures to make sure this money glows in the dark. 
I want parents and teachers to know where this funding is going. 
That’s why the bill and the Agreement strengthens the reporting and public transparency requirements around how taxpayer funding is invested, without placing additional burden on schools.
The Agreement includes requirements for States and Territories to outline how the additional money is being invested in the key reform areas, and a new public reporting dashboard.
And the Bill includes a new annual Ministerial statement to the Australian Parliament on the progress of school education reform agreements.
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This is important reform. But it is just one part of the reforms we need to make to make our education system better and fairer. 
We need to reform higher education too. 
That’s what the Australian Universities Accord is about.  It’s a blueprint print for reform to higher education over the next ten years and beyond. 
What it says is we need to build a workforce by the middle of the century where 80 percent of working aged people have a TAFE qualification or a university degree. 
And the only way to do that it says, is to help more people from poor families and more people from regional Australia get to university and help them succeed once they get there. 
We also have to reform early education. 
That’s what the Productivity Commission’s report that we released a few weeks ago is about. 
What it says is that it’s these same children, children from poor families, from the regions, from disadvantaged backgrounds, who are the least likely to go to child care or pre-school, and the most likely to benefit from it. 
And this, what we are doing here, is the critical piece in the middle. 
Helping those same children who start behind or fall behind, to catch up, keep up and help more children finish school. 
What the Prime Minister calls opening the door of opportunity. 
A country where no one is held back and no one is left behind. 
That at its core is what public education is about. 
What it has always been about. 
That’s what this Bill is about. 
If you support lifting funding for our public schools you will support this Bill. 
I commend it to the House.