ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT - BILLS - Better and Fairer Schools (Funding and Reform) Bill 2024 - Second Reading

I was privileged to receive a very good education, courtesy of my parents, my late mother, Eileen, and late father, Lance. They sent me to St Joseph's, which closed not long after I departed there in year 2. It reopened later on. It burnt down and reopened again. I went to Henschke boys primary. It's now a co-educational primary school, in Wagga Wagga, in Turvey Park. I then went to St. Michael's Regional High School, a fabulous institution. I graduated there in 1980.

I give thanks to John Egan, John Zoglmann, Jan Batt, Brother Felix O'Connor in particular, Lyn Kensey and Bob Stampton. They were just amazing teachers. The discipline was strict. We had deputy principal Graham Kennedy, a former dual rugby league and rugby union New Zealand international, and he did not suffer fools gladly. I'm not saying I was a fool, but I'll tell you what—you didn't get out of line at St. Michael's Regional High School! Otherwise you faced the harsh sting of the leather across your hand. I received more than my share of cuts in year 7—25 times, in fact—and I was one of the better pupils. But I hold no grudges. Certainly, John Egan, who was my year 7 form master, and I are firm friends to this day. He still provides me with great advice.

I then went to Trinity Senior High School, which has now been subsumed into Kildare Catholic College. Wagga Wagga has good Catholic schools.

I also, now, as the federal member for Riverina, represent many, many public schools. In fact, there are 130 schools across my sprawling electorate. I represent church schools, independent schools and, indeed, fantastic public schools. As the education minister joins us, I thank him for coming into the Federation Chamber in relation to this bill, because it is an important bill—it truly is.

When I was growing up, public schools were primarily called 'state schools', and there was a reason for that, because they received most of their funding from the states—as they should, because they are governed by the states. In 1893 all of the colonies in Australia had legislated to remove government funding from Catholic education, and it took the Goulburn school strike of July 1962, when the townsfolk and the local Catholic bishop said, 'Enough.' They required funding to build, of all things, a new toilet block at St Brigid's to meet government health requirements, and the protests came about because of heated political debate about state aid to Catholic schools, and accusations of sectarianism. I'm midway through reading an amazing and remarkable book by Jeff Kildea about Bridget Partridge, otherwise known as Sister Mary Liguori. This case divided the nation. She was a Wagga Wagga sister who fled the Catholic system, was looked after by the Protestants and went to Sydney. Her case ended up in the highest court in the land. Sectarianism then was rife in Australia—it was sheer hatred. Thankfully, it's not like that these days—at least I don't think it is!

But Catholic school funding still raises a lot of ire. It will be denied, but it is a true fact that if you take a Catholic schoolchild and place them alongside a public schoolchild, the public schoolchild will receive, on average, more funding than the Catholic school child. I appreciate that the Catholics look after their schools; I get the fact that they get Commonwealth funding—as they should—but there are a lot of people who think that all Catholic school funding by the Commonwealth should be abolished, and this is wrong. It is wrongheaded, it is not right, and if you take a little school in a country community, you see those kids do it every bit as tough as some of the public schools. You can never place enough funding into the education system.

It does annoy me when people decry our education system and say that the children of today are not as good as they once were. They talk about the three Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic—if you look closely at those words, they don't all start with R, but you get my drift. Those people who say that have probably not been to a school any time lately, certainly not a public school. I run an annual Anzac Day writing competition—I've done it for 14 years—and the education minister would be very interested to know that the quality of those entries is quite remarkable. The children are being well taught. Yes, they do need more resources. Yes, they do need more funding.

This bill goes to the heart of better and fairer schools funding, and no-one can deny that. No-one should deny that there should be more funding and better funding, and I get that. We hear so often, and it also really sticks in my craw, from the Labor ministers particularly who go to the despatch box and talk about the decade that we lost—the dysfunction, the lack of funding and all the like. It's just so untrue. The facts are that over nine years the former coalition government nearly doubled annual school funding from $13 billion in 2013 to $25.3 billion dollars in 2022. Our Quality Schools package had record funding of $318.9 billion to all schools between 2018 and 2019. We strengthened the curriculum with stronger, evidence-based content, including teaching phonics and the science of reading. We improved teacher training. We backed those teachers who were high achievers and delivered best-practice literacy and numeracy programs to close the gap.

Now, I appreciate what Minister Clare is trying to do in the education space. He's one of the better ministers and I value his input, because he has a very trusted role. He is the minister responsible for education, and some might argue that that's one of the most important ministries in government. It is, and it should be, because our children are our future.

The current National School Reform Agreement, extended by a year, is due to expire on 31 December. That is not far away. Currently, the Commonwealth contributes 20 per cent of the funding for government schools—state schools—with the states and territories responsible for the remaining 80 per cent. For independent Catholic schools, the model is flipped. It's reversed, with the Commonwealth contributing 80 per cent of funding and the states and territories contributing 20 per cent.

But why is it fair that there are people out there, many of whom are very high up in academia, who think that the Commonwealth should not be funding our private schools? You'll see them trot out the wonderful sports facilities, pools et cetera at Riverview, the GPS schools and the big sandstone schools in Sydney and other metropolitan cities. I heard the member for Indi talk about the remote areas of her electorate. If you go out to some of those regional towns, the Catholic schools do it tough too. They also have to raise funds through their wonderful parents and friends organisations and associations.

I remember I was the chair at the Sacred Heart Catholic School in Wagga Wagga when my daughter was in kindergarten. My daughter, Georgina, who, I might add, has taught in both the public and the private systems, is now teaching in Melbourne, and I'm very proud of the fact that she is the head of English at the middle school where she teaches down in Melbourne. It's a great achievement. She is transforming and shaping children's lives, and that's what good teachers do. I mentioned earlier the list of teachers who taught me. Some of them might deny that they taught me, but indeed they did, and I was very, very blessed and privileged to have the help of those teachers in shaping me so I could attempt to be my best self.

The specific contribution percentage for government schools will be prescribed by regulation. This allows the Commonwealth to have different funding arrangements for the states and the territories. This regulation will not be disallowable. Interestingly, for the Northern Territory, the bill provides that the Commonwealth contribution to government schools will be changed from a fixed 20 per cent to 40 per cent from 2029. Some might say the disparity between states and territories is not right et cetera.

The Northern Territory has its own set of challenges. I visited there on any number of occasions when I was the Deputy Prime Minister, and it has its own challenges and its own opportunities. I'm very pleased that Lia Finocchiaro has become the Country Liberal Party Chief Minister, because I think the work that she and the CLP team will do in the education space, working with Mr Clare and the Commonwealth, will be good. I encourage the minister to have a relationship with the new Northern Territory administration, because it's important. It's a growing place. We need the Northern Territory to realise its potential, and we can only do that if the children there are properly funded and properly resourced with the best teachers.

My daughter, Georgina, was part of a program run by the New South Wales department which helped out with HECS. Georgina went to Charles Sturt University. At the end, when the teachers were getting their diplomas and receiving their imprimaturs from the university, they were able to send them wherever they liked, and they sent Georgina to Griffith, then a remote school, which needed a drama and English teacher. I was pleased that she was able to do that. It gave her a great start. I think that a teacher in a remote public school will have the very best start because it will teach them the concepts and the necessity and how tough these children do it, as opposed to maybe, perhaps, a private school in a big city.

For the Northern Territory, the bill changes the model by which the funding is allowable from 2029, while the 80 per cent contribution for non-government schools will remain in the bill. This can be varied by regulation, which is subject to disallowance. Overall, this legislation—I appreciate there are amendments to it—is important because our kids are our future.

In the time remaining, I want to talk about the Gonski funding model. It's important to reiterate that, while the Commonwealth is currently meeting its agree 20 per cent SRS share, it's the states and the Northern Territory which have fallen short to varying degrees. That is a fact. Queensland's SRS contribution to government schools is just 69 per cent, well below the 80 per cent requirement. Victoria's is not much better, at 70 per cent. The Northern Territory, as I say, is a special case; it's only 59 per cent. So it was misleading, prior to the last election and since then, for the Albanese government to claim it would fully fund government schools, when the Commonwealth was fully meeting its agreed obligations. That said, most of the remit, most of the responsibility and most of the obligation should, as it always must, fall upon the states. They should be referred to as state schools, not public schools.

I decry anybody who ever says that our Catholic schools should not be funded by the Commonwealth, because they should. It started back in the early sixties, with that Goulburn bishop who withdrew the children from the school and marched them down to the front gates of the public school and said, 'Well, if you're not going to fund us, then you teach them.' We don't want to see again. I'm sure the minister doesn't want to see a whole heap of Catholic schoolchildren out on the front lawns here, demonstrating about lack of funding, particularly the funding for toilet blocks and the like.

Let's not criticise our teachers; they are doing an outstanding job. They have the responsibility of looking after what is our most important national asset, and that is our students. To our teachers, as it was just the other day international appreciate a teacher day, I say thank you. I thank the minister for everything he's going to do in this space. He's got a big job and I commend him for it.