House of Representatives

Monday, 3 June 2013 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 31
background and was a teacher in my electorate as well.
So I know how important education is to him.
Mr Randall: Cloverdale Primary School.
Mr IRONS: Cloverdale Primary School, he tells
me. The diversity goes beyond the simple government
and non-government distinction the Prime Minister
often frames this debate around.
Mr Sidebottom: Ahem!
Mr IRONS: It is good to see the member for
Braddon is awake today. I think the member for
Braddon is trying to make the point that he was a
teacher as well. The reality is: most schools have an
element of public and private funding. As the shadow
minister said, in the current Schools Assistance Act
there are over 70 definitions relating to schooling. This
bill before the House has only five definitions. The
issue here is the government trying to make broad
generalisations that simply do not fit with the detailed
picture on the ground.
What we are debating today is a statement of
principles—not a bill. It has no financial impact and it
is not even legally enforceable. Perhaps this has
something to do with the manner in which it was
introduced—rapidly, at the end of last year, to try to
convince the Australian people that there is an agenda
for this government.
What the government has put out would be better
put in a press release than a bill. It is an empty shell in
a number of respects. For example, it lacks details on
funding; it contains no details at all as to how much
money will be available, or which level of government
will be required to stump up for additional funding.
Too often, Labor's approach has led to politicisation
of an important policy area which ought to be above
politics, and I fear this will only worsen in the lead-up
to their deadline of 30 June 2013. The politicisation
has the potential to colour an appropriate and rational
consideration of Labor's current offers to the state and
territory governments.
I refer the House to comments in The Australian on
25 February:
WA Premier Colin Barnett said he believed the federal
government was a 'small player'' in education and heavily
criticised Ms Gillard's style of negotiation with the states.
'We have never indicated we would sign up to Gonski,'
Mr Barnett told reporters in Perth.
'If the federal government has some proposal, they are
very much the small player in education.
'We are not going to sit back and suddenly let the
commonwealth take over the running of our schools.''
These concerns are shared by the schools themselves.
We had the CSA state:
CSA supports the general principles of a Gonski-style
approach. We cannot however give our full support to any
CHAMBER
proposal that has not fully been modelled and released for
consultation.
… … …
We must express however our serious concern at the lack
of detail about the achievement of this promise.
Should data modelling, and funding commitments not be
provided to fulfil this undertaking our support would
immediately be withdrawn.
I note Dennis Shanahan's piece on the front page of
The Australian newspaper today, which says that the
Queensland Premier has virtually ruled out the
Queensland government's agreement to the Gonski
funding by the Prime Minister's deadline. Furthermore,
the article goes on to quote Mr Newman's letter to the
Prime Minister, in which he refers to officials in her
Treasury department as being intransigent, failing to
negotiate constructively and unable to set out base
education funding for the 2014 education year. The
Queensland Premier told the Prime Minister that
because of the intransigence of the federal government,
even if agreement could be reached on the starting
point, the flow-on effects would require substantial
revision of the federal government's funding offer.
I note that the Victorian government has described
the negotiations as 'a farce' and 'puerile'. Even the
South Australian Labor government has warned of
concerns about funding for independent schools.
Further to this, it has been reported by The Australian
that:
Victorian Education Minister Martin Dixon excoriated the
commonwealth over its handling of the Gonski negotiations,
claiming the reforms amounted to nothing more than a
slogan.
In unusually strong language, Mr Dixon said he no longer
trusted the federal government over the way it had conducted
the negotiations.
He said that he was being forced to read in the media about
key developments in what were meant to be confidential
negotiations about the future of billions of dollars worth of
education funding.
"This process has been a farce and it's been a sham," Mr
Dixon told parliament.
We are not going to sign up to a slogan. We want a real
funding deal. We are going to sign up to what's best for
every student, school, family and taxpayer.
Senior government sources said Victoria would only now
sign up to the Gonski reforms if there was a "deal breaking"
offer by Canberra.
Mr Dixon, Catholic Education Commission Victoria
executive director Stephen Elder and Independent Schools
Victoria chief executive Michelle Green have written to the
Gillard government asking for four-way negotiations to
address funding proposals. This is believed to be due to
existing discussions having collapsed.
"The current bilateral negotiations have not achieved results
we would have liked," the trio wrote in a letter to School
Education Minister Peter Garrett.