Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2025-2026

Mr BIRRELL (Nicholls) (17:25): I echo the disappointment that was expressed by the member for Flinders that the minister's not here to listen to these questions and answer them. It works better that way. There are some persistent structural challenges that demand our attention in the education sphere.

The first one I want to raise is the Better and Fairer Schools (Funding and Reform) Act, which allowed for increased school funding under the school funding model that the coalition introduced to implement the Gonski reforms, specifically the Schooling Resource Standard. Labor's legislation last year effectively enabled the Commonwealth to increase its contribution to public schooling from 20 per cent to 25 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard by 2034.

The Commonwealth's contribution of 80 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard to Catholic and independent schools continues. However, despite announcements spanning many photo ops between July 2024 and March 2025, concerns remain about the school funding. The Victorian government has not yet signed the bilateral agreement, so the 'full funding' language is misleading due to the heavy back ending of funding agreements with the states and territories.

An analysis released by Save Our Schools last week concludes that public schools remain below the 100 per cent of Schooling Resource Standard in each year, including 2034, except in the ACT. Minister, when will Victoria sign its bilateral agreement so that additional funding can flow to the Victorian public school students? Is it true that, even in 2034, all public school systems, except those in the ACT, will not be receiving 100 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard?

In relation to university sustainability, the government has invested a lot of time in talking to universities. It could be the most heavily consulted sector in Australia since the Albanese government came to power. But I ask: After four budgets, are universities stronger today than they were four years ago?

Are universities better governed or more financially sustainable? Are students receiving a higher quality degree, or is university research output of a higher quality? There is also the commitment to fee-free TAFE places annually.

But I also ask: do we need free TAFE or a better TAFE system? The NAPLAN results underscore the persistent performance issues, especially in remote and regional education. Students in regional and especially very remote areas are much less likely to achieve strong or exceeding proficiency standards.

Over one in three students in regional or remote areas fail to meet proficiency levels. The 2025-26 review of the Measurement Framework for Schooling in Australia represents an opportunity to develop indicators beyond NAPLAN, including student engagement and learning progression measures. An improved national data set gives us a lot of potential to address the educational challenges, including student refusal, teacher shortages and declining participation rates.

In relation to teacher shortages, much more needs to be done to tackle workforce shortages in primary and secondary schools, and solving regional workforce shortages can be even more challenging. It requires some bespoke methods. I want to mention a few.

Nexus is a program run by La Trobe University that encourages people with undergraduate degrees and experience in different professions to then fast track a masters degree of teaching while working in a classroom environment. I recently visited Cobram Secondary College in my electorate and spent time in the classroom with the inspiring Carly Marriott, who was looking for a meaningful career change that allowed her to stay connected with her community.

She teaches business management, and the students benefit not only from the stuff she's learnt from her masters of teaching but from her career before she entered the classroom. Prior to coming to this place, my job was the CEO of the Committee for Greater Shepparton, and employees would come to me saying, 'We can't find the young people with the skills and training opportunities to take our businesses forward.' In 2019 I applied for a Churchill Fellowship to look at this in Germany, UK, Finland and Sweden.

I saw a vocational education system that was far more impressive than what we have here in TAFE, and it was much more linked to the business community, particularly in Germany. While I've got a few more moments, I'd like to talk about what I think needs to be a growth in regional education. I'm the beneficiary of a degree in agricultural science from Dookie, which is the regional campus of the University of Melbourne, and also an MBA, which I got at La Trobe's regional campus in Shepparton.

We need to spend more time and more money taking education into the regions so that people's postcode is not a barrier to them receiving education across Australia. That can be done with a more focused effort on balancing the needs of tertiary education in the metropolitan areas with those of the regions.