MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS

Mr LEESER (Berowra) (12:30): I rise to respond to the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement progress report, and I give the ministerial statement an A for delivery but a 'resubmit' for the content. There are several material errors in the statement that the minister just gave to the House, and I want to spell them out in detail. Before I do that, I want to say two things right off the bat.

The first is that it didn't even take him eight sentences to repeat the falsehood that even the ABC—no apologist for the coalition—has repudiated, and that is that the previous coalition government cut funding from public schools. ABC Fact Check said that the claim about cuts to public education are 'misleading'. The original claim about the $30 billion cut was made by Kate Ellis.

ABC Fact Check in 2014 said, 'Ms Ellis is spouting rubbery figures.' The minister should not repeat the figures that are rubbery. Labor revised that claim in 2016 and said the cut was only $22 billion. ABC Fact Check also repudiated this figure.

Let me again read directly from the ABC Fact Check: Based on Labor's stated commitments and the Government's own document, Labor intends to spend more on schools in the future than the current Government. But this does not change the fact that school funding continues to rise year on year. Let me again quote from ABC Fact Check from 2016, reflecting on the coalition's period in office: School funding continues to rise year on year.

Australians expect better from the Minister for Education. He should not be repeating these falsehoods. The second thing to say about the minister's statement is that it spends just two sentences talking about Thriving Kids.

This speech could have been an opportunity for the minister to alleviate concerns across the education sector. The people are going to be moved from the NDIS to the education sector without adequate support, resources or funding. Every principal I talk to is worried about this and what it means for their students, their teachers and the school.

The minister didn't take that opportunity, and it's a shame. Let me now turn to some of the details in the minister's statement. The minister spoke about reading, about school attendance and about school completion.

When children are improving in reading, writing and arithmetic, we want to celebrate this, but it helps no-one to cherrypick data or present a false picture. So let me address the minister's claims in turn. The first materially incorrect claim is that the average eight-year-old is a year ahead in reading, compared to 20 years ago.

The minister said: NAPLAN data tells us that the average eight-year-old today is reading about a year ahead of where eight-year-olds were when NAPLAN started almost 20 years ago. NAPLAN data has been published since 2008. I've had a look at the figures.

I don't know what the minister has looked at, but the figures I'm about to cite are drawn from the NAPLAN national report for 2008, the NAPLAN national report for 2022 and the NAPLAN data tables, which from 2023 have been published online. You can check them for yourself. Those figures are not consistent with the statement the minister made to the House.

The results from the first NAPLAN test for eight-year-olds—that is, year 3 students—are published in the national report for 2008. That report gave a nationwide mean scale score for reading of 400.5 points. The national report for 2022 gave the score as 437.8 points.

But the average NAPLAN score for year 3 reading in 2025 was 402.2 points. In other words, the biggest single drop in eight-year-old reading scores came between 2022 and 2025, after the current Labor government came to power. On its face, that's a 35-point drop from the historic highs achieved under the coalition.

Labor has presided over the biggest single drop in NAPLAN reading scores for eight-year-olds since testing started 18 years ago, and it directly contradicts the minister's point. In fairness to the minister, I will say this: unfortunately, since Labor came to office, the reporting of NAPLAN results has changed, so the results from 2023 onwards are not directly comparable to pre-2022.

But the minister has chosen to make that comparison, so it's for him to explain. Maybe there's an adjustment he's chosen to make. What we can say is, if you compare apples with apples and look only at the publicly available, post-2022 data for reading for eight-year-olds, we see this: in 2023, the average NAPLAN score was 404.6; in 2024, it falls to 404.1; and in 2025 it falls again, to 402.2.

That's a year-on-year decline under this Labor government based on publicly available data. It's not consistent with the impression I had from the minister's statement. This discrepancy is for the minister to explain.

Let's look at some other data. The accepted international comparison on reading is not a comparison that's done in year 3. It's for 15-year-olds.

It's done under the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. The most recent PISA assessment for which we have data is 2022. That data is published by the OECD in a document called PISA 2022 results: the state of learning and equity in education.

The results show Australia's average reading score has dropped significantly, from 528 in 2000 to 498 in 2022. Again, it directly contradicts the tenor of the minister's speech. Now, I don't delight in these figures, and I hope the next PISA figures improve when they're released later in the year.

But pretending that reading is on track when the data says otherwise doesn't help anyone. Saying that reading is now ahead of where it was 20 years ago simply contradicts the evidence. Maybe the minister has had the benefit of some ACARA analysis which is not publicly available, and, if so, I encourage him to table such reports.

But it's not okay to pretend our children's reading standards are adequate. They aren't. You can see it in the data, and you'll know it by talking to teachers.

Second is school attendance rates. The minister spoke about school attendance rates. There are two things to say about that.

First, the minister made an extraordinary comparison between attendance rates in 2015 and attendance rates in 2022. Now, 2022 was the year when students started to go back to school after the first and second waves of COVID school closures in 2020 and 2021. Also, 2022 was the year of the omicron wave.

By April 2022, the ABS data series on household impacts of COVID-19 showed: … one in three (33%) Australian households with children aged under 18 years reported their children's school, preschool or childcare attendance was impacted by COVID-19 … Of course attendance rates were lower that year, and of course behaviour has changed since COVID. Anecdotally, parents will tell you that before the pandemic it was acceptable to soldier on, but post COVID they're far more likely to keep kids home when they're sick.

And, anecdotally, you only need to look at a newspaper to see that many parents are now dealing with the phenomenon of school refusal that kicked off in earnest during the COVID pandemic. The minister has tried to head this off by saying that it can't just be attributed to COVID. He didn't give any figures or reasons as to why.

It's for the minister to explain whether the change in attendance rates is reflective of changes to our education system or whether it's reflective of changes to our society as a result of the pandemic. Either way, it doesn't help him. This brings me to my second point about school attendance rates.

Let me give some figures. According to the ACARA figures on school attendance, between 2016 and 2021 attendance rates never dropped below 90.9 per cent. That was the time the coalition was in power.

In 2022, when Labor came to power, school attendance rates dropped to 86.5 per cent. The minister said as much himself. But since then they have never gone above 89 per cent.

Let me put that in a different way. On school attendance, the coalition's worst year was better than Labor's best year. For those who care about these things, you'll know that the minister is actually using the wrong measure.

School attendance rates are about the number of days attended as a proportion of the overall possible days. It means you measure illness and injury as school nonattendance, and it means you're measuring days not students. The better measure is actual attendance level, which is a measure of the proportion of students whose attendance is over 90 per cent.

On attendance level, the difference is stark. Between 2016 and 2021, under the coalition, attendance levels never dropped below 71.2 per cent. In 2022, when Labor came to power, attendance levels dropped to 49.9 per cent—less than half.

Since then, it's never gone higher than 62.1 per cent. That's an eight-point gap, and it's from the minister's own agency, ACARA. The point is this: on either measure of school attendance, over the last 10 years, the coalition's worst year is better than Labor's best year.

Again, on either measure of school attendance, the coalition's worst year is better than Labor's best year. That brings me to the point about school retention rates, which the minister sometimes refers to as school completion rates. This will make uncomfortable reading for those opposite.

Again, this is based on publicly available data. Maybe the minister is privy to some sort of private analysis which can't be accessed by parents, but I'm not, and I've looked at the ABS data on schools. The minister clearly has too because, when he stood up in parliament on 5 March this year, he had this to say: Information out this morning shows that the number of kids finishing high school is going back up.

The number of boys finishing high school is going up, the number of girls finishing high school is going up, the number of kids at Catholic and independent schools finishing high school is going up, and the number of kids at public schools finishing high school is going up. This is a big deal because, basically, for the last decade it's been going in the opposite direction.

It's been going down and down, and now it's starting to turn around. Now, at the time, the minister went on to suggest that this was directly linked to the election of the coalition in 2013 and repeated some incorrect statements about funding for public schools. He said: That's when all of this started.

We're still dealing with the consequences of it But the problem with that statement is it's not consistent with the data. It's simply not correct. In the last 15 years, in every year that the Labor government was in power, high school years 7 to 12 retention rates never went above 83 per cent.

Under the coalition, it never went below 83 per cent. High school retention rates through to year 12 jumped massively in 2014, the first full year when the coalition was in power, and then it fell in 2022, the year Labor came to power. In fact, high school retention under every year of the Albanese government has been lower than high school retention in every year of the former coalition government.

On school completion, in the last 15 years, the coalition's worst year was better than Labor's best year. Let me say that again: the coalition's worst year was better than Labor's best year. This statement is meant to be about the progress under the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, so let me turn to that issue.

The Prime Minister made a statement to the Australian people on 24 March last year, one year and one day ago. On 24 March 2025, the Prime Minister looked all Australians in the eye and said this: The Albanese Labor government has now reached agreements with every state and territory to put all public schools in the country on a path to full and fair funding. This wasn't true then and it isn't true today.

For most people, when they hear the government say we're on a path to increased funding, they'd probably think, 'Okay, great, they've landed a deal, the terms have been settled and the funding will now increase.' But that wasn't the case on 24 March last year because there wasn't an agreed pathway to lift funding for every jurisdiction. What we had instead was a thing called a heads of agreement.

People in business with experience know that there's a big difference between a heads of agreement and an actual agreement. A heads of agreement is a statement of intent. It's an aspiration.

It's a wish. It's not a binding obligation. It's not a clear and concrete mechanism.

You don't need to take my word for it. You can check for yourself. It's published on the education department's website.

The document's there in black and white. It's called Heads of Agreement for the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement—Full and Fair Funding 2025-2034. Just yesterday, out of curiosity, I typed the words 'heads of agreement' into a search engine to see how it was described and this is what came back: 'A heads of agreement is a non-binding preliminary document outlining key terms of a proposed transaction, acting as a framework for final negotiations.

Often called a memorandum of understanding or letter of intent, it helps parties secure commitment, conduct due diligence and agree on core price and terms before incurring full legal costs.' That's actually not a bad description of what was in place for every jurisdiction a year and a day ago. There was a commitment, an aspiration, but only some had concrete mechanisms to actually increase school funding.

The heads of agreement is quite explicit about these things. It's right there in the document itself, in clause 78. That clause says that a state or territory does not get the increase in Commonwealth funding unless the states land a bilateral agreement with the government.

A year ago, Western Australia and Victoria were yet to sign a bilateral. The bilateral agreement with Labor in Western Australia wasn't signed until 27 June, after the last election and three months after the Prime Minister's announcement. The so-called bilateral agreement with Labor in Victoria, which I'll come back to in a second, wasn't signed until 8 December 2025 and expires at the end of this year.

I'll come back to that. But the first point to be made in relation to this progress report is that when the Prime Minister looked Australians in the eye and told them that every state and territory was on a pathway to increased funding, it simply wasn't true. For two jurisdictions, all we had was a statement of intent, and you can't pay for education with intent.

If he wanted to be truthful with the Australian people, what the Prime Minister should have said on 24 March last year was that the Albanese Labor government has now reached a non-binding preliminary agreement with Victoria and Western Australia for a proposed potential increase to funding for schools to act as a framework for future negotiations. But it's not a very compelling election pitch, is it?

It would have been truthful, though, because that's actually what happened. The truth is that the Prime Minister was desperate to stand up in front of the Australian people and announce a deal on school funding before the election. That brings me to the second point: the ongoing failure in Victoria.

There are 667,440 schoolchildren in government schools in Victoria, and, as of today, the Allan Labor government and the Albanese Labor government have failed to land any pathway for increased funding for those kids. The promise of a pathway to increased funding simply hasn't come true for Victoria. As of today, there is no bilateral agreement which lifts funding in Victorian government schools to the full schooling resource standard.

Victoria is the only jurisdiction where this applies. It's an embarrassment. In fact—if you can believe it, Deputy Speaker Chesters—out of desperation last year, Labor was so desperate to land any sort of agreement with Victoria that they signed a stopgap funding measure and then pretended they'd sealed the deal.

Let's be clear about that stopgap measure. First, unlike in every other jurisdiction, which have pathways and funding certainty out to 2034, it expires at the end of this year. Second, unlike in every other jurisdiction, it doesn't lift school funding.

In other words, the Prime Minister's promised funding increase still hasn't materialised. These agreements are meant to cover the 10-year period from 2025 to 2034, but, for Victoria, the first two years of that 10-year period are gone, with nothing to show for it. Victorian schoolkids won't get back that lost time.

Let's talk about the quantum. The way we measure these things is through what's called the schooling resource standard, or the SRS. If you put the Northern Territory to one side, as the Prime Minister himself has done, in recognition of its unique challenges, then, thanks to the Allan and Albanese Labor governments, Victorian government schools now have the lowest funding in the entire country.

Let me say that again. If you put the Northern Territory to one side, Victorian government schools are the lowest funded in the entire country, thanks to the Allan and Albanese Labor governments. Don't just take my word for it; let's do the numbers.

In 2026, Victorian government schools will receive 90.43 per cent of the schooling resource standard from the Allan and Albanese Labor governments. That's lower than in New South Wales, it's lower than in Queensland, it's lower than in Western Australia, it's lower than in the ACT, it's lower than in Tasmania and it's lower than in South Australia—and it is entirely the fault of the Allan and Albanese Labor governments.

And there's no pathway forward. There is no agreed funding contribution for 2027, 2028, 2029 or any of the years up to 2034. It's an abject failure to make a deal.

For Victoria's sake, I hope that they land a deal quickly, because, at some point later this year, the Victorian government will go into caretaker mode. When that happens, there'll be no prospect of a deal until after the election, and that will just prolong the failure. Of course, if they do manage to land a deal before the election, Victorians will have every right to be cynical.

They will see a funding announcement land just before voters go to the polls and say: 'Where was the urgency before? Is this anything more than a cynical pre-election stunt? Why did my children spend two years being left behind, relative to other states?' Let's talk about what this means in real dollar terms, because the figures are also published.

According to the Department of Education—and leaving aside the loadings—the estimated SRS funding amounts in 2026 are $14,467 for primary students and $18,180 for secondary students. What does this mean for Victoria? Based on the current contributions, it means that primary school children in Victorian government schools get $13,082 and highschoolers get $16,440.

In 2026, for highschoolers, that's around $860 less per student than in New South Wales, around $900 less per student than in South Australia and around $1,740 less per student than in Tasmania—and there's currently no plan to increase it. This is the penalty of the Jacinta Allan Labor government. The 'education state', under Labor, needs to learn some lessons.

So let's do the maths. As I said, there are 667,440 children in Victorian government schools, with a gap of around $860 per student compared with New South Wales. That's a shortfall of $574 million to bring Victoria into line with New South Wales for 2026.

Maybe, just maybe, if Victorian Labor hadn't paid $600 million for another country to host the Commonwealth Games, they wouldn't be falling behind under the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement. Maybe if the government hadn't funnelled $15 billion of taxpayer money to the CFMEU, kids in Victoria would have a better education. This is an example of the CFMEU-Labor cartel in action, and it leaves our children behind.

Labor has run Victoria's economy into the sand, and it's now the schoolchildren who will bear the consequences. Shame! This was a disappointing statement from the minister.

As the minister knows, I acknowledge when he adopts sensible policies. Often these policies have been longstanding positions of the coalition. It's why I've acknowledged the minister's recent moves to endorse explicit teaching, phonics and the need for knowledge-rich curricula in schools.

These are longstanding positions on my side of politics. The reason they're longstanding is that the evidence supports them, and I want to give credit to the minister for recognising that. It's also why I welcome the minister's recent call for the curriculum to teach Australian values in school, which he's defined as freedom, democracy, the rule of law and a fair go—and I agree with that.

It's almost exactly in line with the policy that we put forward in government back in 2005 in the National framework for values education in Australian schools, which said: These shared values such as respect and 'fair go' are part of Australia's common democratic way of life, which includes equality, freedom and the rule of law. That this has now become a bipartisan policy position says something powerful and unifying about the direction our country is headed in.

It's why I welcome the minister's decision to collaborate on the issue of boys education and refer these matters to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education. These are all good things, but it gives me no pleasure to stand up and point out where things aren't going well. I hate it, and so do parents.

On this side of the House, we want all schoolchildren to do well, and, rather than distorted figures, we need a proper and honest discussion about how to get there. This should have been a statement that was upfront about what's really been happening in Victoria. It should have been a statement that gave an accurate picture of the achievement of our schoolchildren.

It should have been a statement that gave clarity around the Thriving Kids program. It wasn't, and I find it sad and disappointing to be standing here having to hold the minister to account for inaccuracies and missed opportunities. I thank the House.