MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
Senator DUNIAM (Tasmania—Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) (18:27): I seek leave, given time has expired on the debate for this matter, to make a contribution of up to 10 minutes on the same matter. Leave granted. Senator DUNIAM: I wasn't going to make a contribution on this debate until I heard the last one.
I want to bring a different perspective to this debate, and that is one as a parent. As a parent of three boys in the education system, I'm interested in their results. But, listening to what I just heard there, it makes me think that the only problem is funding, the only problem is money and the more money you chuck at education the better the results!
Well, I've been looking at the stats. I had a very short period of time as the shadow minister for education, and I appreciated very much the good working relationship with the minister, Minister Clare, who was a very decent man and very open to hearing different perspectives about how things could be done. At the end of the day, what is in the national interest?
Good educational outcomes. If I can find a single person in this chamber that doesn't want better educational outcomes, I'd love to know who they are. I haven't heard a single Labor person stand up and say, 'Job done,' as was asserted by the last speaker.
Everyone wants things to improve. But, if you take the roadmap that was just laid out for us, the answer is just, 'More money; throw more cash at it.' I would love to go back and have a look at the last senator's talking points and see whether indeed students were mentioned once in that contribution, whether parents' concerns for their children's educational outcomes were mentioned once.
No; it was all about teachers. Teachers were the only thing here. In fact, our education system is built to educate our young, to get better outcomes for their futures and for this country.
But that doesn't matter! That was not referenced once in the debate contribution just made. On funding, I have some data in front of me here from ACARA.
Maybe we believe this data. Maybe we don't. But, if you look at funding per student in 2008-09, in aggregate terms across Australian state and territory government expenditure in 2008-09, $11,260 was spent per student per annum.
We fast-forward to 2022-23, and that same figure is $21,169, nearly double the amount of money going in per student per year. But the measure of success in education is how well our students are doing. That's what we want.
We want them to be able to read better, write better and add up—do all of the basic things that we need our students to do. Again, this was not referenced in the last contribution. You only have to look at the OECD world rankings, the PISA rankings, since the early 2000s.
In the area of reading, we've slipped from 528 to 498. In the same period, when it comes to mathematics, we've gone from 524 to 487. In science, we've gone a similar way.
So more money is going in, but outcomes are decreasing. That is not a good outcome. I have three boys who actually are in schools now, and they've done their public schooling as well.
I want public schools to thrive. I'd love public school teachers to go to school and be happy and have great outcomes for their students. I want that too.
But I don't believe one bit of what has just been said by the previous speaker. It is not how it has been described. There was no reference to the curriculum, a curriculum which is jam-packed full of crap students will never actually benefit from.
It is as long as War and Peace. It is as long as the Corporations Act as well. And we expect teachers to get through this and educate their students.
What about the ridiculous cross-curriculum priorities? No complaints about them! But how on earth are we teaching Indigenous heritage in maths?
We should teach maths when we're teaching maths. We should teach sustainability in science. When we're burdening teachers with this sort of rubbish, we're not going to get the outcomes we need.
No matter how much money this mob down the end here want to push out of the printing press, it's not going to change the outcomes. If you keep going this way, we are going to keep getting the same outcomes, and we are going to fall behind other countries. The answer that we've just got to push more money into the system is not going to work.
We've doubled the money. Senator Allman-Payne interjecting— Senator DUNIAM: Whatever construal is going on down the end there, I don't know, but again I'll just make the point that we've almost doubled the money going into education per student per year—$11,000 to $21,000 per student per year—and our educational outcomes are heading south. This is not a Labor problem.
It's not a Liberal problem. I'm happy to say that. We need to do better, but the Greens down the end of the chamber there blame everyone else and never step up with a practical solution to any of these issues.
Senator McKim: I was the education minister in Tasmania for four years. Senator DUNIAM: Not once did they mention students. Again, these are the people that should be at the heart of our decision-making process.
But, no, we can only take the teachers' perspectives. How about we look at how we educate teachers as well? Senator McKim: You were working in the same building, mate.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Ghosh ): I'm sorry to interrupt you, Senator Duniam. Senator McKim, please come to order. Senator McKim: Senator Duniam was working in the same building when I was the minister— Senator DUNIAM: Thank you for that prompt!
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator McKim, Senator Duniam and all senators in the chamber, Senator Duniam is entitled— Senator McKim: and our results were very good. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator McKim! Senator Duniam.
Senator DUNIAM: Acting Deputy President, I appreciate that protection, but I have been prompted on something by Senator McKim, and it reminds me. I haven't gone back to have a look at the results of that time. I'm sure they were excellent.
Tasmania is an excellent state, and there are many good things. There are excellent teachers there, right across the education system, and very good students too. But I will recall that the Greens minister for education, the Hon.
Nick McKim MP, as he was back then, now senator for Tasmania, tried to close 20 schools. It was one of his first acts in the Labor-Green government. He sought to close 20 schools.
I don't know what that would have done for class sizes or for funding per student or for educational outcomes, especially if you lived in the regions. Hang on—we forget about things at the city limits of Hobart or Launceston! If you live in the country, don't worry about those schools!
It was 20 schools he sought to close, so I am grateful that he jogged my memory about the Greens' approach to education policy in this country. If we want to talk about more money going in, you had proof positive when you had a Greens minister for education sitting at the cabinet table, along with his colleagues, deciding to take money out of education. Proof positive.
We've actually got a test case of what the Greens' education policy looks like. Senator Allman-Payne: They're struggling under yours. Senator DUNIAM: I don't know whether teachers were consulted on that.
Senator Allman-Payne might want to check with her colleague what teachers thought about this particular policy approach by the Greens in government in Tasmania, but I don't reckon teachers thought it was a good idea. In fact, I recall that there was some beautiful TV coverage— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Grogan. Senator Grogan: Acting Deputy President, there has been a fair deal of respect in this chamber this afternoon that appears to have declined significantly with our Greens colleagues on this contribution.
It's disorder. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Yes. I understand the point of order; it relates to order itself.
Let me make this point: there is obviously a conversation happening at the back of the chamber. Senators McKenzie, Allman-Payne and McKim, if you'd like to continue that conversation in the parlour, I invite you to do so. Senator Duniam, please continue your remarks.
Senator McKenzie: We have a parlour? Senator DUNIAM: Thank you, Acting Deputy President. I'd also like to know where this parlour is!
But, while we're on this very important topic of educational outcomes, I remember the TV news coverage of this newly minted minister turning up to address a school community about these impending school closures he'd just signed off on and these placards and protesters outside telling him that the Greens' approach to education policy was wrong. Of course, that is what we could expect moving forward if they continue to operate the way they do and have any influence over Labor policy when it comes to education.
I urge against that. Again, at the very end of all of this, while the Better and Fairer Schools Agreementsprogress report is interesting reading, I think there is one thing every senator in this chamber could agree on: there is more work to be done. It is not a job done.
As I said, I have not heard anyone who's made a contribution to this debate, except for the Greens, say that there has been a claim that the job is done. We always need to be improving. We always need to be stepping up.
We always need to be finding innovative ways to make sure that we can educate our youngest and brightest minds to be the best that they possibly can be. At the end of the day, we're not just competing against ourselves; we are competing against other countries and their education systems to get investment here, and to get innovation, so that we have jobs and we can sustain ourselves.
This is why this is so important. But I reject, totally and utterly, that this is as simple as just pumping more money into the system, when more money is going in than ever before. It is about how we spend it.
It is about how we support teachers through better education for them. It is about how we develop and structure our curriculum and declutter it of the stuff that doesn't need to be there now. While there are some promising results in there, there is a lot more to be done.
I thank the Senate for their indulgence this evening. Question agreed to.