ABC 891

E&OE................................

Presenter: Minister, it appears South Australians have been penalised for doing the right thing?

Senator Penny Wong:  Oh look I don’t think that’s right.  I mean let’s get back to what we’re trying to do here.  Our current funding system for schools isn’t delivering the outcomes we need.  It’s not delivering the outcomes in terms of fairness, that is people being able to achieve their best.  And it’s not delivering outcomes in terms of you know educational attainment.  So we need to fix it and the way we are going about fixing it is picking up the  recommendations of David Gonski, which are basically about making sure we resource all our children, resource all our classrooms  and teachers for the future.

Presenter: If this was distributed though on a per capita basis how much would we get?

Wong:  Oh look I haven’t looked at that because that’s not the way that we would want to do it.  And you know South Australians would understand that because if GST were distributed on a per capita basis we would lose about a billion dollars a year.

Presenter: OK so if it were distributed on the same basis as the GST would we get more?

Wong:  Oh look the whole way in which we’re funding this, and this is the biggest investment proposed in schools in forty years, is to say lets lift everyone across the country no matter where they are.

Presenter: Especially in Western Sydney?

Wong:  No that is… everyone across the country.

Presenter: Minister, we would like an answer on this one because it’s got a lot of publicity in the last day or two.  Perhaps you can answer your voters, because you are a South Australian Senator, why will people in Western Sydney get more of this money than people in Adelaide?

Wong:  People who have schools which are further away from the national standard will get more money to lift them to the national standard and if South Australia is receiving less it is because most of our schools, not all of them because we still have disadvantaged schools in SA, and we’re still demonstrating some $600 million investment in South Australia, will obviously have less distance to travel but I think any implication in your question that we’ve somehow skewed this because of particular electorates is really false, it’s also misunderstanding what we’re trying to achieve which is a standard across the country for every primary school student and every high school student.

Presenter:  Chris Pyne, Shadow Education Minister he is a Federal Liberal MP for Sturt.  Chris Pyne, will a Coalition Government if elected honour this current funding model?

Hon Christopher Pyne MP:  Well only if it’s adopted by the Council of Australian Governments on Friday, Matthew, and the truth is that the Jay Weatherill will have to search his conscience about whether he thinks this is a good deal for South Australia to sign up to.  I mean if this was based on need and disadvantage, which is what the Prime Minister has said yesterday, well South Australia was at the bottom of the table for student outcomes in literacy and numeracy and comprehension.  So if this was based on lifting the standard of students and getting better outcomes for the students South Australia would be the big winner, not the big loser from the new school funding model.

Presenter:  But statistically according to Jay Weatherill, and I’m assuming this is the funding model here as described by Penny Wong and you’re not calling her a liar, statistically irrespective of you know across the board outcomes in terms of education, this is pitched at those in the lower socio economic group who are really struggling, disadvantaged schools, and it would appear we have less of those.

Pyne:  No you see we know for a fact that South Australia has a high level of disadvantage from every single objective analysis that’s done.  We also know that South Australia’s standards have slipped dramatically over the last ten years and we’re now at the bottom of the table.  The only state that’s doing worse than us is Tasmania in terms of school outcomes for students.  Therefore if you are putting a new funding model together why wouldn’t you have South Australia be the winner?

Presenter:  Please Christopher Pyne. Finance Minister Penny Wong, can you just clarify are you allocating the money because less money is spent in New South Wales than in South Australia or on results, that is their results are poorer in New South Wales than South Australia?

Wong:  Well it’s actually about a standard per student, so about $9,720 for primary school and just over $12,000 for a high school student with additional loadings which are Commonwealth funded for disadvantage, so for children who are obviously from more disadvantaged backgrounds.

Presenter:  So it’s about money, it’s not about results?

Wong:  It’s about who has invested and how much more we need to invest around the country to ensure every child, every classroom gets the resourcing it needs…

Presenter:  But if a state like South Australia is spending more than New South Wales per child, but isn’t getting the results, shouldn’t you be looking at that.  There is something very wrong there is there not?

Wong:  That’s a good point and that’s why part of this plan is to ask the States to sign up to the national plan for school improvement which is looking at a range of things which include making sure that we have transparency; making sure that principals have more capacity to do the right thing in their schools, so we are linking these to improvements.  But I think we shouldn’t run away from this very simple fact, Australia’s education system across the board is slipping down international tables.  We have to make sure our kids get the best start, the best opportunity to compete in the Asian centre and you can’t do that unless you’re prepared to resource them.

Presenter:  Minister thank you for talking to us.

Wong:  Good to speak with you.

ENDS.