ABC Newsradio

SUBJECTS: Changes to school funding

E&OE………………………………………………………………………………………

Marius Benson: Christopher Pyne, good morning.

Christopher Pyne: Good morning Marius.

Benson: Do you agree at least in terms of the objective if the federal government that Australia should be in the top five of which we have slipped?

Pyne: Well of course, it used to be. I mean Australia was in the top five performers of the world for many decades. But making a promise is very easy, especially one that has to be delivered in 2013. It has resonance with Bob Hawke’s promise that no child will be living in poverty by 1990. Of course that did not happen. And the problem with the current federal government is that it doesn’t know what needs to be done in school education in order to achieve that goal. It won’t be achieved by simply spending more money that the government doesn’t have.

Benson: This spending program as you say is looking to the future, the government spending that Julia Gillard will set out today begins in 2014 and runs to 2020. Will the opposition be bound by the Labor promises?

Pyne: Well Marius we haven’t seen any detail from the Prime Minister. This is one of the great cons, one that is more of the outlandish promises of the last two years. It wants to be applauded fore essentially announcing a great hoax on Australian parents. Where is this money? Where is it going to come from? And why is money the money important priority and in fact most people will in fact tell you that the highest priority for improving school outcomes of our students is teacher quality, a robust curriculum and principal autonomy. In the last ten years, we have spent 44% more on public education and our outcomes have gone backwards. So announcing money, if there is any money, is one thing, but the more important priority is getting what we are teaching our students right and teaching them in a way that works.

Benson: Those outcomes were going backwards under the Howard government. It has been going at least since 2000 compared to the rest of the world. What were you getting wrong that you can get right next time around?

Pyne: Well Marius, I hate to add, I know this is being lost in this debate but in fact the federal government doesn’t run any schools in Australia. Every school is run by either the Catholic system, the independent school system or the public system run by the states. So blaming the Howard government or the Gillard government for school outcomes is rather missing the point.

Benson: But there was a big increase in the federal financial role with schools particularly private schools under the Howard Government.

Pyne: Marius the Federal Government has responsibility as the primary funder of non-government schools and the States have responsibility as the primary funders government schools - that’s been the case since 1963 since the Goulburn School Strike of the Catholic system. So we don’t want to get lost in caught up in the reeds here of all the mythologies that are being created by the Labor Party or the Union Movement. The truth is the Howard Government did increase spending on education, it allowed more new schools to open, it scrapped the Hawke Keating government’s “No new Schools” policy, and it created the SES funding model which is a needs based funding model based on the objective data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics that has served our schools well, served our non-government schools well, because that is our primary responsibility.

Benson: But that wasn’t at a time when our standards by world standards were slipping.

Pyne: Well, standards have slipped over the last 10 years, that’s true – in 2001 they were much higher than they are now in real terms and in relative terms and the Government prescription to that, prescription to that is to say that its all about money, money the government doesn’t have and has to show today, the Prime Minister has to prove today where is the money coming from if she does indeed announce money, how that money is going to be funded because its quite cruel that the government is saying that this policy will begin in 2020 or be in place by 2020 that’s eight years away. So, quite frankly the government is simply announcing an election policy, it’s all spin and no substance and it’s all foam and no beer as I said yesterday.

Benson: A central principle of the Gonski report and the federal government is that those with the most disadvantage are most in need of help, do you accept that broad principle?

Pyne: Well of course. That’s been the principal of funding of schools for generations and the SES funding model is based on exactly on that principle…..

Benson: And in practice that does that mean more money would go to public schools rather than private schools that disadvantage principle?

Pyne: The SES funding model is based on needs. So schools that have parents with high incomes receive vastly less than schools with parents with low incomes – that is not in dispute. Of course we support a needs based funding system but (inaudible) is creating a debate that isn’t present.

ENDS