ABC Richard Glover

SUBJECTS: School funding E&OE................................ Richard Glover:…of Education, what do you make of the Prime Minister’s plan? Hon Christopher Pyne MP: Well, the Prime Minister’s plan Richard is a smoke and mirrors trick because essentially over the twelve months the Government has announced $11 billion worth of cuts to education, apprenticeships and traineeships, universities the laptops in schools program the redirection of the current national partnerships programs over the coming years and they’ve announced $9.4 billion of new spending on schools so they’re in fact making a $1.6 billion saving in education overall from the Federal Government. It is a shocking thing that David Gonski’s Report proposed $6.5 billion of new spending each year, this Government’s response is a $1.6 billion saving in education. The shortfall needs to be made up for by the States. Overall, even if the $14.5 billion is delivered Richard, it’s $600 million more a year than the sector expected, all of which has to come from the States so I describe this as a “Conski” not a Gonski” yesterday and that’s the truth. Glover: I’ll get David Bradbury maybe to do battle with you over the figures. Can I get you though on the philosophy of Gonski, this idea that the funding model gives the same amount of money to every child and then you kind of load up each child for disability and for regional problems or whatever or disadvantage generally. That’s a kind of good idea, isn’t it? Pyne: Well we are attracted to the idea of loadings per student based on either economic disadvantage, indigeneity, disability or non-English speaking background students especially as it’s supposed to be sector blind, in other words whether your child is at a government or non-government school, it would attract those loadings at the same levels whereas at the moment that’s not the case. That is an attractive proposition and that was our policy at the last Federal election through our education card. In terms of the base funding well we have a needs based funding model now. It’s based on the objective data of the Australian Bureau of Statistics and it’s paid from the Commonwealth to non-Government schools and to the States top that up with their own support based on what their budgets entitle them to do. So Western Australia for example is well past the base, well past the suggestion from David Gonski , New South Wales is well under, so that will determine in many cases, how people react at the Council of Australian Governments on Friday. Glover: Okay so that’s fair enough , so someone today on radio gave me the analogy of the AFL draw, if you’re at the top of the league draw you don’t expect to get the first pick of the young players and we’re all Australians, the West Australians have just got to cope with that, don’t they? Pyne: Well nor do you expect to be penalised for the decisions that your government or previous governments have made. Now State Governments the responsibility for running their own schools. The Federal Government doesn’t run any schools. We don’t employ any teachers, the State Governments do. Now if New South Wales, Western Australia, Tasmania, whomever wants to invest in education, that’s a matter for the State Governments to determine and the State voters to decide whether they like their politics, their policies at each State election. Glover: Okay, so it’s a fair enough principle for a Federal government to say we’re all Australians so we’re going to look at nationally where the biggest disadvantage is and help those kids. Pyne: Well there isn’t a policy on the table for the national Government to nationalise all State schools. Now if the national government was responsible for all State schools I think you would have a very valid point but the problem is that this Federal Government doesn’t have any capacity to control State schools and make decisions for them and neither should we. That is a unique area of State responsibility. Glover: David Bradbury? David Bradbury: Well talk about smoke and mirrors we’ve just heard it all. I’ve heard all of those figures. I can go through and rebut them one by one, but to be clear about this, we are not proposing cuts in funding and I know that Christopher would have you believe that the system we have in place is perfect, that it is delivering the land of milk and honey, the reality is that is not the case and that’s what David Gonski and it wasn’t just David Gonski but a raft of other eminent individuals, determined that the current system is broken and I’ll give you one instance in which it is broken and something that Christopher won’t talk about because it reflects both on the general Liberal approach to slash and burn and education but also one of the fundamental flaws in the current system and that is what we’ve seen in recent times, particularly here in New South Wales, massive cuts to education from the O’Farrell Government. Now that’s bad in its own right but what Christopher won’t tell you is the benchmark against which Federal contributions of funding are indexed are actually linked to what the States are spending so when … (inaudible) … if he were fair dinkum, he would give a commitment to reinstate what he alleges are the cuts. Glover: Okay, you have a go Christopher then we’ll move on, on university funding. Pyne: Well Richard, it is extraordinary that the Government is robbing Peter to pay Paul. They are robbing future aspirations for students to go to university in order to give the Prime Minister an election plan, not an education plan. Glover: Is this part of the so called class warfare of the Prime Minister? One suggestion in one column piece in the Herald was that this is part of a general move by the Gillard government to seizing if everyone goes to school, working class kids go to school but middle class kids go to university so we’ll sting the middle class in favour of the school age population just as their rhetoric around superannuation involved that, just as other things have involved that. Is the Prime Minister, I go to what Simon Crean was saying, moving away from the great tradition of Hawke and Keating of dealing with Australians as if we were all aspirational and instead trying to divide us. David? Bradbury: Look I certainly reject any suggestion that that’s what it is at play in relation to the education so that they can all realise their potential and make the contribution that our country requires of them in the future. On superannuation, I hear a lot of the debate about whether or not this is an aberration from the Hawke/Keating tradition. I was talking to a former Minister of that Government that said it’s interesting to hear people wax lyrical the great reforms of our Government, the very things they now praise are the things they were trying to chase us out of office at the time. Can I make this point? The equity that is being targeted by the reforms that we have in relation to superannuation both at the bottom and at the top; they are the sorts of things that would be absolutely in sync with the sorts of reforms that the Hawke and Keating Government introduced. If you went back to when Capital Gains …. Glover: What, would they have been described in such terms the treasurer for instance often likes to use pretty laden language about the rich people the Gina Rinehart’s etc. Bradbury: Well look I think if you go back and you have a look at some of the debate say around Capital Gains Tax, you know, I was quite young back then but the debates around Capital Gains Tax, it was all about wealthy people getting a tax break on capital gains and being required to make a contribution. Now there is an equity consideration that underpins these sorts of public policy debates. We think it’s absolutely essential. I think it is extraordinary that we get accused of class warfare at a time when the question of equity really underpins what we’ve done for low income earners in relation to superannuation and this all happens at a time when Tony Abbott is about to jack up taxes on the people who can least afford it. To me that’s class warfare. Glover: You’ve seen the Hawke Government and the Keating Government does this Government have a different attitude to what could be called aspirational voters? Heather Ridout: Well I think they do. I mean I don’t mind saying I’ve described them as being much more orthodox Labor in their approach to these things but my feeling and I don’t want to get involved in some political debate, equity is a basic fundamental tenet of good public policy. It doesn’t have to be presented through the prism of class warfare or whatever. It is a fundamental shaper of good public policy whether it’s on tax, whether it’s on superannuation, whether it’s on education. Australia’s got to, we go back to the days Capital Gains Tax was introduced, that was the late eighties the Asprey Reform, late coming but since then you know, something like 2.5 million Australians have investment properties. Most of them have a share portfolio through their super fund I mean and I’m a Chair of Australian Super, a wonderful fund and I tell you people own those savings accounts. They know they’re there and they own them and there is this aspirational thing which was basically geed up by your predecessors in Government in great partner support following that fight like Howard and Costello etc. I am, I mean a great believer in equity. This education debate is about having a terrific strong safety net, whether it’s good public pensions, whether its good public education, good public health and then we will get on with it and you can frame a good debate on super. You don’t have to go to those ‘poor little darlings’ you can frame a good debate there with equity with national savings, good economic measurement. I must say, everywhere I go around the world and my old organisation, was dragged kicking and screaming into superannuation. Glover: This is the Australian.. Ridout: Yeah, yeah, in the old MTI when it first started but I tell you we are the envy of the developed world with demographic problems because we have to find contribution rather than have to fund benefit pension schemes and we’re in much better shape, not perfect shape, but it’s important. Glover: Christopher Pyne some like on the Liberal side and some like Simon Crean on the Labor side have accused the Prime Minister of class warfare over things like super but you could argue it’s absolutely within the Labor tradition to care about egalitarianism in fact, it’s in the Australian tradition. Pyne: Well certainly within the Labor Party tradition to try and tax people to fill up their revenue black hole because they keep spending money like a drunken sailor in a Port Adelaide bar. (inaudible)..issues the latest victim and the reason why this class warfare on superannuation is not working is that because people realise in spite of the fact that the Government is coming for people over 60 with incomes of $100,000 or more today, they will come for their own super tomorrow. So they know they are coming for their neighbour today but they will come for them tomorrow and if Labor gets re-elected, as sure as night follows day they will need more revenue, they will need to find more ways to raise it and superannuation will be the next place that they continue to extend the reach of government taxation. Glover: Okay, but the argument would be ….(inaudible) … but is a pretty basic idea, isn’t it? Pyne: The reason why class warfare doesn’t work in Australia Richard is that we are a classless society and that’s why so many people from the UK have moved to Australia over the decades because they wanted to leave a society that was based on class and come to one that wasn’t. So for Labor to try and re-breathe life back into class warfare is a really bad act on their part and that’s why the public aren’t responding. Glover: Well we’re going to go and visit the Old Country in just a second, courtesy of the whole debate over Margaret Thatcher. Political forum here on 702 ABC Sydney, with David Bradbury, Christopher Pyne and Heather Ridout. Let’s check the traffic. Glover: Yeah a big debate over whether people should be protesting at this moment with, ahead of the funeral of Margaret Thatcher on Wednesday. Glover: David Bradbury is the Member for Lindsay and the Assistant Treasurer seat of course based around Penrith. Heather Ridout the Reserve Bank Board member and former head of the Australian Industry Group and Christopher Pyne, the Member for Sturt and the Shadow Minister for Education. And some unrest in London overnight as protestors marked the death of Margaret Thatcher. Protestors sent the old Wizard of Oz track “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead” to number two spot on the hit parade. While police say they will not stop people peacefully protesting along the route of Wednesday’s funeral procession one British Bishop says the £10 million event is asking for trouble as it will be hijacked by protestors it does sound as if it’s going to be pretty dramatic. Are people wrong to protest or should we just accept that Mrs T generated strong views. Christopher Pyne? Pyne: Well, in a democracy like ours and like Great Britain’s, people are perfectly entitled to demonstrate to show their views, especially if they’re strongly held and if people want to protest about Margaret Thatcher, well then good luck to them. Really, at the end of the day I’m a great fan of Margaret Thatcher I think she played a (inaudible) in a democracy, it’s up to them. Glover: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead is a bit sick though David Bradbury, do you agree? Bradbury: Look, I certainly wouldn’t be out there protesting at a person’s funeral and that’s just a matter of personal choice. I think as time passes there will be, there already have been, many people seeking to add their voice to the ongoing debates about Margaret Thatcher’s time in Office and no doubt history will give people plenty of opportunities moving forward. I don’t think you need to turn up to a funeral to protest. Glover: Do you go along with that? Ridout: When I, I think it’s unedifying. I actually had a chat to Margaret Thatcher. I used to flat with her daughter when she was in Australia and she’d ring up just like any other mother and want to talk to her daughter so brush with fame I suppose. Glover: You flatted with her daughter? Ridout: Yeah for a while, you know a short time but yeah, it was quite interesting really. To me, I think these protests are a bit of a lightning rod for everything that’s happening in Britain. I mean unlike Australia, they’ve got high unemployment , they’ve got a tough economy which is basically in recession, they’ve got fiscal problems times ten compared to us so a lot of people protesting wouldn’t have been alive when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister so it’s a lightning rod for all of that. That said, I think she was a very divisive figure but she did a lot of things that had to be done for Britain that were hard so she left a tough legacy. Glover: Lots of people say they witnessed history by watching Black Caviar on Saturday or by seeing the first Australian win the US Masters when Adam Scott won it this morning. When just quickly in sport or in politics or something else do you feel you’ve witnessed a moment of history? David? Bradbury: I saw the Wanderers win on Friday night. Glover: I’m not sure that that’s history. Bradbury: Look in terms of politics I think the stand out day for me was my second day in Parliament and we had the National Apology to Indigenous …(recording ends) ENDS.