The SPEAKER (09:31): I present report No. 14 of the Selection Committee relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and private members' business on Monday 23 March 2020. The report will be printed in the Hansard for today and the committee's determinations will appear on tomorrow's Notice Paper. Copies of the report have been placed on the table.

The report read as follows—

Report relating to the consideration of committee and delegation business and of private Members' business

1. The committee met in private session on Tuesday, 3 March 2020.

2. The Committee deliberated on items of committee and delegation business that had been notified, private Members' business items listed on the Notice Paper and notices lodged on Tuesday, 3 March 2020, and determined the order of precedence and times on Monday, 23 March 2020, as follows:

Items for House of Representatives Chamber (10.10 am to 12 noon)

PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Notices

1   Mr Perrett: To present a Bill for an Act to amend the Family Law Act 1975, and for related purposes. (Family Law Amendment (A Step Towards a Safer Family Law System) Bill 2020)

   (Notice given 2 March 2020.)

Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.

   2   Ms Steggall: To present a Bill for an Act to establish a national climate change adaptation and mitigation framework, and to establish the Climate Change Commission, and for related purposes. (Climate Change (National Framework for Adaptation and Mitigation) Bill 2020)

   (Notice given 3 March 2020.)

Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.

   3   Ms Steggall: To present a Bill for an Act to create duties to consider climate change impacts and to deal with consequential and transitional matters arising from the enactment of the Climate Change (National Framework for Adaptation and Mitigation) Act 2020, and for related purposes. (Climate Change (National Framework for Adaptation and Mitigation) (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2020)

   (Notice given 3 March 2020.)

Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.

   4   Mr Bandt: To present a Bill for an Act to establish Renew Australia and restrict activities in relation to thermal coal, and for related purposes. (Green New Deal (Quit Coal and Renew Australia) Bill 2020)

   (Notice given 3 March 2020.)

Presenter may speak to the second reading for a period not exceeding 10 minutes—pursuant to standing order 41. Debate must be adjourned pursuant to standing order 142.

   5   Ms Claydon: To move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges that:

(a) an effective public service relies on skilled public servants who have fair and equitable conditions of employment and job security;

(b) the Government's arbitrary average staffing level (ASL) policy is:

(i) driving privatisation as it forces agencies to outsource their core functions;

(ii) causing a blowout in spending on contractors, consultants and labour hire; and

(iii) leading to a hollowing out of the public service; and

(c) evidence to the Australian Public Service (APS) Review indicates that contractors cost 40 per cent more than permanent APS employees;

(2) notes that:

(a) the Australian National Audit Office Information Report No 19 of 2017-18, Australian Government Procurement Contract Reporting, indicates that in 2016‑17:

(i) Government spending on consultants was close to $700 million, up from around $380 million in 2013;

(ii) 'the big four' had 1,617 consultancy contracts worth $502.1 million since 2012‑13;

(b) more than $400 million has been spent on privatising Department of Human Services call centres, including a $135 million contract for Stellar Asia Pacific, $132 million to Concentrix Services, $120 million to Datacom Connect and $36 million to Serco Citizen Services;

(c) the National Disability Insurance Agency:

(i) recorded a 600 per cent increase in consultants and contractors over two years—from $70 million in 2016 to $430 million in 2018; and

(ii) has previously stated its staffing levels would be 10,595 staff in 2018-2019—this is now capped at 3,230 in the 2019‑20 budget with core functions such as local area coordinators outsourced; and

(d) the Government's billion dollar plan to privatise Australia's visa system will lead to increased visa costs, data and national security risks and job losses; and

(3) calls on the Government to:

(a) abolish the arbitrary and damaging ASL policy;

(b) ensure that workers doing the same job get the same pay to stop the use of labour hire from undermining the pay and conditions of existing workers; and

(c) end the secrecy on government spending on contractors, consultants and labour hire firms.

   (Notice given 15 October 2019.)

Time allotted—35 minutes.

Speech time limits—

Ms Claydon—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 7 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

6   Mr Ramsey: To move:

That this House:

(1) notes that there are:

(a) 1.3 million Australians with diabetes registered on the National Diabetes Services Scheme, with over 280 new people diagnosed and registered each day and an estimated 500,000 Australians with type 2 diabetes which remain undiagnosed; and

(b) an estimated 2 million Australians with pre-diabetes and at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the next 5-10 years;

(2) acknowledges:

(a) diabetes is a complex metabolic disorder, which if not diagnosed early and treated well may lead to serious health complications such as blindness, limb amputation, heart disease and stroke, and kidney disease; and

(b) the Government's long standing commitment to improving the treatment and care of people with diabetes through establishing the Australian National Diabetes Strategy, the roll out of continuous glucose monitors and flash monitors to children, young adults, health care card holders and women with type 1 diabetes who are pregnant, while noting the need for all type 1 diabetics to have affordable access to this important technology, as well as the recently launched Diabetes in Schools program, the KeepSight program, and programs to prevent diabetes related amputations;

(3) congratulates Australian of the Year 2020, Dr James Muecke AM for his work as an ophthalmologist working in many poor and developing nations, and for raising public awareness of the need to prevent type 2 diabetes through encouraging healthier lifestyles and healthier environments; and

(4) calls on all state and federal governments to re-commit to a refreshed Australian National Diabetes Strategy and to fund and develop a national diabetes prevention program.

   (Notice given 2 March 2020.)

Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 12 noon

Speech time limits—

Mr Ramsey—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 7 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

Items for Federation Chamber (11 am to 1.30 pm)

PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Notices

   1   Dr Leigh: To move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) charities are the most trusted sector in Australian public life; and

(b) the Government's failure to act on fundraising reform is costing Australian charities over $1 million every month;

(2) acknowledges that:

(a) Australia's current framework of fundraising regulation creates unnecessary problems for charities and organisations who rely on donations from Australian supporters;

(b) current fundraising laws no longer meet the objectives that guided the decision to regulate donations;

(c) current fundraising compliance regimes do not allow charities to cultivate donor activity and make optimal use of the resources donors provide;

(d) meeting the requirements of Australia's seven different fundraising regimes is causing needless productivity loss for thousands of Australian charities and not-for-profits;

(e) Australia's current frameworks for investigation and enforcement have failed to adapt to the contemporary fundraising environment;

(f) current fundraising laws do not meet the donor-focused expectations and requirements that should govern fundraising regulation in the 21st century; and

(g) the mechanisms that regulate third party fundraisers should ensure the culture of third party fundraisers matches community perceptions of their clients;

(3) recognises that:

(a) for several years, the charity and not-for-profit sector has been calling for reform of Australia's fundraising laws;

(b) Treasury's five year review of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, delivered on 31 May 2018, identified fundraising law as the major reporting burden on charities and recommended that fundraising law be harmonised across the country;

(c) in February 2019, the Senate Select Committee into Charitable Fundraising in the 21st Century called on Parliament to harmonise fundraising law within two years;

(d) that inquiry, chaired by Labor Senator Catryna Bilyk, delivered a unanimous report, with its recommendations being supported by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert, Liberal Senators Eric Abetz and Amanda Stoker, former Labor Senator David Smith, and former United Australia Party Senator Brian Burston; and

(e) postponing fundraising reform has had significant costs to the charity and not-for profit sector, with the committee estimating that the annual cost to charities and their donors is around $15 million; and

(4) calls on the Government to:

(a) support Australian charities by ending unnecessary waste of their precious resources;

(b) support the generous Australian donors who donate money to our charities, by ensuring their donations are not needlessly eroded by redundant administrative and regulatory costs;

(c) work with state and territory governments and the not-for-profit sector to deliver a consistent national model for regulating not-for-profit and charitable fundraising activities before February 2021; and

(d) immediately provide a public response to the recommendations made in the review panel's report, Strengthening for Purpose: Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission Legislation Review, which was provided to the Government on 31 May 2018.

   (Notice given 22 October 2019.)

Time allotted—30 minutes.

Speech time limits—

Dr Leigh—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

   2   Mr Connelly: To move:

That this House:

(1) notes the Census and Statistics Amendment (Statistical Information) Regulations 2020 tabled in Parliament on 11 February 2020 seek to ask a question in the 2021 census about whether someone has served in the Australian Defence Force (ADF); and

(2) recognises that having a census question around the ADF service will:

(a) for the first time, give a complete picture of the number of veterans in Australia; and

(b) allow governments of all levels to deliver the right services in the right areas to support veterans and their families.

   (Notice given 3 March 2020.)

Time allotted—40 minutes.

Speech time limits—

Mr Connelly—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

   3   Mr Giles: To move:

That this House:

(1) notes that the:

(a) Government has failed refugees and humanitarian entrants in Australia;

(b) Government for the past six years has failed to provide effective policy in regard to employment and settlement outcomes for refugees and humanitarian entrants;

(c) Shergold report, Investing in Refugees, Investing in Australia, was finished in February 2019, and the Government refused to release the report for 10 months;

(d) the Shergold report highlights the concerning failures of important programs such as the Adult Migrant English Program and Jobactive in supporting social and economic participation; and

(e) the Shergold report highlights the absence of an effective place-based community sponsorship policy which harnesses the collective strength of whole communities partnering with their local governments, service providers and community organisations; and

(2) recognises the:

(a) failure of the Government to provide leadership and policy coordination;

(b) contribution of state, territory and local governments, front-line service providers and community organisations in supporting refugees and humanitarian entrants; and

(c) significant social and economic contribution made by refugees and humanitarian entrants in Australia.

   (Notice given 27 November 2019.)

Time allotted—45 minutes.

Speech time limits—

Mr Giles—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 9 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

4   Mr Pearce: To move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the importance of working with our Pacific neighbours to deliver a region that is secure and sovereign; and

(2) notes:

(a) the Government's Pacific Maritime Security Program is providing the region with a modem and coordinated security capability; and

(b) the Government is delivering important infrastructure projects that will enhance their security capability—this includes:

(i) Fiji's Blackrock Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief Camp;

(ii) gifting of Guardian Class Patrol Boats; and

(iii) the joint initiative with Papua New Guinea and the Lombrum Naval Base.

   (Notice given 3 March 2020.)

Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 1.30 pm

Speech time limits—

Mr Pearce—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 7 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

Items for Federation Chamber (4.45 pm to 7.30 pm)

PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Notices—continued

   5   Mr Wilkie: To move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the trial and extradition of Mr Julian Assange are inconsistent with international law, and Australian legal standards, and contravene the individual rights and protections for which these laws and standards provide;

(b) the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment has found that Mr Assange 'showed all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma';

(c) several medical reports find that Mr Assange is in ill-health due to prolonged arbitrary confinement, and indeed the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled that the 50-week sentence of Mr Assange for bail violation, which formally ended on 21 September 2019, was punitive and disproportionate given the nature of the offence and usual sentences;

(d) Mr Assange is facing extradition for an alleged political offence, which is expressly prohibited by Article 4(1) of the Anglo-US Extradition Treaty and an abuse of power; and

(e) Mr Assange is an Australian citizen and, if convicted in the US, faces 175 years in prison, which would be in effect a death sentence;

(2) acknowledges that Mr Assange is a publisher and journalist, as recognised by his 2011 Walkley award and 17 other awards for excellence in journalism and promoting human rights, and that his charges:

(a) are a direct assault on press freedom; and

(b) threaten the protection of others who publish classified information in the public interest; and

(3) calls for Mr Assange to be allowed to return to Australia.

   (Notice given 3 March 2020.)

Time allotted—30 minutes.

Speech time limits—

Mr Wilkie—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 6 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

   6   Mr Alexander: To move:

That this House:

(1) notes that between 1 and 2 per cent of the Australian population suffers from heart failure, with this proportion higher in Indigenous communities;

(2) acknowledges with concern the rising cost of care for the growing number of Australians with heart failure, including the duration and frequency of hospitalisation, medical management and health complications;

(3) further notes that research from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare states that over 60,000 heart failure hospital admissions, amounting to over 400,000 bed days and a cost to the healthcare system of $3.9 billion are potentially preventable;

(4) welcomes the arrival of proven technologies, including trans catheter mitral valve repair, which have demonstrated transformative improvements in addressing underlying causes of heart failure including functional and degenerative mitral regurgitation;

(5) commends the support given by clinicians, advocates, carers and families of Australians suffering from heart failure;

(6) welcomes with appreciation the announcement of the Government's commitment of $220 million over 10 years for the Cardiovascular Mission under the Medical Research Fund;

(7) acknowledges the Government's commitment to address all forms of heart disease under the National Action Plan for Heart and Stroke;

(8) notes the current consideration by the Medical Services Advisory Committee of transcatheter mitral valve repair; and

(9) calls on the Government to ensure all Australians have early access to proven procedures and technologies, such as transcatheter mitral valve repair, where indicated, to address the rising healthcare burden and premature mortality represented by heart failure.

   (Notice given 3 March 2020.)

Time allotted—40 minutes.

Speech time limits—

Mr Alexander—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

   7   Mr Zappia: To move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) between 2013 and 2019 apprenticeship numbers fell by almost 140,000 from 412,787 to 276,248;

(b) in 2018-19, Australia recruited around 110,000 skilled permanent migrants and 41,220 temporary skilled visa migrants to fill skills shortages;

(c) around 730,000 people are unemployed and 1.2 million people are underemployed;

(d) government funding cuts to skills and apprenticeship training are preventing Australians from pursuing skills and trade occupations;

(e) the failure to invest in skills training will impact on future national capability; and

(f) claims are being made that there is a shortage of skilled workers for the submarine replacement program; and

(2) calls on the Government to invest in Australian skills training and reverse the loss of Australian trade and skills training opportunities.

   (Notice given 3 March 2020.)

Time allotted—40 minutes.

Speech time limits—

Mr Zappia—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

   8   Mr Ramsey: To move:

That this House:

(1) recognises the long-term business investment General Motors has made in Australia over 72 years and the impact its decision to withdraw from the Australian market will have on more than 200 Holden dealerships across Australia;

(2) asks that as General Motors terminates Holden sales in Australia that it demonstrates the respect the Holden brand deserves;

(3) acknowledges General Motors has been the beneficiary of more than $2 billion of Australian taxpayers subsidies;

(4) recognises the potential job impact on Holden dealerships who employ around 9,000 people, including sales people, service technicians, finance and insurance professionals and back office functions and calls on General Motors to ensure that adequate compensation is offered to Holden dealers around the country who have invested significant capital in showroom facilities, service and repair equipment, stock and parts and ensure also that dealerships have assistance for redundancy payments;

(5) notes that when General Motors ceased vehicle and engine production in Australia in 2017, the company committed to retaining 1000 direct staff plus 6000 people across the 200 strong national dealer network; and

(6) further recognises there are 1.6 million Holdens currently on Australia's roads and customers deserve to have confidence they will have ongoing support from General Motors in servicing and spare parts for the future.

   (Notice given 2 March 2020.)

Time allotted—40 minutes.

Speech time limits—

Mr Ramsey—5 minutes.

Other Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 8 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

Orders of the day

1 Australian Broadcasting Corporation emergency broadcasts : Resumption of debate (from 2 March 2020) on the motion of Ms Sharkie—That this House:

(1) thanks the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) for its service in delivering vital emergency broadcasts and comprehensive coverage during the catastrophic fires;

(2) acknowledges the dramatic rise in emergency broadcasts—from 256 in 2017 to 371 in 2018-19 and 673 so far this year, which have been delivered without additional funding to cover the resources which have been poured into the emergency broadcast effort;

(3) recognises that since Boxing Day, as bushfires raged across Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, the ABC handled more than 100 emergency broadcasts in a single week, receiving widespread praise for the practical, life‑saving information and the professionalism on display;

(4) notes the heavy damage sustained to ABC radio and television network infrastructure during the bushfires, particularly at Bateman's Bay in New South Wales and East Gippsland in Victoria;

(5) commends the ABC for mobilising to restore local radio stations as a priority because of their critical role in providing information to communities during disasters;

(6) acknowledges that the ABC should not be put into a position of having to economise on its emergency broadcasting due to Government funding cuts; and

(7) calls on the Government to reverse the $83.7 million paused in indexation funding as a matter of urgency.

Time allotted—remaining private Members' business time prior to 7.30 pm

Speech time limits—

All Members—5 minutes. each.

[Minimum number of proposed Members speaking = 3 x 5 mins]

The Committee determined that consideration of this should continue on a future day.

THE HON A. D. H. SMITH MP

Speaker of the House of Representatives

4 March 2020

Mr COULTON (Parkes—Minister for Regional Health, Regional Communications and Local Government) (09:34): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I'm pleased to introduce the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2020 Measures No. 1) Bill 2020, which amends the Therapeutic Goods Act.

This bill supports the delivery of the highest quality health care for Australians by:

contributing to efforts to reduce delays for Australians in accessing new medical devices by aligning the key medical device definitions in Australia with those in the European Union;

improving understanding about what is required for successful applications for marketing approval for new prescription medicines by enabling the TGA to provide early, non-binding scientific advice to industry sponsors about the safety, quality or efficacy of their products; and

encouraging innovation in the assessed listed complementary medicine category by introducing a data protection regime for clinical trial information submitted in support of applications for marketing approval for such medicines.

There are also a number of minor, unrelated measures outlined in the bill to reduce regulatory burden or make other improvements to regulation.

Main measures

This bill implements three main measures.

First, the bill amends a number of foundational medical device definitions to support the closer alignment of the regulation of medical devices in Australia with the EU framework and more broadly the global regulation of medical devices.

In particular, the bill ensures that the definition of 'medical device' expressly covers software, implants and reagents. This reduces uncertainty around the definition of medical devices as those intended to be used for the prediction or prognosis of disease; the investigation, replacement or modification of a pathological process or state; the support of conception and the in-vitro examination of specimens derived from the human body for a specific medical purpose. The bill also brings the 'accessory' and 'system or procedure pack' definitions more into line with the EU terms.

These changes are designed to assist efforts to improve access for Australian consumers to new medical devices by identifying Australia as a market that is closely aligned with the EU and for which access may be sought by device manufacturers and sponsors without delay, following EU approvals of their products. They also support recommendation 20 of the Expert review of medicines and medical devices regulation, agreed to by the Australian government in its response to the review in September 2016, in relation to aligning the regulation of medical devices in Australia with the EU wherever possible. These changes improve the clarity of these definitions which, in turn, supports better regulatory compliance for industry sponsors and manufacturers of medical devices.

Secondly, the bill enables the secretary to provide scientific advice to an applicant about prescription and over-the-counter medicines before they submit a formal application to the TGA for marketing approval.

In some instances, it can be difficult for sponsors of medicines to determine the nature of information needed to support an application for registration, particularly in relation to whether a bioequivalence study is needed for a generic prescription medicine or what is required to justify not submitting a bioequivalence study. This uncertainty may risk sponsors investing considerable time and resources on evidence that is not needed or providing insufficient evidence, resulting in applications being rejected. Both instances may delay consumer access to new medicines and savings to the public through availability of generic brands.

To better support the timely availability of medicines for Australians, the bill allows the applicant to request nonbinding, scientific advice on prescribed aspects of the safety, quality or efficacy of a registrable medicine. While it is anticipated that initially this will focus on bioequivalence issues, the new power would allow a range of matters relevant to safety, quality or efficacy to be prescribed in the regulations.

The advice will be non-binding in that an applicant who requests such advice may apply for registration of a medicine regardless of the advice given in relation to the medicine. However, the TGA will be required to have regard to such advice when evaluating a medicine for registration. This will ensure that, in addition to helping medicine sponsors have greater confidence about the requirements for an application, the advice will also directly support and streamline any subsequent application for registration.

Thirdly, the bill introduces a data protection regime for assessed listed medicines—these are lower risk complementary medicines that are assessed in relation to their efficacy claims before they are given marketing approval.

This regime is based on the existing data protection regime in the Therapeutic Goods Act for innovator prescription medicines, and provides five years' protection for clinical trial information that a sponsor submits in support of an indication (that is, a health condition) for an assessed listed medicine. This will be in cases where the information is not currently publicly available and no other medicine has that indication at the time the application for listing is made. This will mean that a sponsor of another assessed listed medicine will not be able to utilise the same information in the evaluation of its own medicine during that five-year period.

This measure is designed to provide an incentive for sponsors of assessed listed medicines to invest in clinical trials research and innovation and, in so doing, to improve the competitiveness of the Australian complementary medicines industry.

Other, minor matters

The bill also contains a number of other, minor measures, to reduce regulatory burden, improve the consistency of regulatory requirements or make other minor changes to remove spent and redundant provisions, correct headings and codify a longstanding condition of marketing approval for registered and listed therapeutic goods.

These include changes to:

remove an unintended barrier to the operation of the provisional registration pathway for promising new medicines, by ensuring that where sponsors of these medicines need to vary certain aspects of their products while they are provisionally registered—such as dosage form or strength—they may apply for marketing approval for such versions without having to go back to the start of the pathway;

allow sponsors of clinical trials that are approved by the secretary to request variations to their approvals—currently trial sponsors cannot make such requests and would have to make a fresh application for a new trial, even for minor variations; and

remove spent and redundant references to "therapeutic devices" in the Therapeutic Goods Actand from the Patents Act, as this product category has been superseded by medical devices.

I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Mr BYRNE (Holt) (09:46): I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2019-2020 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2019-2020, which provide appropriations from the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the annual services of the government for the remainder of 2019-20. I do so within the context of how our country is dealing with the coronavirus, what we've seen around the world and what I think we're about to see in this country. Mr Speaker, you were here when I spoke about this on the adjournment on Monday night. I make these comments in the spirit of bipartisanship, but I want to draw attention to what I think are some constructive suggestions that might improve our response with respect to this particular outbreak.

I'll start where I left off on Monday night. I believe that, with respect to the best way of dealing with not just this outbreak but future outbreaks, our country would be best served by an Australian centre for disease control. That, in my mind, would be the best way of providing an enduring and a coordinated approach to major health outbreaks like the coronavirus. In light of what we've seen recently in the public debate, as an individual, I'm calling for the establishment of an Australian centre for disease control prevention as a vehicle for preventing misinformation or conflicting information emerging in the Australian community. However well-intentioned our efforts have been and continue to be—and I commend the government and the opposition for their efforts—in this era of fake news, this is something that we need to look at and continue to address as the best way forward.

I believe, and overseas experience shows, that a centre for disease prevention would be a useful coordinating agency that would harmonise the provision of information on, for example, the coronavirus, between the Australian government and the respective state and territory governments. In times of crisis, we need to ensure that the Australian public has the best available information at their disposal when they need it. Australians want to know, for example, about our quarantine and isolation arrangements. They want to know about how fast the virus is spreading, they want to know how many people have contracted the virus in Australia, and they want to know what to do if the virus spreads in Australia. An established centre for disease control and prevention in Australia would, in my view, be able to coordinate our nation's response in answering all of these questions not just now but on an ongoing basis.

With this outbreak, we're starting to see that the lessons of SARS, swine flu and the 2014 Ebola outbreak have not been learned by governments. I've seen it described by immunologists as a panic-and-then-forget response. We can't afford to panic and then forget this time.

As I said on Monday night, we live in an age of disinformation and fake news. More than ever we need to find a way to cut through this noise. I hope we consider establishing a properly funded Australian CDC to coordinate and disseminate vital public health messages for the sake of our community and our frontline and vital healthcare workers who need to keep us safe. Additionally, no specific antiviral treatments presently exist to deal with this virus. On the best possible medical advice that I've been provided with at this point in time, a potential vaccination could be at least a year away—that's not to mention how long it would take for large-scale production of that vaccine to proceed. That emphasises that we have to have a centre that is committed to ongoing and enduring funded research that addresses developing treatments that reduce mortality and outbreaks. As I said, research in this needs to be enduring and focused, not just reactive. That's not to diminish the work that some of our fine institutions do, but I do believe that we need to be more focused in how we address this.

As we know with SARS and MERS, most of the serious cases of this virus develop acute respiratory distress syndrome. To quote a recent paper in TheLancet, 'There is an urgent need for focused funding and scientific investments into advancing novel therapeutic interventions for coronavirus infections.' Let us listen to this advice and support those carrying out this essential research on an enduring basis. I'll give an example of why we need to do this. A paper released a week or so ago by six epidemiologists based in Canada—in my last speech I said it was Canberra, but it was Canada—using mathematical modelling and taking into account the number of exported cases, has estimated the present case count of the coronavirus in Iran is about 18,000 people. I actually believe it's more than that. I have heard there are tens of thousands. This is in comparison to the 593 cases in Iran that the World Health Organization publicly reported only a couple of days ago.

As I said on Monday, a co-author of the paper, infectious disease specialist Isaac Bogoch, commented, 'When a country exports cases to other destinations it's very likely that the burden of infection in this country is significant.' We have experienced that as a consequence of the underreporting of the virus in Iran and people returning from Iran. We're rushing to plug the gap, so to speak. That's why we need to have clearer information on an ongoing basis about how viruses of this type spread.

Equally, it is clear we must do even more to contain the spread of the virus and to address what is clearly going to be—and I suspect we'll see this through the national accounts that will come down at 11.30 this morning—the economic damage this virus is creating. According to the ABC on Monday, the ASX 200 was down about 10.5 per cent last week, meaning that we lost about $240 billion on the local stock market. That was last week. The plummeting stock market, which is seeing a slight correction, is I think just the tip of the iceberg. Small businesses that rely on overseas production are suffering. Australian exporters are losing access to valuable overseas markets and tourism is clearly sharply down.

Supply chain disruptions, due to halting production in China and elsewhere, will ripple throughout the economy for months, perhaps even years, especially in critical industries like construction and manufacturing. According to Senator Elizabeth Warren, the coronavirus has exposed a critical weakness in our drug supply chain, for example. A significant proportion of pharmaceutical ingredients for drugs are manufactured in China, which means supply chain disruption may eventually cause drug shortages around the world, including in Australia. Analysts now project that many American and Australian companies will generate zero earnings growth in 2020 because of the coronavirus. If the coronavirus—I guess we could say 'when'—reaches global pandemic levels, experts predict that it could lead to a recession in Australia and across the globe. In response to the coronavirus, I'd encourage the Australian government as an example to work with employers to assist people with providing potentially an emergency paid sick leave for people either suffering from the coronavirus or who need to remain isolated if they have a relative who may have contracted coronavirus. Like I said, this will ripple across our country for some period of time. If you're a casual worker who might need to take 14 days off, as a colleague of mine, the member for Werriwa, mentioned to me yesterday, what does it mean for the person that is forced to take 14 days off? Where is the protection for that person, that casual worker? That might be a mum working in Narre Warren South or in Cranbourne who will need to take the mandated 14 days off because that person has the coronavirus, but where is her employment protection? Where is her wage protection?

These are things that we're having to grapple with and we're going to have to grapple with them very rapidly, because we are requiring, as part of the best possible advice, which we have taken from our Chief Medical Officer and the experts, that it is going to require isolation. We're going to have to isolate people who are contracting this particular virus or who have contracted the virus, and we need to think about it. The ripple effects of this virus through our economy are going to be and continue to be substantial not just in mortality rate, not just in populations that are at greater risk—and we've had a discussion about that, and that has been in the media—but your normal mum and dad that live in the outer suburbs of electorates like mine.

So I encourage the Australian government to strongly consider a stimulus package to support the Australian economy. As a starting point, I think the stimulus package should focus on low- to no-interest loans to companies of all sizes negatively affected by supply-chain disruptions, reductions to tourism or other temporary coronavirus related impacts. In my view, restoring confidence will be the key. We need calm, strong, focused leadership in addressing this issue. The Australian people need it. Our government needs to deliver it. Our parliament needs to deliver it.

When the dust settles we also need to consider contemplating the effect our impact on the environment is having on the current and future spread of infectious disease. The dilution effect is a concept that has been around for some time. Basically, the theory is that healthy biodiversity can be a protection against infection of humans by zoonotic pathogens such as the case of Lyme disease in the United States. Climate change is expected to impact the spread of infectious diseases and the animals that carry them. In Australia, for example, research has shown that dengue fever and other arboviruses spread primarily by a particular mosquito are likely to significantly extend the period of time during the year when transmission of the disease is possible. In Far North Australia there are predictions that disease transmission could be possible for 12 months of the year.

So we need to fully commit to the Paris Agreement, invest in the Green Climate Fund and continue to fund the Global Health Security Agenda to work in partnership with the now other 67 countries to strengthen their public health infrastructure and combat outbreaks before they start. As mentioned, we also need a centre for disease control and prevention. We should also join peer countries and invest in the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a public global alliance focused on vaccine development, and actively participate in global coalitions working towards vaccine development.

I give this speech at a time when we're seeing our supermarkets raided for toilet paper and other essentials: hand sanitiser and other things. I think it would be safe to say in this place that there is some significant level of concern in the Australian community. But the point I would make to the Australian people is also that this parliament—both sides, including the Independents—is resolutely committed on a bipartisan, tripartisan or whatever you want to call the level to ensure that we deal with this threat. I think the difficulty is that a lot of Australian people see this parliament through the prism of question time. And I know we have the member for Ballarat, who was an excellent advocate in the health space when she was shadow minister for health, and she will know what I'm saying. People see us addressing collectively a crisis through the prism of what they might see on their local news, which focuses on the issue of the day. For them, sometimes they need information around that blizzard of information that they see—the theatrics that happen in question time. They don't see what's happening on a bipartisan basis, with all levels of government and the opposition working together to come to a conclusion, which I believe leads to a misapprehension that all of us in this place are not committed to doing something to address this very serious issue. I want to take this opportunity to say to the people listening that that is not the case. This House, regardless of what you might see—and the Senate, even though it's in estimates—is consumed by this particular problem and wants to work on a bipartisan basis to ensure that we can address this issue. Do not underestimate, even through the static of what you might see on social media or through some of the misinformation that's being spread, that all of us—it doesn't matter whether it's the people over there or here—are committed to ensuring that we protect our country.

This coronavirus outbreak is a matter of national security. It's the security of our people. On matters of national security, this place has a great track record of working on a bipartisan basis to ensure that we deliver to the Australian people that sense of security that they need. That's what I believe will happen in this case. I inevitably think that the government will have to move to a stimulus package. There is no alternative. We've seen the reserve bank in the United States yesterday or last night cut interest rates by 0.5 per cent—I could stand to be corrected on that. Overseas there is clearly an understanding. Even with an American economy that seemed to be travelling pretty well. Like with the American economy, this virus is going to have a substantial impact on the global economy.

But, again, through the static, through the noise, through the misinformation campaigns that will be run inevitably—you can see that through various manifestations that are occurring, whether it be a particular stereotyping of a particular ethnic grouping or whatever—the fact is that we will cut through the noise. It's our job to deliver health security to the Australian people. As I say to the Australian people, we do what we can in this place on a bipartisan level to deliver that outcome to the Australian people. Regardless of what they may see, regardless of what they may believe and regardless of what they hear, that's what we're here for. I believe that all of us in this place will be doing that job on behalf of the Australian people.

(Quorum formed)

Ms STEGGALL (Warringah) (10:04): I rise to speak on Appropriation Bill (No.3) 2019-2020, which seeks to effectively provide top-up funding to the 2019-20 budget. A quick look at the schedule of appropriations shows the usual areas receiving the lion's share of spending. The portfolio of Home Affairs receives the largest top-up, with an allocation of just under $1 billion. Next is the portfolio of Social Services, on just under $900 million, where I am pleased to see that the National Disability Insurance Scheme has been allocated a further $5 million. Then, predictably, the portfolio of Defence sits with an additional $533 million, the bulk of which goes directly to the department but a small percentage does go to the Department of Veterans' Affairs, which I wholeheartedly support. Then there's the usual scattering of funds to other portfolios, and it is one of those that I wish to focus my comments on with respect to this bill.

Of the $183 million in funds allocated to the portfolio of Health an amount of $125,000 only has been allocated to the Australian Sports Commission. This is on top of the $388 million allocated in the 2019-20 budget. It's here that I wish to shine a spotlight today—because, as the shameful sports rorts scandal was emerging and the unfolding revelations of the misappropriated funds were being detailed, another saga was bubbling along with the Australian Sports Commission. In a series of media reports, revelations were made about the spending patterns of the commission and particularly spending for the Australian Institute of Sport.

Many Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games sports are facing huge funding cuts, some of more than 60 per cent. For instance, the Australian women's hockey team, the Hockeyroos, once the pride of the nation, have had their future funding slashed by 60 per cent. Other sports to lose funding include synchronised swimming, softball, gymnastics, taekwondo, diving, football, basketball, archery, modern pentathlon, volleyball and water polo. The funding cuts will mean some of those sports will lose their elite sports programs and will not be in a position to hire the much-needed coaching staff to stay competitive.

Individual sporting bodies were allegedly told in February how much funding they would receive for just the first six months after the upcoming Tokyo Olympic Games, with some additional funding being used to reward the sports that do well. So not only do they get their funding cut but also, if they fail to perform, they will face further cuts. As you can imagine, this puts an enormous amount of pressure on the individual athletes that are competing in the upcoming games in Tokyo, knowing that their performance, their individual result, will impact on the future funding of their chosen sports and the next generations.

There has been widespread criticism and dismay that future funding won't even be maintained at the bare basics that it sits at today for many sports, and an entire generation of athletes will be negatively impacted. Many have concluded that the biggest losers will be the Australian youth, currently aged between 13 and 16, who would be eyeing a shot at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. They simply won't have access to the programs or the coaching that would enable them to reach their potential. At a time when we should be fostering sport in our youth, encouraging them to have big dreams and goals, encouraging them to pursue sporting careers and helping them pursue their dreams, cost-cutting and defunding will mean that certain opportunities are lost. It's at this age that proper support, financial or otherwise, can make all the difference to an athlete and whether they choose to pursue their sporting career or not.

Whilst serious questions were being asked about the defunding of individual sports, revelations were also being made about where some of those funds were actually being spent: $8 million on executive training for high-ranking officials at the Australian Sports Commission; $5 million on recruitment consultants; $17 million in marketing and advertising; $2 million to lease offices in Brisbane and Melbourne; and an estimated travel figure of $3 million for AIS executives who prefer to fly in and out of Canberra for work rather than being Canberra based. As pointed out in the media, that last figure of $3 million is close to the amount needed to fund an entire sport, such as water polo, whose budget is $3.89 million a year; surfing, $2.73 million a year; or softball, $2.26 million a year. I think we really need to understand and ask why such a high proportion of the funds are being spent on travel expenses for AIS executives. Meanwhile, struggling athletes are relying on families and friends to pursue their dreams. They are doing GoFundMe pages. They are doing raffles and they are doing everything they can within their community to put together the funds. I can absolutely relate to that. As a past Olympic athlete, I remember having to fund raise and have the support of my family to afford to take my skis to the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics because the funding we received didn't cover the excess luggage that I had to pay to take my equipment to the Olympics.

Another example: the national baseball team, ranked number 6 in the world, has been told it will not get any money for an upcoming Olympic qualifying camp because it is not considered good enough to win an Olympic gold medal. Similarly, the under-20 athletes taking part in the world championships in Kenya in July will have to pay $4,000 for the right to represent Australia. The reality is that we are creating a situation where fulfilling one's sporting dreams and aspirations is only for those who can afford to do it. We are losing the talent and crushing the dreams of so many that aren't in a position to afford to pay for it. Which of our past sporting heroes would we have lost under that approach? Would it have been Cathy Freeman, Ian Thorpe, Mick Fanning? Sport has always played a huge part in the Australian cultural identity. Which one of our Australian heroes that we celebrate would we give up and say 'Sorry, but funding your sport is not a priority?'

This current financial mess and uncertainty could obviously jeopardise our success and our prospects at the upcoming Tokyo Olympic Games in July and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022, and also our success or otherwise beyond those Games for the dreams and aspirations of all our young people that are thinking about what their dreams might be now. MPs will recall that Australia used to be the envy of the world when it came to our sporting success. We would often say that we were punching above our weight, as the saying goes. Other nations used to look at us and wonder what our secret was. At the Sydney 2000 games we ranked fourth in the world on the overall medal tally. That's an incredible result for a country of our size. At those games we got 16 gold, 25 silver and 17 bronze—a total of 58 medals. Our tally has gradually been decreasing at every games since. By London in 2012 we had slipped to eighth position with 35 medals, and by Rio we slipped again, with 29 medals. For each of those Olympic years funding continued to be the issue. Sports simply cannot stay competitive if funding is not there for the coaching and the elite level programs.

But this is not just about medal tallies or Australia's love of sport or our desire to do our best or be the best. It is about shaping a culture, creating role models and keeping our community, particularly young people, fit and healthy. The benefits of playing sports are well known: lower obesity rates, better overall health, improved mental health and greater social cohesion. The ripple effects of sport on general health and wellbeing as individuals and as a nation are widespread. The benefits are in jeopardy if we start undermining the way we view and fund our national sports program, especially Olympic sports.

This is about our national identity, our health as a nation and the importance of where our priorities lie. What do we aspire to be? Who will be the role models for our kids and grandkids if we don't support our young Australians getting to the Olympics and having a chance of being competitive at those Olympics? I have been a director of the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia, which takes care of our winter programs for the winter Olympic Games. I know firsthand the challenges of funding. It is a constant struggle, and it's always the families and athletes that are called upon to contribute. Winter sports in particular are consistently disadvantaged in funding in Australia. But our national sporting authority must do better. I call on the Commonwealth government to reassess the funding process, to review the governance in general of the Australian Sports Commission and to support our aspiring athletes. We must be able to have role models, and our youth need to have those dreams.

(Quorum formed)

Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (10:17): When I'm back in the electorate, I'm quite concerned at the number of people who are getting quite depressed or even feeling some despair about the direction the country is going under this Morrison government. Their concerns range from a lack of action on climate change and a concern for the young children and what their lives might be like, to an apparent complete unwillingness by this government to seize any of the opportunities in the world that will see our country flourish, to the punitive behaviour when it comes to the most vulnerable people in our society. I want to talk a bit today about what I see when I come here, which is the extraordinary lack of leadership from the Morrison government. It's not just the Morrison government. Those opposite have been in government for seven years now. You can trace it back through Prime Minister Abbott, Prime Minister Turnbull and now Prime Minister Morrison's extraordinary lack of action on anything that would cause this country to grow or flourish.

In the old industrial management models, there was a theory about the way that a big industrial company grew and flourished and then eventually died as the capital assets came to the end of their life. When I come into this parliament and have watched this government over the last seven years, it's almost as if they have been following that path. In the early stages of these companies, you get what was known as a space cadet, who comes up with the idea, and then the operations people come in and make it all work. When it's working well, the administration phase comes in, where people make it more efficient, to get the last bit of profit out of it. Eventually, it becomes the cash cow that funds new activity.

In the modern world, companies need to reinvent themselves all the time, but this government is in this really old mode. What we've seen over the past seven years is a government not managing the country or managing the economy but sending in the administration teams, effectively to squeeze the last little bit out of it. You can see that through its targeting of people on unemployment benefits who might be on drugs and its drug testing of dole recipients; the cashless welfare cards; trying to cut the pension and talking about expanding the cashless welfare card right across pensions as well; and robodebts, sending out debt notices for debts that weren't owed. Whatever they can do that squeezes that last little bit of cash out of the most vulnerable people they will do. The other side of that is their making sure that they get what they need, that their supporters, their sponsors and they get what they need, taking what they can out of the economy and out of the government for themselves.

We come in here, week after week after week and we look at lists of bills that are at best administrative—they don't do anything that causes the country to grow. They are essentially bills that government departments have put together because they see something that wasn't quite right about something that was introduced a couple of years ago. They are small administrative bills, essentially put forward by government departments. We've seen them come in one after the other. Sometimes you can be in this House for a week and there are no speakers on the government side at all, because the bills are of no interest to them because they are simply administrative bills.

I can't recall in the past seven years of this shockingly do-nothing government any bills whatsoever that actually enabled, empowered or enriched our population, that caused our economy to grow and flourish or that put to work the extraordinary capacity of Australians to think. We are one of the great creative nations in the world. In every field where creativity matters we punch above our weight, and yet from this government there's nothing. There is nothing there. Even when they do say they are going to do something they take forever to do it. So the first point I want to make, really, is that this government is in the wrong phase for a country like Australia and the situation we're in. We're in a world filled with opportunities, and we have a government that thinks that the way things are is the way they should stay, and they will simply administer the government into the most efficient, punitive style they can.

When I was studying cross-cultural management, nearly 40 years ago, we studied a book written by a man named Sunzi. It was called The Art of War, or Bingfa. Back in those days it was largely unknown. I was very lucky to have a PhD guy who was studying that particular management text for his PhD, so I was really lucky. I spent a lot of time finding translations of it, because they were very hard to find. I had about six translations of Sunzi:The Art of War. It was a text that in those days was studied by every management school through China, Japan and most of Asia, but was largely unknown in the West. When the West did discover it they thought it was, essentially, machiavellian, but it actually isn't. The single management theory and strategic theory of Bingfa, which comes through over and over and over again, is that if you're really a good leader, if you're really a good general, no-one will have heard of you, because you will have prevented the war. If you're a really good doctor your patients don't get sick. If you're a really good manager the crisis does not occur. So if you're known for solving a crisis you are a bad leader, not a good one, because a good leader sees off the crisis before it takes place. I have lived with that theory and I look for that in my staff. We should look for that in our government, but this government is the opposite of that. This Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government does not act on anything until the crisis is so great that every single person in the country knows about it, and then they decide to make an announcement and maybe do something—but the announcement is usually greater than the action.

This is a government that never acts to stop a crisis until the crisis is so great that everybody knows about it. We saw that with the bushfires, even though every expert on climate change has told us this was coming—the Ross Garnaut report said that we'd be looking at exactly this by 2020. But this government, even when the fires were raging, did not act until the country was screaming for action.

That could be for one of two reasons. It could be that the spin merchants in the government have extended what we all know they do anyway, which is that, before you announce a solution, you make sure as many people as possible know about the problem. If you're going to announce a road in your electorate, you go out and tell everyone of this terrible problem so that when the announcement is made you get more credit for it. That's called spin. We know that happens, usually over a couple of months, and we can watch them do it. I say to anybody out there, if your member of parliament is getting up and saying, 'Look, this is terrible,' particularly if they're on the government side, then you can bet that in a few months they're going to come to you with an answer that has already been approved—probably through a rort or a program that hasn't been announced; who knows? But you can bet that's the case. So it could be that this government thinks, 'Let's wait till everybody knows about the crisis in aged care before we do anything about it. Let's wait till everybody knows that we've lost 180,000 apprentices in the last year. Let's wait till everybody knows before we act.'

But I don't think that is the case. And this is the other of the two reasons. I think this is a government that doesn't actually recognise the role of government and doesn't act early because it doesn't know how. You can go back, right through the Abbott years and the Turnbull years and now the Morrison years, and you can see it has happened time after time.

An absolute example of that is the home-care and aged-care situation at the moment. The government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to a royal commission on aged care, and now we have story after story. One in two people in aged-care facilities are malnourished, literally starving. People are waiting three years for home-care packages. It's truly extraordinary. People in aged-care facilities are lying in urine and faeces. They're appalling stories that we've known about for ages. In fact, a lot of the breaches of regulations were well known to the regulator. These stories have been out there for at least the last seven years, for at least the entire term of this conservative government, yet it has not acted. Finally, they called a royal commission into aged care. The royal commission found the situation so appalling that they've released an interim report, which is rarely done, and the government is still waiting for the final outcome before it acts. If this story was headline news every night, they would be acting. But they're waiting. They're waiting until the crisis is so bad that they simply cannot ignore it anymore. It's truly astonishing.

It is the same for dental services in aged care—even on dental. Many older Australians are entitled to dental services in the public system, and we know that one in two have gum disease. One in two senior Australians have gum disease. One in five have no natural teeth. We know that, and yet older Australians are forced to wait months or years for public dental care. The government have cut public dental funding by hundreds of millions of dollars and they're going to axe it completely in July. How bad does this actually have to get before the government think they should act? Just how bad does it have to get?

You can see it with the royal commission into banking and financial services; it's the same story. We had to drag them kicking and screaming to that. Even though the stories of bad behaviour by banks were out there, and people knew, this government sat on its hands. In fact, we spent 600 days trying to convince Malcolm Turnbull to call for a royal commission into banking, and finally he did. The royal commission's damning report came out in February last year, 2019. There were 76 recommendations, but again the government hardly touched them. There are a few now that they are starting to work their way through, but there are none before the parliament. Again, how bad does it have to get before this government thinks it should lead?

Let's talk about recycling. The government have just discovered that technology might be the answer to climate change! It has been the answer for decades. It's been the answer for decades, yet we've seen cuts to the CSIRO, attempts to wind back the funding for ARENA and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, attempts to pull the funding out of innovation, and cuts to R&D. Now that everybody in the country finally knows, because of the bushfires, that climate change is real, the government are prepared to make a few announcements and take some minor actions—but only minor ones.

Now they've realised everybody cares about plastic in the ocean, they're finally prepared to talk about that. We are still waiting for what the actual action will be. But it has been a crisis for decades. Everybody in this country should have known that our recycling was an issue. Everybody should have known. In fact, China stopped importing our recyclables in 2018. There are 24 types of recyclable materials which China will no longer import. That was January 2018—two years ago. In 2019, COAG met and they made some pleasant announcements about things they might do—and, now, a year later, there's still nothing. It's as if they sit on the problem and ignore it until everybody knows about it and their hand is forced and then they try to take credit for acting on it. It is extraordinary.

These plastics and recyclable materials are commodities. They're actually inputs. The opportunities for Australia to use its ingenuity and imagination to build industries in this sector have been there for a decade or more; yet we've had a government that not only has not been doing anything but also has been actively undermining it by reducing funding for the very organisations and institutions that would drive change. We know that there are 9.2 jobs for every 10,000 tonnes recycled in Australia, compared to 2.8 for export. We know that; yet, when the crisis finally hit and when China withdrew—and we knew they were going to; we knew it wasn't going to last—two years ago, the government didn't think the problem was bad enough to act. What an extraordinary indictment on this government.

And we can talk about the economy. Finally, we've got a government that's talking about a stimulus package to respond to the coronavirus and the difficulties that small businesses are having. But the economy has been underperforming for six years or more. The economic indicators that are reported now for the Australian economy are all bad. They're all worse than they were when this government got elected. Economic growth has slowed since the election. Underemployment is high, with two million Australians looking for work or for more work. Weak wages growth has slowed even further. The Liberals are presiding over the worst wages growth on record, and wages are growing at one-fifth the pace of profits.

The Reserve Bank cut interest rates again yesterday. They're lower than they were in the global financial crisis, which was the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. And for most of the period of this government's term, over the last seven years, the global economy was growing—and we weren't. We were going backwards while the rest of the world actually grew. Household spending is growing at the slowest pace since the global financial crisis. Household debt is around record levels of disposable income, and consumer confidence is below average. Household living standards have declined under the Liberals, with real household median income lower than it was in 2013. Now, finally, the government has decided to do something—but there's no detail. (Time expired).

(Quorum formed)

Mr BANDT (Melbourne—Leader of the Australian Greens) (10:35): We are at risk of heading towards a recession. We've got wages flatlining. The climate crisis is hitting agriculture and tourism, with communities still trying to recover from the devastating bushfires we've seen. We've got sluggish manufacturing and construction. And the Reserve Bank is now doing everything it can, but it is running out of bullets. We are heading towards a cliff, but the Prime Minister is refusing to grab the steering wheel. It is his assumption that everything will be okay, but everything is not okay.

We are confronting a coronavirus, which is coming at us like a freight train; the climate crisis; an inequality crisis; and a jobs crisis. Finally the Prime Minister has acknowledged that there might be some need to stimulate the economy and, in his words, 'ensure some cashflow'. So the question is: if we're to avoid recession and we're to deal with the inequality crisis that is gripping us with inequality at a seven-year high, what is the best way to tackle the inequality crisis and ensure Australia does not head towards recession as the Prime Minister refuses to put his hands on the wheel?

He's spoken about cashflow. The best way to get more money moving in the economy is to provide it to those at the bottom who are living below the poverty line, because they are going to go and spend it on essentials like food. And that, in turn, is going to help people like our farmers who are going to grow that food. We have a situation at the moment where people who are looking for work—because the government hasn't created enough jobs in the economy for them to take—are living below the poverty line. Not only that, you could in fact be a full-time worker in this country and the minimum wage is so low that you could be below the poverty line.

Let's think about those people who are on Newstart and youth allowance. They are getting by on a very, very small amount of money that is below the poverty line and is, in fact, a barrier to finding work. We need to lift Newstart and youth allowance by at least $95 a week. It has not been lifted for years and, as a result, it is a barrier to people finding jobs and people are doing it tough. This is a golden opportunity to both stimulate the economy and lift people out of poverty by lifting Newstart and youth allowance by at least $95 a week, because that money is going to be spent on essentials. There's some talk from the government about 'Maybe we'll offer tax cuts to people who are already well-off.' A lot of that is going to go to pay down the record debt that people are in because housing is so expensive and mortgages are so high. But if you want to ensure that the money is going to find its way back into the economy, then let's lift Newstart and let's lift youth allowance, because we will be tackling inequality, lifting people out of poverty and stimulating the economy, and that is what the Green New Deal is about. It is about tackling the crises that this country is facing, avoiding recession and stimulating the economy while making sure that we close the inequality gap in this country that is at a seven-year high. So, if the Prime Minister wants to take action with the economic crises that we're facing and the inequality crises that we're facing, he should lift Newstart and youth allowance.

In a wealthy country like Australia, no-one should go without a home, but we have an affordability crisis in this country. We have homelessness rising. In my area of Victoria, there are 82,000 people on the waiting list trying to get into public housing. I have spoken to pregnant women who, at the moment, are living in crisis accommodation and are likely to be in crisis accommodation when they have their babies because there is no vacancy in the public housing waiting list for them. Just imagine that. Imagine you are pregnant and you know that you're going to have your baby in a couple of months and you don't have a place to live. That is where we are at in modern-day, wealthy Australia.

Meanwhile, this government keeps locking young people out of the housing market by providing billions of dollars in subsidies to people who've already got two, three, four homes to go and buy their fifth or sixth. That not only is a drain on the public purse but keeps bumping up the prices of housing so that young people who think they might be in with a chance of buying a house go along to auctions and keep getting outbid by someone who's already got a couple of houses. That person who's got a couple of houses knows that, if they buy that house, no matter how much it costs, they can write off their losses as a tax break, and screw the young person who gets outbid because they don't have that government largesse in the form of tax breaks subsidising them. That is the crazy situation we have at the moment. We have that situation because we no longer treat affordable housing as a human right. We treat it as an investment class where the government rewards their big donors but young people get locked out of the housing market.

That's for buying, but it's increasingly the same for renting as well. If you are a young person on youth allowance trying to rent at the moment, or if you're in one of those jobs—we have a jobs crisis in this country because nearly 1 in 3 young people is either unemployed or doesn't have enough hours of work. They're stuck in low-hour, insecure work. It is hard now even to rent a house and, if the only income that you've got is Newstart or youth allowance, almost zero properties are available for you in CBD areas in some of our major capital cities.

Housing in Australia is cooked. It is seriously messed up. We have lost sight of the basic fact that housing needs to be treated as a human right. If we turned 82,000 people in the state of Victoria away from public schools because there weren't enough places at the schools, there would be an outcry. But we're turning away from public housing 82,000 people who need it—by definition these are the people who need it—because there have not been enough new public housing units built.

We need to have a construction-led recovery in the economy that also tackles the housing, homelessness and affordability crisis. And that is why the Greens have been pushing, as part of the Green New Deal, for a massive new public and affordable housing build to address the homelessness crisis; to start creating jobs in the construction sector, including for our apprentices; and to start stimulating the economy. This is what the Green New Deal is about. It's about saying we can solve the housing crisis that we've got, we can start solving the inequality and the jobs crises that we've got and we can start to stimulate the economy while tackling homelessness. We can do all of those things if government is prepared to put its hands back on the steering wheel. At the moment, leaving everything to the market, with government inflating the prices and government giving subsidies to people who don't need it, because they've already got three, four or five houses, is fuelling inequality in this country. It means we in this country don't spend our money on productive investments. It means a lot of the money from banks goes off to subsidise housing and big mortgages so that banks keep getting fat off it, because they get to write huge mortgages. The price of housing keeps going up and up, and everyone who has already got three or four houses already loves that, because then they can sell a house and make a bit of money. But everyone else gets locked out and screwed over, and that is what we need to fix with the Green New Deal.

One of the things that perplexes most people in this country is why you can't use your Medicare card to go to the dentist. Why is it that, if you get a soccer ball to the face on the weekend and it busts your jaw, you can use your Medicare card to get it fixed, but, if it busts your teeth, you can't? That is the ridiculous situation that we're in at the moment. We need to get dental into Medicare. Too many people are putting off going to the dentist because they can't afford it. That's not only bad for their teeth; it's also bad for their health in the longer term because, if you don't get your teeth fixed, it can lead to other kinds of diseases simply because the diseases get in through the mouth. That's not only bad because people end up being less healthy and have bad teeth; if the only thing you cared about was the economics of it, it's bad for the federal budget as well because those people end up having to go see the doctor or having to go to hospital because of something that was ultimately preventable.

It's also a social justice issue, because if you have bad teeth it can affect your ability to get a job. Think about someone who fronts up to an interview who's got bad teeth—it can affect your ability to get a job, and it can affect your self-esteem. We need to get dental into Medicare. This is unfinished business for the Greens. In the power-sharing parliament, back in 2010, the Greens worked with Labor and the Independents, and we got dental into Medicare for 3.4 million kids. As a result parents are able to use their Medicare card to get dental treatment for their kids. Now what we've got to do is extend that to the rest of society.

We pride ourselves in this country on having a universal healthcare system. In America they're tearing themselves apart at the moment trying to get somewhere close to what Australia's got. One of the good things about this country is that if you get sick they don't check your credit card. They check that you've got a Medicare card. You can get the help and the health care that you deserve. We need to have the same principle apply to dental care as well. Going to the dentist is far too expensive. People aren't doing it when they should, just because they can't afford it. If we want to make Australia more equal, we could start by extending our principle of Medicare and health care for all to include dental care. That's something that the Greens will be fighting for as part of the Green New Deal.

Child care should be treated as an essential service. I talk regularly to people—they're mostly women, because the burden of organising child care and caring for kids predominantly, not solely, but predominantly falls on women—who are going through the decision about whether to get back into the paid workforce. The decision that they make after a certain point is, 'I could work an extra day a week, but all of that money's going to be eaten up by childcare fees.' We have seen childcare fees go up and up and up in this country. Every parent who has to deal with childcare bills knows what I'm talking about. It's going up so much that for many women—men as well, but it's mostly women—it's now affecting their ability to make real choices about their life, like whether to go to work or stay home. They're saying, 'I could go to work, but everything I earn from that day I'm going to lose in childcare fees.' We've got an affordability crisis. We've also got an availability crisis in many places, where in some instances families are shuttling kids between two different childcare centres. You can get a day a week at one centre but not the other day that you might want to suit your employer, so you have to drop them off at another centre. Add to that the burden that many parents are facing now that they have to do the double-caring job of looking after kids but also looking after their own parents and potentially considering questions about aged care for them. There are people—it's predominantly women—who are stuck in the middle, juggling caring responsibilities above and below and juggling work as well, finding that not only are there all those pressures—which include a lot of pressures to feel like you're doing the right thing that can push many people to the point where they feel really stretched—but the financial pressure of the cost of child care is impinging on their ability to make real decisions about their lives. It is a gender equality issue.

We have had some real advances in this country. I pay tribute to the opposition for what they did when they were in government by lifting the standards of early childhood educators. We now have a situation where our kids are getting great-quality education in those preschool years. But what we haven't got right is the question of government stepping up to fund it. We need to start thinking about child care as an essential service. My goal as part of the Green New Deal is to see free universal child care available to every family who wants it. We can get there. It becomes a question of priorities. It's about how much we value women's ability to have control over their lives and how much we value the preschool education of our children. We've made some steps, but it's been at the cost of affordability and accessibility. We need to fix that. As part of a Green New Deal, we put forward universal services and universal access to child care for everyone in this country who wants it. Free child care, in the way that we start to think about other services being free and universally available—that is where we need to get to. That's what we will fight for as part of a Green New Deal.

(Quorum formed)

Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR (Gorton) (10:52): I rise to speak to Appropriation Bill (No.3) 2019-2020 and the related bill. We really need to have a proper debate about what's happening fiscally in this country. I think we need to look at a number of things in the economy that are not going particularly well.

I think it's important to note, firstly, that, despite the rhetoric of the Prime Minister and Treasurer, unemployment is rising in this country. What's becoming of critical concern for Labor and indeed others is that underemployment has been rising now over many years. In fact, underemployment reached a record high last month, according to the ABS. We have a very high underemployment rate, at 8.6 per cent. We have one of the highest underutilisation rates, but there have never been as many underemployed Australians in our history. We have more people now looking for more work in our economy and in our labour market who are not able to find it. If you combine those that have no work with those who have too little work, you have an underutilised economy.

That's one of the reasons why wage growth is so persistently low. Wage growth presided over by this Prime Minister and Treasurer has now been lower than at any time in our history. No real wage growth, stagnant wage growth—in fact, wages are going backwards in many parts of our economy. One of the reasons that's a problem is that there is nothing that the government seeks to do to arrest that problem. There are no plans on foot by the government to lift wages. Low wages means an impact on aggregate demand, which means an impact on our economy and an impact on consumer confidence and business confidence, and that is leading to, as I say, very difficult economic circumstances.

The government seeks to pretend, and to convince the Australian public, that somehow these problems that are arising have all happened subsequent to the tragic bushfires and the coronavirus. We know that's not true, and the Reserve Bank knows that's not true. Firstly, the Reserve Bank revised down the forecast of the budget on a number of occasions prior to the bushfires and prior to the coronavirus. That's important to remember.

Labor will work with the government on those two issues. We've been seeking to work with the government on the bushfire recovery. Mr Deputy Speaker Rob Mitchell, you know all too well the impacts of bushfires in your electorate over many years, and so too do many members. We're working with the government there. We have provided suggestions to the government. Some have been taken up. We provided one this week in relation to supporting small businesses in fire affected areas, and I'll go to that a little later.

The fact is the government cannot pretend that the impact on our economy is just due to those two significant events because the revision of the budget forecast and indeed, perhaps more importantly, the deployment of monetary policy by the Reserve Bank occurred in the main prior to those two events. For example, the Reserve Bank cut interest rates on three occasions prior to the bushfires and prior to the coronavirus outbreak. That was because the economy was weakening and because the government does not have an economic plan to respond to the weakening of our economy. The government has left all of the heavy lifting to the Reserve Bank. So the Reserve Bank is using monetary policy, there is no fiscal response by the government and we're now getting to the point where monetary policy cannot be deployed much further, if at all, in the future.

Meanwhile the suggestions we made to bring forward tax cuts to stimulant the economy fell on deaf ears. I think we'll now find ourselves in greater trouble. That really does go to what I said at the outset, which is that we have a growing problem of underemployment in our labour market as a result in large part from the failing economy.

It may have seemed to be the right thing to do at the time, but it was unwise for the Treasurer to boast about returning the budget to surplus. He liked to use the AC/DC album title Back In Black. He probably should have used Split Enz's song title 'I See Red' because the fact is that the chances of us returning to budget surplus are very unlikely. The reason for that is, as I said, they have no economic plan. If they were honest, they would say that they probably didn't expect to win the last election. They won the election and the plan is not there, and that is becoming increasingly obvious. It's obvious in this place too. The amount of substantial legislation being debated in the parliament is woeful. There are not sufficient bills to deal with the economy or other matters that matter to the Australian public. That speaks to a government that doesn't have an agenda and instead is looking for things to distract the public.

We'll work with the government on dealing with the coronavirus, as we have done with the bushfires and the recovery thereafter. We have been critical of the speed by which the government has dealt with that matter. We do think there are major problems. I think the rhetoric of the government doesn't match what's happening in those fire affected regions. Look at the data that has been provided to date in relation to concessional loans and grants. Of all the applications made for concessional loans, as of last Friday fewer than five per cent had been approved.

In terms of grants being provided to small businesses, of all of the applications made to provide grants to small businesses in fire affected areas on Kangaroo Island, on the South Coast of New South Wales, in the Blue Mountains or in East Gippsland, only 20 per cent have been approved—one in five applications. We know that small businesses who rely on cash flow cannot wait for a government that is too slow in providing support to them. They cannot wait. Indeed, if they do have to wait, in many cases they will hit the wall. They will go under. The failure to deliver even those things that have been promised by the government to businesses is a major problem. It needs to move much more quickly. But, I'm afraid to say, it's likely that, as a result of the tardiness, the red tape and the sheer lack of political will, small businesses in these fire affected regions will go under. They will go under because of the failure and incompetence of the government. That's the truth of it.

This week the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, and I, along with members who represent some of these fire affected areas, suggested a policy for the government to consider implementing to support small business—namely, to use wage assistance in a manner that was used for businesses affected by Cyclone Yasi in 2011. The then Labor government provided assistance in the form of Newstart to businesses to maintain the employment of their staff. It was, effectively, a subsidy for wages. It was taken up. It was effective. It was targeted. It allowed for 13 weeks, and subsequently 26 weeks, of subsidies over that 12-month period. We suggest that the government consider doing that here. We know that the first people to get hit in their local economies are casual employees, part-time and even full-time employees. If these businesses have no revenue coming in then they can't maintain employment for those workers. If those workers are not gainfully employed then they're not spending in the local economy. Not only are businesses directly impacted by the fires in trouble; what is also happening is that other businesses that rely upon the consumption of their goods and services will also falter. This initiative has been used before by a federal government, a Labor government. It can be used by this government too. I'd implore the Prime Minister and indeed the minister for small business and other ministers to consider the proposition that was provided and suggested in good faith by the opposition for not only those businesses that have been impacted, in terms of bricks and mortar, but those businesses on the South Coast, on Kangaroo Island, in Gippsland and in the Blue Mountains that are suffering because revenue has just disappeared.

Some businesses in tourism and hospitality have not been directly impacted, in terms of their dwellings having been burnt by fire. But, in terms of the loss of business, they've been well and truly impacted and they will not continue to survive, let alone thrive, if they're not provided with support that's targeted, measured and expeditious. We say to the government: first and foremost you have an obligation to support small businesses in these regions, so when you promise something you have to deliver it, and if you don't deliver it in time then these businesses won't be there to receive the support. The red tape, which is currently congesting the system such that businesses are unable to receive such support, has to be removed. Cut the red tape. Get the support to businesses that need this support, otherwise they won't be there this time next year or, indeed, in a month's time.

Further, insofar as small businesses, we are concerned for those businesses and for their employees. If you provide a wage subsidy, as occurred after the terrible affects of Cyclone Yasi, then you'll see businesses being able to maintain employment for some or all of their staff. I think that's a really useful suggestion. It's one that has been tried and tested. It's something the government should really embrace, and I really do hope they think about that. It has been used before, and I'm surprised the government haven't actually thought about using it in these circumstances, given the scale of these bushfires and the impact upon businesses. I really find it difficult to understand why they haven't gone down that path.

The economy is in trouble. It started to falter before the bushfires and before coronavirus. The Treasury was revising the forecasts of the budget well before the outbreak of the coronavirus or, indeed, the fires. So it's not right to say that the correlation is that the economy's now struggling because of these two events. It was occurring before then. Unemployment was rising, underemployment was rising, and we have enormous underutilisation in our labour market. That's also one of the reasons that wages are stagnant—because there's no tightening in the labour market if you have record underutilisation at 13.9 per cent of the labour market. The only lever that the government wants to use to increase wages is to see a tightening of the labour market—but, when the labour market is as slack as it is because of record high underemployment, that's not going to happen. If there is no other policy prescription, we will not see wages grow in real terms for a very long time. That of course has an impact on consumer confidence, business confidence and aggregate demand, which continues the cycle and will also have an impact on future employment opportunities and future wage growth.

So the government have a lot to do here. We will work with them on these two events, as we have been with the tragic disaster of the bushfires. We have, in good faith, been proposing some good ideas and we ask them to take them up. We ask the Prime Minister to take up the idea of providing wage subsidies to small businesses in fire affected areas, which could do quite a lot for those regions.

(Quorum formed)

Mr GEORGANAS (Adelaide) (11:09): I too rise today to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2019-2020 and related bill. Can I start off by saying that this gives us an opportunity to basically talk about what's been taking place in the appropriations in the last budget, what the government has delivered, what it hasn't delivered and where we are at this point of time in the government's life span. I've got to say, it is of great concern when talking to a lot of my constituents, as a lot of people do in this place, to hear the things that they're saying to us, not only over the last few months but also over the last six years whilst this Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government have been in place. If you have a look at every aspect of the health, ageing and welfare systems, we're seeing that they're increasingly being hacked away by this government. There've been unprecedented cuts and changes, which I would say are cruel, which are being made by this government that are vital to services—health services, pensions, Medicare and aged-care policies. I've also got to say, it is of great concern when you see money being pulled out of services that are required, especially when you think about the NDIS—we were only talking about that the other day—where $4.6 billion has been ripped out of the NDIS from people who are some of our most vulnerable in our society, where that money was meant to give them the dignity that they deserve.

We see a Prime Minister who was a previous salesman, a marketing manager. We're looking for leadership qualities—not just us here in this place but all of Australia—and unfortunately they're extremely lacking. I think Mr Morrison, the Prime Minister, is a very ineffective Prime Minister running a do-nothing government. If you have a look at the history of this government from 2013—as I said, the Abbott, the Turnbull, the Morrison government—there is not one agenda item, a big ticket item, where you can say, 'This has changed the nation. This particular policy has changed people's lives or will change people's lives.' There is absolutely nothing that you can actually talk about that has happened that will actually change people's lives.

What have we seen? We've seen the lowest wage growth in the history of our nation, and we know without wage growth the economy will not kickstart. We know without those extra dollars, in low paid workers' pockets that will go straight into the economy, nothing will happen, yet this government has sat about for the last six years and said that, basically, nothing is in that scope to try and pull some levers to ensure that we have some wage growth so people can spend some extra money in the economy and get the economy going.

I know that there are no plans for jobs, there are no plans for wage growth and certainly there are no plans to address climate change. In fact, we had a Prime Minister, who was Treasurer at one point, who came in here with a hunk of coal and proclaimed how proud he was of it. That is very embarrassing for a nation like Australia, who has always been a leader in the world. To see the Prime Minister of this country today, who then was Treasurer, come in with a hunk of coal, hold it up high in this House, be proud of it and say, 'This is our future,' was absolutely embarrassing. I feel embarrassed as an MP and I feel embarrassed as an Australian, a citizen of this nation, knowing that that man today is our Prime Minister. He's trying to backtrack on this. He's trying to backtrack and say that they do believe in climate change, but we know that he denied climate change many times in the past. As I said, there are no plans for jobs, there are no plans for the economy and certainly no plans for climate change, which is one of the most fundamental issues that's facing not just us but the entire nation.

We can look back at many other things as well. Productivity is at the lowest it has ever been. Unemployment is growing at a fast pace. We know people are underemployed, perhaps working part-time jobs but not earning enough to pay their bills and to put food on the table. Those numbers are growing. Then you look at the absolute stuff-ups that have taken place—things like robodebt, where many Australians, through no fault of their own, were sent notices saying that they owed money to Centrelink. We've seen what's taken place with that, where the government has backtracked. They've gotten rid of the system, but it took close to 2½ years before they admitted that it was wrong. No matter what we said in this place on this side of the House, where we raised the issue continuously, where the Leader of the Opposition raised it continuously in the media and in questions in this place, what we heard was: 'There's nothing to see here. It's all above board.' Yet today we find out that the whole system of robodebt was a complete mess which put a lot of pensioners and a lot of people that were on payments in a lot of distress. You can imagine someone who's an age pensioner in their 80s receiving a notice from Centrelink saying, 'You haven't done the right thing and you owe us X amount of dollars.' With many constituents that we saw and that we represented on this particular issue, we had their debts reduced or they were told that they owed nothing. Imagine the thousands of people who, because they're good, hardworking, honest Australians, just went to Centrelink and paid that debt. There'd be thousands of them. We saw these debts were often lacking in detail. They were void of a breakdown of costs, and information was really difficult to access. This was one of the biggest stuff-ups that I've seen since I've been here—taking money off innocent Australians when it was not their fault. But it's not only that; there is the trauma that they were put through.

One particular constituent whom we had contact with back in September of last year has yet to be provided with any clear information or explanation as to how the governance of Centrelink arrived at an allocated robodebt figure of over $1,300. We're talking about someone who is on a minimal income—one of the Australians that is right at the bottom end of the income that they receive compared to the rest of the nation. Basically, they just simply referenced it as an overpayment of a family tax payment in the previous years—no detail, no figures to show where and what. Despite this family's best efforts and ongoing quest to have such information provided, no clear explanation has been forthcoming to date.

This takes me onto another saga that's taking place right now before us, and that's the 2020 sports funding rort. We've heard much about that. We heard that the former minister, Bridget McKenzie, wrote to the Prime Minister, directly attaching the spreadsheet she intended to approve for round 3 sports rorts. She did this, as we heard in this House yesterday, on 10 April, the day before Scott Morrison called the election—the very day before the election was called. We know that the minister then sent the final brief, signed, to Sport Australia on 11 April at 8.46 am, after parliament was dissolved and caretaker conventions commenced. After this revelation, the Prime Minister told the parliament he did not approve the projects and they were signed off by the sports minister on 4 April 2019. There were 136 emails over a 6-month period between the PMO and the sports minister's office about sports rorts, yet the Prime Minister comes in here and denies that he was hands-on with this particular grant. He was knee-deep in it, and what was told to the parliament here yesterday proves it.

We have many sporting clubs in my electorate of Adelaide that are desperately seeking money and are desperately doing community work. Kids are playing sport from under-10s right through to their senior teams. One club is the Broadview Football Club. They have done specular work for the community in my electorate. They are one of these sporting clubs that may well have unfairly missed out. How could they possibly have received a grant when these rorts were taking place? How could they have possibly ever received a grant? And they are a great club. So I feel for the clubs that are doing the right thing and perhaps aren't in a marginal seat or are not in a seat where there's a member of the government that represents it. It's just an outrageous practice, where we're funnelling money away from clubs that need it to clubs that perhaps may not need it, or are getting it for electoral benefit, which is wrong.

Other dedicated, highly visible and most productive sporting clubs within my electorate which also appear to have been disadvantaged and had no show of ever receiving any grants and missed out as well include Croydon Kings Football Club, a club that really desperately needed some funding to relocate because DPTI—the transport department—was taking their land and they were left without a home ground. We tried everything we possibly could to get some funding for that great club, yet nothing came of it.

The Adelaide Comets is another one. Or take the Adelaide Lutheran Sports Club. Go and see their change rooms: the ceilings are falling down. There is no women's change room. The women have to change in their cars during training and during games, which is totally unacceptable. Here are some clubs that deserved some sort of funding, yet they had no show at all. The Ghan Kilburn Soccer Club is a great club started by the Afghan community in the northern parts of my electorate. They have many young people playing who have come here as refugees without parents, on their own, some as young as 15 or 16 years old. It is a great club doing great work. They are after funding, yet they received zero after us writing to the Prime Minister, to the Treasurer, to everyone. These are clubs that should have been looked at. They should have been judged and they would have been deemed as being needy clubs for the community. They not only provide sporting facilities but also provide community contribution. The Ghan Kilburn Soccer Club does amazing work, not just on the sporting field but within the community as well. Without the support of this club, who knows what many of these kids would be doing if this club wasn't there to give them that camaraderie and that family feel.

Then we get onto the waiting list for home care packages. We know that this saga has been going on for a long time and we welcome the extra funding that the minister has put into this area. But still, when you have 120,000 people waiting for a package at any one time to receive some care that they need within their homes, it is not acceptable. Yet we're no closer to resolving this unacceptable state of affairs. Our seniors and frail elderly citizens have been faced with extensive waiting lists with little regard for their health or wellbeing.

Over the Christmas period last year a woman called us who had a carer that was looking after her. This particular woman was in her 80s and had an amputated leg, diabetes and a whole range of other health issues. She needed someone to help her shower in the morning—not every morning; just two to three times a week was all she was asking for. Over that Christmas period the carer for some reason told her that she wouldn't be coming for two weeks because she was on a break. They could not get someone else. We rang the minister's office, we wrote letters and finally, with a lot of angst, we got someone through a package to go and see her. It's not fair, it's not right when you have an elderly person who has worked all their life and paid their taxes, through no fault of their own they have very bad health, they have aged and have no-one else in this world, and yet we couldn't find someone for her, which should have been systematically and automatically done for about a week after Christmas. For a week after Christmas this woman stayed at home, not showered, and who knows what she was eating. It was an unacceptable situation to be in.

Some people passed away before they got their packages, or their relatives received a letter saying a package had been approved or was about to be started, yet they had passed away whilst waiting for their permanent or home care packages to become effective. This is not good enough. We need to look after our elderly. We need to look after those people that built the foundations of this nation that we enjoy today, where we pick the fruits of their hard work today and live the lives that we do. These people have worked, they have paid taxes and they deserve the dignity that we should give them in their twilight years. It is wrong that a person in their mid-80s with an amputated leg and a history of illnesses had no care for over a week.

In another situation, one of my constituents from Croydon Park contacted me about his father, who suffers from a range of health and medical conditions, including osteoarthritis, cardiac ailments, poor memory, dementia, reduced mobility, walking and balance issues— (Time expired)

Mr WYATT (Hasluck—Minister for Indigenous Australians) (11:25): I'd like to thank all members who have contributed to the debate on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2019-2020 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2019-2020. These additional estimate appropriation bills seek authority from the parliament for the additional expenditure of money from the consolidated revenue fund for this financial year. Passage of the bills will ensure continuity of government programs, commencement of new activities agreed by the government since the 2019-20 budget and the Commonwealth's ability to meet its obligations for 2019-20 as they fall due. Importantly, these bills also include funding in response to the recent bushfires. Once again I thank all members for their contribution and commend these bills to the House.

The SPEAKER: The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this, the honourable member for Brand has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. So the immediate question before the House is that the amendment moved by the member for Brand be agreed to.

Mr WYATT (Hasluck—Minister for Indigenous Australians) (11:35): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Mr WYATT (Hasluck—Minister for Indigenous Australians) (11:36): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney) (11:37): I rise to speak on the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020, and I move:

That all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that the Government has damaged Australia's schooling system by:

(1) neglecting public education;

(2) allowing student results to fall in reading, maths and science; and

(3) failing to develop a long-term education policy for the nation and the economy".

Labor see this as very significant legislation. We have referred this bill to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee to ensure that it receives proper scrutiny because it's very important to get a change of this scale and this significance right.

The bill introduces a new method for calculating a family's capacity to contribute to the cost of their child's education in non-government schools. The changes that are being made would calculate this capacity based on a direct measure of the family's income rather than on the average of the neighbourhood in which a student lives. This reform was originally recommended by the independent National School Resourcing Board, and, before that, the change was recommended in the original Gonski review. It wasn't practical at that time, based on the data that we had, but recent improvements in the Multi-Agency Data Integration Project mean that this moderate measure is now possible.

In principle, of course we support a move to a more accurate and reliable measurement of a school community's capacity to contribute to the cost of education in non-government schools. The new measurement offers a more precise reflection of socioeconomic status and would mean that funding flows more smoothly to the non-government schools that need it the most. For example, under the current area based approach, if a neighbourhood contains both a low-fee and elite independent school both would receive the same socioeconomic status score, even if one takes in students from lower-income families and one takes in students from wealthier families. Under the new arrangement, the lower-income school will receive a lower capacity-to-contribute score, while the wealthier school's score will increase. The wealthier school's capacity-to-contribute score will increase because those higher-income families can obviously afford to make a greater contribution to the cost of their child's private education. As far as it goes, this does mean that funding will be distributed more fairly within non-government schools than the existing arrangements.

When we were last in government, we introduced the Schooling Resource Standard so that there would be an objective measure of the cost of properly educating a child, including loadings for factors like the socio-economic status, remoteness, size of school, number of Indigenous students, disability and English language proficiency of students. That figure for non-government schools is then discounted by a parent's capacity to contribute. Of course, we absolutely believe that school funding should be guided by need. Our efforts in government were designed to make sure that funding was distributed on the basis of need. Of course, that hasn't been the case under this government. Our original approach of sector-blind, needs based funding is paid lip service by those opposite but certainly has not been delivered in reality.

The reason we have moved this second reading amendment is that, while we support the more direct measure of income that is contemplated by this legislation, this legislation continues the government's absolute refusal to properly fund public schools. We have always supported the government restoring some of the funding that was cut from non-government schools, but it should do the same for public schools. There is no reason that they would restore the funding that they've cut from non-government schools but continue the funding cuts to public schools. That's exactly what those opposite have decided to do. For the parents of the 2½ million students in public schools, the schools that educate two-thirds of Australian children, the message from this government is absolutely clear. They are saying: we don't care that your school will never reach its fair funding level.

The coalition has a very warped understanding of student need in this country. Public schools educate 82 per cent of the poorest children in Australia. They teach 84 per cent of First Nations children and 74 per cent of children with disabilities. When it comes to funding decisions and practical support, this government works on the basis that the schools that need the greatest support will get the least. Public schools have never been their priority and, in fact, inequality is written into funding agreements. In the funding deals with the states and territories, the coalition has insisted that the states and territories top-up non-government school funding to 100 per cent of their fair funding level, the Schooling Resource Standard plus loadings, by 2023. But public schools will only ever get to 95 per cent of their fair funding level based on the agreements signed with the states and territories by those opposite.

You look at particularly poor systems like the Northern Territory and Tasmania. The Northern Territory and Tasmania do worst under these arrangements. They do very badly indeed. The states that have the greatest number of children who are struggling educationally and who need the greatest support actually do worst under the coalition's funding arrangements. The government has also included a loophole, a cheat, for the states and territories, where states and territories will be able to include the cost of school transport schemes, depreciation and so on. These costs were never contemplated in the original calculations of the Schooling Resource Standard, because they don't go directly to the cost of educating children. Kids in public schools will do worse again because of the funding agreements signed by those opposite.

In effect, what this means is that by 2023 almost every non-government school will be funded at or above their fair funding level while almost no public schools will be. That's the impact. That's the effect on public schools in all of your electorates. This is what you're doing to them. This is what you're doing to public schoolkids. This is not sector-blind needs based funding; this is 100 per cent sector specific. If you're going to a non-government school, those opposite insist you get 100 per cent or more of your fair funding level. If you're going to a public school you'll never get more than 95 per cent based on the arrangements made by those opposite. That's a very powerful message to the parents of those 2.5 million schoolchildren.

There's another issue that I want to flag with this bill. With this bill we're moving important funding provisions from legislation to regulation. It's just not best practice. This includes the transitional arrangements for schools with capacity to contribute scores that will rise under these changes. The government should not be doing what it's doing here, which is essentially issuing itself a blank cheque to do special deals, to do side deals, particularly without parliamentary oversight. I really don't think this is best practice, and I don't think it's something that should generally be encouraged.

When it comes to schooling, Labor absolutely believes in parental choice and we support the parents. We have fought side by side with parents who send their kids to non-government schools to see this funding restored—funding that's previously been cut by those opposite. But for there to be genuine choice for parents we have to have a properly funded public school system, too—and that's what those opposite consistently refuse to provide. And you really don't have to go too far to see the impact of that in our schools.

In August last year, the ABC published an investigation into Australian schools, looking at the way capital was distributed across the school system—and the disparity that was uncovered by that investigation really was quite shocking. Between 2013 and 2017, half of the total $22 billion spent on school capital improvements in Australia was spent in just 10 per cent of schools. So half the money was spent in one-tenth of the schools—and, as the investigation found, most of the schools were already pretty well-furnished schools with facilities well beyond those of your average public school. At the same time, the ABC found an urgent demand in public schools for the basics—new classrooms, enough classrooms, toilet maintenance, leaking roofs, heating and cooling.

Of course, not every school can have an orchestra pit or a new aquatic centre, but every parent should be confident that their local school, the school closest to home, can provide their child with a great education, a world-class education, and an education as good as any education they can get in an elite school—that there will be enough books, enough computers, enough sporting equipment, and buildings that are built and maintained in a way that shows every child that we value the education that they're receiving at their school and that we care about every child's education equally.

This all comes as Australia experiences a long-term decline in our students' results in reading, in maths and in science. In 2018, according to data from the Program for International Student Assessment—or PISA, as we call it—Australia recorded its worst results in reading, maths and science since that international testing began. For the first time ever, Australia's performance in maths was no better than the global average. In maths, 15-year-olds performed more than a year below those 15-year-olds that were tested in 2002, a year lower in reading than those who were tested in 2000 and a year worse in science than in 2006.

Across all subjects and age groups, right across the board—in government and non-government schools and in every state and territory—our schools are, broadly, going backwards. There are also major disparities within classrooms and schools, with the most advanced students in a year typically five to six years ahead of the least advanced students. We know that children who haven't mastered the basics by the age of eight will struggle to catch up for the rest of their schooling and that early difficulties can result in lifelong problems. What are we doing to fix this? Nothing. This is a government that has no plan to fix this. If we're not fixing these problems in the early years of schooling, we are consigning students to a lifetime of struggle. By these measures we are currently preparing a future workforce that is less equipped for the world of work than the workforce was 20 years ago. We see very worrying implications for our long-term economic growth if our slide in education results continues, with a one per cent change in literacy associated with a 2½ per cent change in labour productivity. We have seen labour productivity sliding in this country for the first time. We can't turn this around. We can't improve our labour productivity unless we're prepared to invest in our people.

The government has no plan to arrest this alarming slide in results and no plan to properly resource our public schools. It's no surprise that the economy its responsible for is in such a dismal state. Wages are stagnant, productivity is static, business investment is down and household debt keeps going up. Labour productivity, as I said, is going backwards for the first time since records began. Economic growth is at its lowest level since the global financial crisis and, in fact, has halved under the Prime Minister's watch. The Liberals have no plan to reverse the shocking drops in student outcomes. They've got no plan to acknowledge the fundamental relationship between education and our economy, and they've got no plan to properly fund public schools. If this government continues its neglect, if it continues to put public education last, we'll continue to see sliding results, more economic malaise, more stagnation and sliding living standards.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Andrews ): Is the amendment seconded?

Ms Templeman: I second the amendment.

Mr VAN MANEN (Forde—Chief Government Whip) (11:53): It's a pleasure to speak again in this House on the record education funding that this government is providing to schools right across the country, at a state, Catholic and independent level. Quorum formed.As I was saying, I'm pleased to be able to speak in this House once again about the record funding that we're delivering for schools right across this country. In the words of a famous song, 'I believe the children are our future', and we want to 'teach them well and let them lead the way'. This government believes in our children—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Andrews ): The honourable member for Forde will resume his seat for a moment.

Mr Bowen: I move:

That the Member be no further heard.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Question negatived.

Mr Bowen interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: There was no division called.

Mr Bowen: I did call a division.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did not hear any voice let alone two.

Mr Bowen interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did not hear any voice let alone two.

An opposition member interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I looked carefully and I waited.

Mr Bowen interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did not hear a voice. I'm calling the honourable member for Forde.

Mr VAN MANEN: The Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill forms part of the measures this government is taking to give all Australian children the quality education they deserve regardless of where they live or what school they attend by providing the funding that is fairly and transparently distributed and allocated according to need.

Before I go into the specifics of the bill, I think it's important to set out the context we find ourselves in in relation to government funding of schools. Funding of non-government schools in Australia is a shared responsibility between the parents and the guardians of the students attending those schools, the Australian government and state and territory governments. Through this bill the Australian government is introducing a more accurate methodology to calculate the capacity of the non-government school community to contribute to the cost of schooling. This more targeted and accurate direct measure of income will support the Australian government needs based funding model for all Australian schools, and under the government's Quality Schools package there will be more Commonwealth government money for disadvantaged students through loading payments, including those in remote and regional areas, and those with disability and Indigenous students.

The bill proposes to change the capacity to contribute methodology and the school's transition to a uniform Commonwealth share of the Schooling Resource Standard. The financial impact of these changes is an estimated additional $1.3 billion investment from the Commonwealth in recurrent funding over the budget and forward estimates from 2019-20 to 2022-23, and an estimated $3.4 billion increase in the recurrent funding over the 10 years to 2028-29. This will see the Commonwealth's investment in our children's education increase to a total of $314 billion from 2018-29.

This bill includes measures that support financial certainty by allowing schools time to plan as the new arrangements are implemented. Certainty in funding is essential to allow schools to plan for the future and the measures in this bill will help them do just that. Let me briefly outline how the Commonwealth funds schooling in Australia, because I note with interest the member for Sydney's comments earlier. We contribute funding to both government and non-government schools through the Australian Education Act. As things currently stand, recurrent school funding is calculated by reference to a base amount of funding for every primary and secondary school student along with six loadings that provide extra funding for disadvantaged students and schools. It is commonly referred to as the schooling resource standard, and for most non-government schools the base component of the schooling resource standard is discounted by a capacity-to-contribute percentage. The capacity-to-contribute discount is calculated based on the area based measure. Under this methodology the school community's capacity to contribute is calculated by averaging certain indicators of socioeconomic status for each ABS statistical area in which the students at the school reside.

This new methodology included in this bill was the result of recommendations made by the national school resourcing board in its review of the SES status score methodology in its final report. As part of the review, the board consulted widely and it received 34 substantive responses to the issues paper, including a number of detailed proposals which informed the board's consideration and analysis. The board also received 261 submissions, which were largely part of a coordinated standard response from individuals and school communities. The board members also undertook 38 face-to-face consultations, in all states and territories, with non-government education authorities, school leaders, communities, state and government agencies, researchers, policy analysts and other interested parties. The Australian government agreed to all six recommendations made by the board and this bill gives effect to the relevant recommendations to implement the capacity-to-contribute function.

Funding for schools in Forde across both government and non-government sectors will increase over the next 10 years. This particularly assists schools like Beenleigh Special School, where estimated Commonwealth funding per student is set to increase from $9,720 in 2019 to $14,502 per student in 2029. This will allow the school to have more specialised programs to provide their students with greater learning opportunities and experience and to build on the already outstanding work that Beenleigh Special School does each and every day for their students.

Catholic and Independent schools, including St Matthew's Catholic Primary School at Cornubia and Saint Philomena School in Park Ridge will also receive average increases of a little bit under four per cent in funding per student from 2018-2029, allowing more families from a diverse range of backgrounds to have a greater choice in their children's education. I note with interest that I received an email from Saint Philomena School yesterday talking about the improvements they're going to make to that school over the next few years and the redevelopment of that school. Those plans look extraordinarily exciting, and the contribution to the community will be enormous as a result.

Government schools will also continue to receive record levels of total Australian government funding, with an estimated $127.8 billion of recurring funding expected to flow to government schools from 2018-2029. In fact, government spending is the fastest growing for state schools, at around 6.4 per cent per student each year through 2018-23, compared to student growth of about five per cent for the non-government sector.

As a result of this bill, the school funding model will remain sector-blind and Australian government funding for non-government schools will continue to transition to 80 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard. The government will continue to refine the model over time. The government is continuing to deliver a needs based funding arrangement to ensure that students with the same need in the same sector attract the same level of support, so that every Australian child, no matter where they live, can have access to a world-class education.

At this point I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the outstanding work of the educators across all the schools in my electorate of Forde. Every day they are there at the forefront, whether it is the classroom, whether it's the cleaners, the groundsmen, the janitors, the principals, the administration staff—all of them do an outstanding job every day with a genuine and heartfelt desire to ensure that the students in their care have the ability to be the very best that they can be. I want to use this opportunity to thank them for their efforts.

As I said at the beginning of this speech, I believe that children are our future. This government certainly believes that. We are putting the money where it counts to achieve the best possible outcomes for Australian students. I commend the original form of this bill to the House.

Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (12:06): As the seconder of this amendment I am pleased to speak on it. The appropriation bill before us does some important things. I would note, firstly, that it is the seventh year of this government. Since they took office their penchant in education has been to always be focused on the numbers and rarely focused on the outcomes. This bill puts in place a change in the funding regime that is limited to the independent school sector, where it would cover non-government schools—that is independent and Catholic schools.

The bill in itself and the move to implement the new system, which allows the assessment of each school and its parents' capacity to make a contribution to that education, is a much finer discretionary tool than the one we currently have, which uses the SES which is built into the ICSEA scale. I would support this bill simply on the fact that it rights an aberration that has been long held in the Commonwealth funding of non-government schools. That is the aberration that allows somebody to set up an independent school in a low socioeconomic area with no intention of drafting students from that low socioeconomic area but attracting significant Commonwealth funding on the back of their geography. To be specific, I think of Geelong, where we have a school in a low socioeconomic area of Corio that attracts enormous Commonwealth funding which does not reflect the nature of the students in that school or their parents' capacity to pay, quite bluntly.

In that sense I think this is a good amendment. I know that some of the independent and Catholic schools in my area would welcome this. I've spoken to them at length. As someone who was a school principal, I understand the funding models that we're using here and I understand the demography of a school and how that, with parents' capacity to make a contribution, often impacts on what a school can offer in terms of its broad facilities. There are many schools in my community in the seat of Lalor that are what we call low-fee schools, which may be independent, Catholic—I think of two Muslim schools in my community—growing schools with large numbers of students and large numbers of families for whom that's a choice. I know that this will make a difference to them, because it will allow the use of people's actual incomes to help determine the funding model that will be in place.

But I want to make a clear point about that as well. We know from what the government has provided us that it's going to make a difference to a considerable number of schools and that there's going to be an adjustment period. It's going to make a considerable difference to a number of schools. There are I think 810 private schools that will be better funded because of this discrete measure and 59 schools, I think, that will lose money. I assume that the school in Corio will be on that list and will find itself not funded to the extent that it has been. That is, quite bluntly, outrageous and this is the first attempt the government has made to change any of that.

This measure will be most accurate where most of the student population's parents are PAYG salary or wage earners and are paying tax as they go, because their taxable income has fewer deductions. We know what they're earning, we know what their taxable income is and we all know that there are many fewer variations that they can have in establishing their taxable income. For those families that are in business, let's say, it may not be as accurate. I expect that in communities like mine this will be a fairly accurate indicator. Further, I'd go to the point that has been made in Victoria time and time again, which is that this is about a family's capacity to pay. For the private sector, that's a reasonable basis to be funding schools on. But we know in Victoria through our government system that the best indicator of a child's projected outcomes in education is parental education levels, which shape parental attitudes to school, which shape student attitudes to school. The more highly educated the parent body is, the more likely it is that the school will achieve higher outcomes. This was the beginning of the understanding, the beginning of the regime that saw Labor pursue a sector-blind, needs based approach. This legislation adjusts something to support non-government schools but flies in the face of that integral part of a needs based, sector-blind system. It does something but it does not add one cent to government schools from the Commonwealth, it does nothing to change the inequity that we see in our school system and it therefore does nothing to improve the quality of our education overall.

If we asked most Australians if they wanted a world-class education system they'd say yes. If we asked most Australians if they wanted a fairer Australia they'd say yes. If we asked most Australians if they wanted to grow the economy and created a more prosperous society they'd say yes. But what this piece of legislation highlights, in the fact that it is focused purely on the non-government sector and adds not one more dollar to the public sector, is that those opposite say 'no' to all of those questions. That's what this legislation does. It reminds us that when those opposite had an opportunity they voted against equality. They voted against a world-class education system, because they voted against a system that was going to be sector blind and needs based. They are now seeing it in sector terms as this legislation demonstrates to us so clearly. They are seeing it in sector terms, not as an opportunity to develop Australia's world-class education system. I say that because this government has abandoned all reform in the education space other than monetary reform. This legislation before us highlights that again. It's about monetary reform. It's about parents' capacity to pay. It is not about creating positive educational cultures. It is not about ensuring that every child in our school system is supported so that they can achieve their potential. That's not what this legislation is about. This legislation is about dollars and cents, and that is all it's about. It's not about education at all.

I want to make that point really clearly: the amendment goes to the government's failure—to their neglect of public education. The bill speaks to that, in the absence of public education being included. It goes to the fact that our standards are slipping and they have abandoned the reform agenda—absolutely abandoned it. If it hasn't got a dollar sign in it, they're not interested in it. They're only interested in ensuring that the status quo—that is, the inequality entrenched into our school system—stays where it is. That's what they're committed to, and they've failed to come up with a long-term education policy for the nation and the economy. There's nothing clearer than the fact that we're here today. They're implementing an idea that has been around for a decade, after seven years in government. Seven years in government, and now they're going to implement this simple measure that could have made a difference and could have changed significantly the waiting, even in the non-government sector.

The other part that we need to highlight in this bill is that 810 private schools will be better off under this measure, or more 'fairly funded' under this measure—fairly funded purely through the lens of the private sector—and 59 will lose funding. But then we go to the detail and we find that there's going to be a two-year transition period. These 59 schools are transitioning again. This is going to implement a system that says, 'These parents in this school have the capacity to make this kind of a contribution.' So why do we need two years to do that? It brings to mind all of the rhetoric that we heard when this government tore up the sector-blind, needs based funding model. They tore it up, and we were all in this chamber when that happened, when they voted not to do the right thing. It absolutely tore up our chance of getting the kind of equality we need for a first-class education for all of our students, and the rhetoric was around the 27 deals. We kept hearing the Prime Minister at that time, Malcolm Turnbull, talking about the 27 separate deals and how they were going to do a better job. Now they're going to enter into, possibly, 59 separate deals with 59 individual schools to transition across to a new funding model. So 27 arrangements with different sectors and different states was too much to bear, but we're going to build this system and then we're going to have an opportunity for schools that are worse off to transition.

I want to look at schools that are worse off and the options that are being put in place here, because some of it's quite unbelievable. 'Over 2020 to 2022, schools will move to the new direct measure. In 2020 and 2021, schools will be provided with three different options for working out their capacity to make a contribution score. Schools will automatically receive the most beneficial of these three options.' I ask myself: what year is it? My answer is: it's 2020. 'The first option is to use the current SES methodology using the 2011 census data'—2011 census data! The second option is the 2016 census data and the third option is the new system. Whichever one works best for that school, they can move into it. For a start, I don't know how the 2011 census data can possibly be relevant in this case. It seems to me that the government is hell-bent on making a change with this legislation, but making the fall as soft as it can across the sector, because it doesn't want to come here and tell us that it had to make 59 separate arrangements with 59 private schools to make this work. So it's set up a fudge, if you like, around that process. The fact of the matter is that a fund goes with this legislation where those schools may be able to appeal this process and sit down with someone in government and figure out how they might transition across. That means how they might not lose money—how they might ensure that they continue to be funded in an inequitable way.

Everyone in this place knows my background. Everyone in this place knows that I spent 27 years in public education. Everyone in this place knows that it saddens me every time I come in here to speak about education that the focus from those opposite is not on reform. It is not on a scientific approach to our classrooms. It is not about building teacher capacity. It is not about supporting schools to do the best work that they can do. No, it's about money. On this side, the money arguments are actually about building equality into the system. The money arguments are about supporting reform to ensure that every child gets every chance in every school in this country.

To emphasise that, in 2019, there were 3,948,811 students enrolled in 9,503 schools across this country. Of those students, two-thirds were enrolled in government schools, 19½ per cent enrolled in Catholic schools and 14.18 per cent enrolled in independent schools. In this place, all this Commonwealth government wants to do is suggest that the Commonwealth funds private schools while states fund public schools. Well, if we want a world-class education for every child in this country, it will require federal action. It will require Commonwealth attention, because otherwise the state-to-state variation is going to hold our children back. It supports the fact that the in-school difference and the between-school difference are already holding our children back. Our slipping of standards and our slipping of achievement against international standards is demonstration of that.

Ms HAMMOND (Curtin) (12:21): I rise to speak in favour of the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020. An excellent education system is vitally important to Australia. At a macro level, it's vital economically, socially, for adaptation into the future and for cohesiveness as a nation. At an individual level, obviously education provides people with an opportunity to learn, to develop knowledge, to develop skills, to develop understanding and to rise to their potential.

This government strongly supports the rights of parents to choose the best school for their child. To enable this, we need to have strong and vibrant public and private systems—systems which allow for a diversity of schools to flourish. We also need to ensure that the choice is an affordable one. To that end, funding must be provided for each and every child, regardless of the school system their parents choose.

(Quorum formed) Before I commence again, I want to note that it is wonderful to once again see school students in the public gallery. To all the school students up there: I ask you to ask the parliamentary education officer who is with you to explain the quorum-calling game that is currently being played.

To pick up where I left off, within the context of the vitality of having an excellent education system, I do want to note—and it is not directly relevant to this bill, but it is relevant to education—the government is providing a record $314 billion investment in recurrent funding for schools from 2018 to 2029. It will grow from $21 billion this year to $32 billion in 2029. There is record funding for all schools—

Mr BOWEN (McMahon) (12:26): I move:

That the Member be no longer heard.

The SPEAKER: The question is that the member be no further heard.

Ms HAMMOND (Curtin) (12:34): In the remaining time available to me I want to outline that the new method of calculating funding for non-government schools, the direct measure of income, is a very positive move. However, as with any change, there will be differential impacts on schools under the new method. Indeed, of the 13 independent schools in my electorate, seven will move to a higher level of funding, two will stay the same and four will move to a lower level of funding.

I've already been in contact with the schools which are going to have a lower level of funding, and I, like the minister and this government, do appreciate the concerns that they have expressed. To assist them with the transition, the government has put in place a lengthy transition period, over 10 years; $1.2 billion in the new Choice and Affordability Fund to help those schools; and a robust review process, which is currently being developed, which will enable independent schools that believe they need to have their new funding relooked at to go through this process. The things that they might request to be considered would include sudden changes to local economic circumstances; recent significant changes in student enrolment numbers; unique circumstances of the school community, such as where the parents or guardians have a greater number of dependents; and other exceptional circumstances.

By way of finishing, I would note that the purpose of this bill is to implement the recommendation of the National School Resourcing Board. It will establish a new and more targeted and accurate way to calculate the capacity of families to contribute to the cost of sending their kids to a non-government school. It is a needs based model which is designed to get the best results for students, parents and teachers. The more targeted and direct measure of income will make school funding more equitable by ensuring that funding flows to the schools that need it most. Under this model, by 2029, students with the same need in the same sector will attract the same level of support.

Mr HAYES (Fowler—Chief Opposition Whip) (12:36): To start, Labor supports the basis of the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020. I certainly support the amendment moved by the member for Sydney; however, the bill, as it's formed, makes a lot of sense, particularly for areas that I have the honour to represent in Western Sydney.

As I've spoken about on many occasions, my electorate is one of the most multicultural in the country. As a matter of fact, I receive the majority of refugees that come to Australia. One thing that I've learnt from the many years of representing people in my community, particularly those who have come here fleeing violence, fleeing torture and fleeing oppression, is that they not only come here for a new start; they also bring with them a passionate belief in education. From their backgrounds, they know that the difference between success and otherwise—particularly in a country like Australia—starts with a good education for their children. So it's not uncommon in my community to see the parents working two or three jobs to ensure their kids get the best opportunities in education that they can possibly give them.

The people I represent are not rich; my community's certainly not a rich community. As a matter of fact, the average household income—not the average income, but the average household income—is a tad over $60,000 a year, so it's not rich. But those mums and dads out there understand that giving their kids a future starts with a very good education. I would have thought that's one thing that we should all subscribe to in this place: every child needs to have the opportunity of a great education. It should not be subject to politics. One thing that we should be able to agree upon is that every dollar that we invest in education is an investment in this country's future. It's not just for a particular child or a particular community; everything we put into education invests in the future of our country. As I said at the start, I see a lot of benefits in what's being proposed in this bill in changing the identification models for determining funding for independent and systemic Catholic schools, which do play a significant role in providing education to children and certainly kids in my area in Fowler.

Essentially the bill builds on recommendations made by the National School Resourcing Board, which recommends moving away from the SES model, the socioeconomic status model, for determining the funding and moving to a new model based on the direct measure of income. I understand from speaking to principals that there have been issues over time with the SES model, trying to work out the period over the calculation which it's made; whereas the new model of direct measurement of income will be averaged over a three-year period on a rolling basis. That will help avoid or minimise the fluctuations that can occur, particularly when there are areas of high casualised employment in our community. Sometimes people are going to earn more in a particular year than another year. So this is probably a far more accurate measure for determining the basis of the contribution to be made on a schools basis.

Because it is a significant change, it will be phased in, which will take some time to do. It will also cost some money to do that. Because you're changing the model and, without putting too fine a point on it, there will be winners and losers, to ensure that there is fairness and balance, the government has also provided $3.2 billion over the next 10 years to the non-government schools as they transition to the new measure. That's in addition to the $170.8 million available in the 2019 year to give funding certainty to those schools.

Further, there will be a $1.2 billion choice of affordability fund to address specific challenges in the non-government school sector. As I say, there will be winners and losers. There will probably be some challenges in the transition to the new model. This fund will help smooth those challenges out. It essentially ensures that schools won't miss out and, more importantly, the kids won't miss out in respect to that funding.

The measure as it's proposed will be far fairer in determining the funding relationship between the government and non-government school sectors. Over the last couple of years I have got a lot of comments from the Catholic Education Commission, and I note that they are certainly supportive of this measure, as they think it will be a far more accurate evaluation of a school's capacity in respect of its funding. The Catholic Education Commission have indicated that they estimate that three-quarters of their schools will receive a more favourable treatment under the capacity-to-contribute formula under this mechanism than before.

I'm certainly not deaf to the concerns of others. I note particularity the concerns expressed by the Australian Education Union, particularly in their involvement in representing teachers in the government sector. They've made a lot of comments, and I don't disagree with much of what they've said, by the way. It's not that they're arguing against the provisioning to non-government schools, but they are saying that the federal government is really taking their eye off government schools, state schools for instance. The government won the last election. Regrettably we have to concede that. But in the last two elections alone, education, along with health, has been front and centre in the political contest. I remember back in 2013 when the then education minister—I'm pretty sure was Christopher Pyne—maybe feeling a little under the pump at that stage, wanted to talk about how there would not be daylight between Labor's policy on education and their policy on education. As a matter of fact, he went on to say that of the Liberal Party, 'We match Labor's promises on education dollar for dollar.' In other words, he made it very clear in this place that it doesn't matter which party you'll vote for; you'll get the same outcome in education.

That was in 2013. The very next budget came in May 2014, and what do you think they did? They went and cut education. Despite having a promise that we're going to say that education is a sacred cow and we all believe that our investment in education is an investment in the country's future—despite going through all that rhetoric—the very first budget opportunity that they had to prove that, they cut it. So they've got a track record. Under Tony Abbott they dumped the reforms designed to lift the standards of basic reading, writing and mathematics, and under Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull they abandoned proper and fair funding for schools. This mob opposite have a track record when it comes to talking about education. They talk the big game but deliver precious little.

And it's not just what they do in relation to schools. Education is pretty holistic. Education is about primary and secondary schools certainly. It's also about universities and, importantly for a country like Australia that needs to increase its skill base, it's about TAFE and vocational education. In their next budgets, they actually moved to cut TAFE funding by $3 billion. It's just not by any accident now that we have 150,000 fewer apprentices at a time when we need a skill base in this country. The only way that they are actually going to get the skills is by importing them.

Our children deserve to know that we are doing everything we can to ensure that they get the proper education and they can move to sustainable, secure, well-paid jobs in this country. Part of that equation is also about our tertiary education system of universities. What do you think they did in respect of universities? They cut $2.2 billion out of our universities. Our universities are forced to take more overseas students to be able to run their programs. Our universities are forced to do more work in collaboration with supportive industries to support education. I think the kids of Australia deserve to know that we in this place, for the limited time that we actually get to be here, are going to do everything we can to secure their futures, and simply cutting education is not the way to do it.

But I get back to where I started. I do think the direct measurement of income will be of tangible benefit in calculating the contribution targets for the non-government schools sector. I think it will certainly level the playing field in areas where there may be a systemic Catholic school or low socioeconomic area alongside a more elite school. As it is at the moment, it's calculated on their area. If they're in a low-SES area geographically, that means they will both be treated the same. Now, that should not be the case. We must make sure that every child gets the benefit of a good, well-rounded education in every school.

On that basis, I support the amendment moved by the member for Sydney and I also support the underlying rationale contained in the government's proposition in the bill before us.

Mr WALLACE (Fisher) (12:50): I rise in support of the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020. If there's one thing that we learnt from the disastrous years of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, it is that just throwing money at a problem is never the way to solve it. The solution to every problem, according to members opposite, is to spend more, with no thought about where it's going, and then, when that doesn't work and you run out of cash, you spend even more. That's why Labor presided over a budget deficit that peaked at $54½ billion and it's why, nearly a decade later, they went to the last election proposing an additional $387 billion in new taxes. Those opposite have learned nothing from that defeat, as that remains their policy today.

The coalition, however, understand that solving a complex problem requires a sophisticated, practical response. In the first instance, we look to reform, not to raiding ordinary Australians' bank accounts. Second, if we do find that more money really is needed to solve the problem, then we deliver that investment. But, when we do so, we introduce a third vital element, so often missed by members opposite when they sit on these government benches. We make sure investment is delivered equitably and delivered to the places where it will make the greatest difference in solving the problems. When it comes to the problems facing education in this country, we've applied this practical approach, and the bill before the House is a central contribution.

It is certain that we need to make improvements to the Australian education system; change is needed. The latest report of the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, published in December last year, showed that, since 2000, Australian students' performance in reading, maths and science has been in relative decline. Though on a par with similar countries—New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan—our students' performance has been slipping compared with important near-neighbours like China, Singapore and Korea. These declines have been consistent across governments on both sides of politics, with some of the largest declines coming during the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years.

As the Minister for Education has said, the time has come for us to change direction. But the government understands that simply throwing money at the problem is not enough. Funding to education has been increasing every year, yet performance has not increased. Clearly, as the coalition have always said, we need more than just money; we need reform as well as investment and we need our investment delivered to the right places. This government has been getting on with the job of delivering all three. First, in partnership with the states and territories—(Quorum formed) As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, first, in partnership with the states and territories, we're rolling out a generation-defining reform in how—

Mr Snowdon: I move:

That the Member be no longer heard.

The SPEAKER: The question is that the member for Fisher be no further heard.

Mr WALLACE (Fisher) (13:04): We all know that scene from Braveheart when Mel Gibson was riding up and down in front of his troops, and he said, 'You can take our land, you can take my minutes from this speech but you'll never take our freedom.' So first in partnership with the states and territories we're rolling out a generation-defining reform in how education is delivered in Australia. We're ensuring teacher quality and raising standards in the sector by more rigorous testing of trainee teachers. We're acting to make sure that teaching draws the kind of talented leaders that we need by insisting that teachers score in the top 30 per cent of their peers for literacy and numeracy. We're backing the full implementation of NAPLAN to ensure that parents and teachers get transparency on student progress and to promote accountability in the sector. Along with better trained teachers, we need to improve the content that they are required to teach. That is why the government is refocusing the Australian curriculum on the skills and information that students need to know. We have fast-tracked a review into the entire curriculum. (Time expired)

Mr BANDT (Melbourne—Leader of the Australian Greens) (13:05): There are schools that need more money. They're called public schools, and there's not a cent for them in this appropriation bill. In public schools, one in five teachers is dipping into their own pocket to buy things like food or equipment for their students, but they don't get any support from this bill. In public schools there are 45 per cent of teachers helping them buy things like clothes and toiletries, but they don't get a cent from this bill. Under this government's funding formula 99 percent of public schools will be funded less than the Schooling Resource Standard by 2023, while 100 per cent of private schools are going to be above that benchmark, but this bill gives the private schools more money and gives nothing to the public schools.

If we want to have a country where everyone is entitled to a good-quality education, where our educators get paid properly and where, when you go to school, you have proper equipment in proper buildings, we need to fund our public schools. But this government can find $3.4 billion so that schools that are already doing alright get even more money, but public schools get nothing. This government is failing the 2½ million children in public schools.

We need to go back to basics here. We need to say that in a country like Australia every child has the right to a decent public education. Public schools are not a safety net; they are the gold standard. We should fund them as such. But what we know from report after report and inquiry after inquiry is that our public schools are slipping behind. Why? Because there is a cashed up lobby of very wealthy schools that is able to come here and persuade both sides of the aisle that they deserve special treatment. As a result, every time there's an additional pot of money to be handed out, it doesn't go where it's needed.

Public schools are the ones who educate our most disadvantaged students. They're the ones who need more support, so if there's a spare $3.4 billion going, let's give it to our public schools, because they're the ones who are doing the bulk of the teaching and the bulk of the teaching in the areas of need. This has been reported time and time again, but it seems that in this place need doesn't count for much; what counts is whether you've got the right school tie and you went to the right very wealthy private school that has a few swimming pools and tennis courts. If you do that you can come and ask the government for additional money, and they will give it to you.

There are some positive steps in this bill, because it starts to go some way towards improving the measurement of a school's socioeconomic score. In my electorate, where we've got more public housing than any other electorate in Victoria, there are some Catholic schools that I wouldn't say are wealthy by any stretch: St Joseph's, St Michael's, Holy Rosary. Some of those schools are looking after and educating some of the neediest and poorest students. But what the government is doing is wheeling out some of those schools and saying, 'This justifies the whole bill.' Well, no—part of the problem there is that we don't fund schools on the basis of need. The government hands over big cheques and then the money doesn't find its way to the schools that need it. If we had a proper needs based funding system, then those schools who are educating some of the most vulnerable, including those in the flats in public housing in Collingwood or Kensington in my electorate, would get the funding that they deserve. But if you took a needs based approach, what you would find is that the bulk of the money goes to the public schools, because that is where the bulk of the need is.

An honourable member interjecting—

Mr BANDT: And the students. That is exactly right—and the students. That is where the need and the students are, but that is not what this government is doing. Although the government accepts that there's a problem with the funding model that they've got, and say, 'Maybe we need to look a bit at socioeconomic scores,' what this bill doesn't do is consider the existing wealth and assets of private schools in allocating the funding. The idea that this is about redressing some kind of imbalance is completely wrong, because, even if your public school has enormous assets and enormous wealth, that won't be taken into account. You can still line up for some of this extra $3.4 billion. What the president of the Australian Education Union said is absolutely right:

This draft bill locks inequality into school funding. It takes no account of a school's income, wealth or assets in determining private school funding levels.

In other words, just think about this for a moment, if you've got a couple of tennis courts and a swimming pool and equipment that many, many students and people will never ever see in their life, you can still line up for a share of this $3.4 billion and get some of it, even if you've already got a lot, while other public schools, where one in five teachers are dipping into their pocket to buy stationary and classroom equipment, get nothing.

This isn't just an attack on students and families and public school teachers across the country; this is also an attack on democracy, because this is another step towards us becoming a society of haves and have-nots, where if you've got the cash to send your child to private schools to the tunes of tens of thousands of dollars a year, then you're going to get more money, but, if you're lining up for a public school where you sit through sweltering days during summer, as the climate crisis gets worse, because so many of those schools aren't designed well enough to keep the students or the teachers or the staff cool, or if you're one of those students who's lining up and you can't afford to buy breakfast that day, there is nothing in this $3.4 billion for you. This bill increases inequality. It makes inequality worse and it puts us on the road to becoming a US-style society, where the gap between the haves and the have-nots grows. If there is a spare $3.4 billion going, give it to the public schools first, alright? Give it to the public schools first. And yes, if there are—I'll repeat what I said before—some non-government schools that are educating the genuinely needy and vulnerable, like the ones who educate some of the students from the flats in my electorate, then under a needs based formula they would get funding too, and they wouldn't have to queue up behind some wealthy schools and hope that there's crumbs left over for them at the end.

If this was only one bill it would be bad enough, but this comes on top of other insults from this government. Government funding for private schools has grown by 35 per cent over the 10 years to 2017-18, while funding for public schools has only grown 11 per cent. Annual per student growth in total government funding for private schools was 3.4 per cent compared with only 1.5 per cent for public schools. We are not giving the money where it is needed. This is why only a few weeks ago parents right around the country were getting invoices from their public schools for fees that often were called 'voluntary fees' but in some cases in some schools they're getting invoices for things called 'essential education fees' that can run into the hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. For public schools, why is that happening? That is happening because the government is not funding schools properly.

This was a chance for the government to say to all those parents who are having to pay school fees to send their kids to public schools, 'We will give the money to public schools instead so that public education in this country is genuinely free.' So long as we refuse to give the money to the public schools—when you do things like charge fees at public schools, that impacts even more on the most disadvantaged and vulnerable. They're the families who are going to be less able to stump up the cash for it. They're the parents who are going to have to make heartbreaking decisions like, 'Can I afford to pay for my child to go on an excursion or to pay for something that's called a voluntary fee?' knowing full well that, in many instances, if you can't pay that you feel the stigma as a parent. You feel the stigma, and you don't want your child to be treated differently. The public schools know this is going on and they bend over backwards to help. This is why teachers are dipping into their own pockets and principals are scrabbling around trying to find extra money. Meanwhile, the public schools are falling down around their ears in many instances.

I'm a proud product of public schools at the primary and high-school level. I tell you what, the first time I walked into a wealthy private school and saw that there were things like big tennis courts and indoor pools at some places, and they have gym departments with higher budgets than the whole of some public schools, my head exploded. But that is what's going on in this country. This bill makes it worse. The only way that we are going to remain a strong democracy where everyone gets an excellent quality education, and the only way that we are going to enshrine public schools not as the safety net, as this government thinks, but as the gold standard that they are, is by funding them properly. That is something the Greens will always defend.

We oppose this handout to schools, many of whom don't need it, when there are public schools waiting in line in dire straits. For so long as a public school teacher has to dip into their own pocket to pay for food for a school student, and for so long as parents sending their kids to public schools have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars in voluntary fees for an education that should be free, we will oppose $3.4 billion being given to schools that have already got tennis courts and gyms coming out of their ears. That money should be going to the public schools that need it. If we had a proper needs based system of funding, then even non-government schools like those Catholic schools that educate some of the poorest in our country would stand to benefit and wouldn't have to wait in line behind those very wealthy schools.

A key part of the Green New Deal that I will be pushing as leader of the Greens is genuinely free education in this country—getting rid of those public school fees that parents have to pay, ensuring that every teacher is paid properly and ensuring that every public school has the money it needs to deliver and continue to deliver a gold standard education. If there is money going, it should go where it is needed first. You have to ask why it is in this country, when there are students that are still going to school hungry; when there are parents that can't afford to send their kids on excursions, because the fees that are being charged are too high; and when teachers have to dip into their own pockets to make ends meet, that we are handing out $3.4 billion, on top of the previous $1.2 billion that this government cut in special deals, to anyone other than the public schools.

I don't know what the other parties are going to do on this, but I can tell you the Greens will be fighting it, because the Greens will fight for public schools and put public education first, because so long as public education is underfunded in this country, which on any measure it is, that is where the money should be going first. This is taking us down the road to becoming a US-style unequal society where we divide between haves and have nots. One of the good things about Australia is that no matter how much money you've got you can feel guaranteed that your child is going to get a good education, a world-class education, when you send them to a public school. But that is under threat if we keep underfunding our public schools. If we want everyone in this country to have the right to send their child to a public school and know that they'll get a gold-standard education then we've got to fund our public schools properly, and that means giving this $3.4 billion that apparently is going begging to the public schools who need it, not to the very wealthy private schools, which don't.

(Quorum formed)

Dr ALLEN (Higgins) (13:23): I rise to support this bill, the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020. Every child has the right to a great education, and every parent has the right to make a choice.

Mr SNOWDON (Lingiari) (13:23): I move:

That the member be no longer heard.

The SPEAKER: The question is the member be no further heard.

The SPEAKER (13:31): The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.

Dr ALLEN (Higgins) (16:12): I rise to support this bill, because every child has the right to a great education and every parent has the right to make a choice about where their child attends school. This bill seeks to enable funding that is fair and transparent and allocated according to the needs of the school community and the child. Independent and faith based schools have always provided a choice for parents to pay for their child's education rather than attend a publicly funded state school. They should be able to continue to do so. Like our two-tiered health system, the Australian school system provides a safety net for some and choice for those who are willing to pay.

The point of this bill is that for the very first time the bill will enable government funding to be directly assessed on a needs basis. By 2029 students with the same need in the same sector will attract the same level of support from the Commonwealth, regardless of the state or territory where they live or their background. Through this bill the Australian government is introducing a more accurate methodology to calculate the capacity of a non-government school community to contribute to the cost of schooling. By creating a more targeted and directed measure of income, schools will be able to receive a fairer proportion of the funding pool and we can ensure that funding goes to the school and children who need it most.

The new method follows the recommendations made in June 2018 by the National School Resourcing Board review into the socioeconomic score, or SES, that funding is based on. This board was made up of members nominated by government, Catholic and independent sectors.

Previously, the SES was calculated using certain indicators, including the average income and other characteristics, collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in the area where the student lived. This was based on the SA1 subsection of the statistical area of the ABS. This meant that the indicators were averaged using data that was not necessarily representative of the families of the children that went to the school but, rather, representative of the geographical area in which the school resided. By using a geographic area, the indicators did not build an accurate description of a specific family's ability to contribute to school fees when enrolled at an independent or faith based school.

By contrast, this bill will link the funding model for non-government schools to the parental income of the families of students at each individual school under the new direct-measure-of-income score, making use of income data and other data held by the ABS. This is very important because it will enable funding to be targeted and appropriate. But the Morrison government will not just set and forget this funding model. We have put in place a number of measures to ensure that there's a transition process for schools to this new setting—and this is important. I know this because I have been chair of a faith based school council. I know how important it is, with regard to a funding model, that there is surety and that there is a transparent process so that schools can have their business plan argued out for the future.

This record funding that will be distributed for the new direct-measure-of-income approach will consist of an extra $0.2 billion in 2018 and 2019 for schools in the lead-up to the change, and the establishment of a $1.2 billion Choice and Affordability Fund from 2020 to 2029 to assist schools with the transition. This is good policy, this is worthwhile policy, and I fully support and endorse it.

Mr DICK (Oxley) (16:16): We know that education is the backbone of the future of Australia, and I want to make sure that we have legislation that looks after all of our students in this country so that they can get the quality education they need and deserve. So Labor will not be opposing this bill, the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020, in the House of Representatives. But I do want to put some remarks on the Hansard today about the importance of quality education and, even more important, quality education funding. I want to make sure that families feel completely supported and that they actually have the support they need so that their kids, whether they be in public, private or independent schools, have all options available to them.

This bill makes funding changes to private schools and completely ignores our public schools. I just want to read from the second reading amendment that the shadow minister for education and training moved this morning:

… "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that the Government has damaged Australia’s schooling system by:

(1) neglecting public education;

(2) allowing student results to fall in reading, maths and science; and

(3) failing to develop a long-term education policy for the nation and the economy'.

I'll come back to that amendment in a moment. The bill itself, as we've just heard from the member for Higgins, seeks to introduce a new method of calculating a family's capacity to contribute to the cost of their child's private education, altering the way non-government school funding is allocated. This will calculate the capacity to contribute, or CTC, based on a direct measure of the income of families of students at the school, rather than on the average SES of the neighbourhood students live in. The proposed direct measure of income is a targeted, more accurate approach and should ensure funding flows to the non-government schools that need it the most.

We've had a lot of lectures from those opposite about their record amount of education funding. They believe that they should be congratulated by the community for increasing funding year on year. What the government never admit or acknowledge is that they've never matched Labor's commitment to funding schools properly in this country.

I reiterate that Labor will not be opposing this bill today. In principle, we do support the move to a more accurate and robust direct measure of school communities' capacity to contribute to the cost of education at non-government schools. I'm pleased that this bill was referred to a Senate committee—which I understand will be releasing its report shortly—so that this bill, which makes significant changes to the education sector, receives the scrutiny appropriate for such legislation.

This legislation once again shows that the coalition government, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, really has turned its back on every public school parent and child in Australia by refusing to properly fund public schools. The government is happy to spend $3.4 billion to deliver targeted—and this is the key word—needs-based funding to private schools, but it refuses to provide a single extra dollar for underfunded public schools. The Prime Minister thinks that the students who go to public schools and their parents don't matter. There are around 2½ million public school students—two out of three of all students in this country. Public schools teach 82 per cent of the poorest kids in Australia, 84 per cent of Indigenous kids and 74 per cent of kids with disabilities.

I want to focus on the second reading amendment and particularly highlight to the House that we're seeing results falling in reading, maths and science. My view is that a good education in a properly funded school is the right of every single student in Australia. You should have quality education no matter if your parents choose to send you to a fee-paying school or to the local public school. We're seeing time and time again more pressures on teachers. The narrative coming out of government is that somehow it's not about funding. If you turn on Sky After Dark, you'll hear the same commentators go on about how funding isn't the answer; it's about quality and the teachers. We heard the member for Bowman say that it's all the fault of the teachers.

My sister is a state school educator in Queensland. I'm very proud of her being an educator. She has been an educator for over 30 years. She has taught in schools in far western Queensland—she began her teaching career in Cloncurry—she has taught in the United Kingdom and she currently teaches year 4 at a southside Brisbane school. She absolutely loves being a teacher, and she is an amazing teacher. She's an amazing sister as well, but she really is a terrific teacher. I've obviously spoken to her for many years about her role as an educator. Like probably every other state school teacher in the nation, she knows that our schools are not being properly funded.

I talk to educators in my own electorate of Oxley. This morning we heard the shadow minister for education and training, the member for Sydney, explain to the House that by 2023 we will see funding inadequately distributed between public schools and non-government schools. The divide is growing. On Friday the 27th I'll be attending a farewell for a much-loved deputy principal in my community—Mrs Tracey Slingsby. I want to spend a little time in my speech today wishing Mrs Slingsby all the best. I know that she would be very proud of me speaking about funding for public schools. She is a proud public teacher who has changed the lives of literally thousands of students. Her husband, Errol, was a principal at Oxley State School. He has retired. I know all members of this House wish any teacher retiring after a distinguished career a long and happy retirement. They've earnt it. I place on the record today that the teachers I've met in my electorate—through my family, friends and the work I've done—are really concerned about the future funding of our national education system.

Let's look at some of the education results, which I said I would do. In the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment, Australia recorded its worst results in reading, maths and science since international testing began. Our students are facing a long-term decline.

I went through the report. It says:

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a triennial survey of 15-year-old students that assesses the extent to which they have acquired the key knowledge and skills essential for full participation in society. The assessment focuses on proficiency in reading, mathematics, science and an innovative domain (in 2018, the innovative domain was global competence), and on students' well-being.

The PISA survey is held every three years to test how well students in their final years of school apply their knowledge to real-life challenges. In 2018 it was sat by more than 14,000 15-year-old Australians from 740 schools, joining 600,000 students from 79 countries. In maths, 15-year-olds performed more than a year below those in 2003; in reading, a year lower than those in 2000; and in science a year worse than those in 2006. By these measures we are currently preparing a future workforce less equipped than it was 20 years ago.

The decline in school performance has worrying implications for long-term economic growth, with a 1 per cent change in literacy associated with a 2.5 per cent change in labour productivity. I encourage all members of the House to support the second reading amendment to show to our public school sector that we understand their need and, more importantly, that this House recognises that we are seeing slippage and a fall in results in reading, maths and science, and we are failing to develop a long-term education policy for the nation's economy.

The data speaks for itself. On 4 December, when these results were mentioned, The Sydney Morning Herald said:

Australia ranked a lowly 70th out of 77 participating nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's 2018 index of disciplinary climate, released on Wednesday.

We have slipped in a serious way. Australia is one of the minority of countries where it has deteriorated. That's an important part of the conversation: on the world stage, our ranking and the data that we're finding are going backwards. This should be a wake-up call to all members. Since 2003 maths performance has declined further than any other country except Finland.

When the current Australian education minister was asked about this, he is quoted as saying that this should be ringing alarm bells for the government. That is interesting, because he is the government, the government responsible for education policy in this country. I expected that we would have seen a direct response to this. For the first time ever, performance in maths was no better than the global average. In maths, which is clearly a key area of education, we're seeing a reduction in performance and outcomes. I don't know about anyone else in this House, but I am deeply concerned about the education plan that we are seeing delivered now by this government in its sixth year, working towards its seventh year. We're seeing real results going backwards. The PISA national project manager, Sue Thomson, described the results as 'a wake-up call'. She said, 'We're not giving them the skills they need in maths, or in reading, or in science. We're not giving them the same level of skills as they are in other countries. This is a concern, particularly in a global economy where our kids will compete with kids all over the world.'

We can analyse results in black and white till the cows come home, and they are all there for the world to see. What I'm calling for by supporting the second reading amendment today—the government seems happy to spend $3.4 billion to deliver targeted needs based funding to private schools, but they aren't delivering an extra dollar for underfunded schools. That doesn't sit easily with me. It doesn't sit easily with the educators that I have been meeting with since I was re-elected as the member for Oxley.

I was at two remarkable schools in the break. I visited the mighty Woodcrest State College. One of the greatest things we have to do as members of parliament is to be part of leadership ceremonies and watch students step up and take on the role as leaders in their school and community. I often say, 'I don't know who is more proud: the parents of the students who are receiving these great leadership roles or the teachers.' That is particularly so at secondary level. Pat Murphy, the principal of Woodcrest secondary college, was telling me how a number of his students had started from Camira State School, which is nearby the secondary college, and gone right through. So he's watched their education journey. That sums it all up: when you're seeing teachers as proud as parents it means they want the best for their kids, as we all want for kids in our community. But, time and time again, you're seeing a government not investing enough in education for under-resourced schools. I've got some great schools, such as the Kruger State School, where I attended a leadership ceremony as well. Those kids are kicking goals. The Kruger Crocs are going from strength to strength. The teachers are giving them their all and the principal is providing school leadership, but what we're not seeing is proper funding for under-resourced schools.

That's why I entered this debate today. As I said, Labor won't be opposing this piece of legislation. Of course we want funding for all schools. But we're calling on the government and ensuring that, whilst their priority today in this bill is to deliver $3.4 billion for needs based funding to private schools, they simply follow that procedure for under-resourced schools in this country as well. We want to turn those results around. I haven't yet heard one government speaker talk about the failing results in reading, maths and science, which are there for everyone to see. What the teachers, students and parents in Australia are calling for is more funding, more action and better results.

(Quorum formed)

Mr LEESER (Berowra) (16:35): I rise to speak in favour of the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020, which completes reforms this government has made over the past few years to ensure all of Australia's school students—

Ms BURNEY (Barton) (16:35): I move:

That the Member be no longer heard.

The SPEAKER: The question is the member be no further heard.

The SPEAKER (16:42): With respect to quorums, I need the attention of the member for Gorton. I need to ask whether, in the last quorum, you left the House after it had been called.

Mr Brian Mitchell: I may have walked in and turned around.

The SPEAKER: Okay. I want to make clear to members while you're all here—

Government members interjecting—

The SPEAKER: I'll be the one making it clear, not those interjecting. If a quorum is called and you're in the House, you must stay. If you walk in, you must stay. Practice makes it clear it's highly disorderly to leave. On many occasions, the precedent is that you're named and suspended for 24 hours. I'm not going to do that on this occasion, but I'm making it clear while everyone is here: if a quorum is called and you're in the House or you come into the House, you must stay. The more recent precedent is to give the warning I've given. That wasn't what happened in the 1950s. I'm not about to go straight back to it. Having now communicated that clearly to everyone—I think the member for Gorton would be wise to keep listening and ignore the member for Newcastle for a while. Having now told everybody, I'm making it very clear: if that occurs again, a naming will occur.

Mr LEESER (Berowra) (16:44): The Labor Party have shut me down in this debate because they do not like what I have to say about education policy because it doesn't accord with the views of their paymasters in the Australian Education Union. Let me say, we on our side of the House will not be dictated to by the Australian Education Union, which are a handbrake on good education policy in this country. The Australian Education Union has opposed every good piece of education reform in this country. It absolutely amazes me that, despite the fact that there is low union density in construction and mining, we still see union density of about 45 per cent in the education sector.

This bill brings to a close an issue which the government has been dealing with since the time of the Gonski legislation. The Gonski review particularly looked at the issue of SES. The Gonski review had this to say about the SES:

… the area-based SES measure used at present is subject to potentially significant error due to variability in family SES within Census Collection Districts. This should be replaced in time with a more precise measure that would reflect directly the circumstances and background of each student in a non-government school.

That is what this legislation does: it responds to the views of the Gonski review. The member for McMahon is sitting behind me because he agrees with what the government has done here. He agrees with what the government is doing here. He agrees that the direct income measure is very important.

I think about many schools in my electorate which were subjected to the SES measure. They might have had people from a particular suburb or a particular postcode in their school but they weren't necessarily the wealthiest people in that particular suburb. In fact, very often, particularly in the Catholic independent school sector, they were among the poorest people in that postcode. The direct income measure creates fairness across the sector. It says that if you as a parent earn a particular amount of money that is what is going to be counted, rather than an average across a postcode or series of postcodes.

This legislation and the new arrangements mean that almost all the schools in my electorate are better off under the direct income measure—and that's terrific. Providing more support for all schools, as we are doing—going from $21.8 billion this year to $32.5 billion in 2029—means that we are supporting the choice of parents and their right to choose the education that is right for their families. In the Berowra electorate, people don't make a bad choice—whether you choose government, whether you choose Catholic or whether you choose independent. I'm lucky to have 51 outstanding schools serving 27,000 students. The teachers in all our schools are dedicated and professional, and the standard of education our children receive is extremely high.

Parents choose schools for all sorts of reasons. For some it will be logistics and for others there are values based decisions that affect their choice. The non-government schools, who are the particular beneficiaries of this measure, are filled with families that represent the full spectrum in my community. Families who choose non-government are actually often lower-income families. The old assumptions that we used to determine the capacity to pay haven't corresponded with the actual wealth of families attending non-government schools in my electorate. I think particularly of a couple of the non-government schools, Mount St Benedict College and Oakhill College, which made particularly strong recommendations and representations to me and to the education minister about the importance of the direct income measure and what it will mean for their school and for other schools in my electorate.

I want to pay tribute to the non-government schools in my electorate. I have 16 fantastic non-government schools who serve nearly half of the students in my electorate—nearly 10,000 students: Arden Anglican School, Berowra Christian Community School, Lorien Novalis School for Rudolf Steiner Education, Mount St Benedict College, New Hope School, Northholm Grammar School, Oakhill College, Pacific Hills Christian School, Redfield College, Tangara School for Girls, Hills Grammar School, Warrah School, Marian Catholic College, St Agatha's Catholic Primary School, St Bernard's Catholic Primary School and St Madeleine's Primary School.

When you hear some of the reasons that families sacrifice so much to send their children to these schools it is heartening to see the government supporting families in this way. One family in my electorate who have chosen to send their children to a non-government school said:

We gladly forgo oversea holidays and instead choose to go camping with our family so that we can send our children to these amazing schools.

Someone talking about Berowra Christian School said:

… we sought to find a school that would support the worldview and values we hold so dearly.

We deliberately chose this school because it offers an education that we feel is in partnership with the way that we are seeking to bring up our children.

Berowra Christian School is a small, nurturing, inclusive and academically strong school. The teachers are dedicated, loving and caring professionals. They always go above and beyond what's asked of them as teachers. The staff demonstrate incredible care and support, especially for those children with special needs, including our ten-year-old son, who has a significant physical disability.

The decision to send our children to Berowra Christian School was not one we made lightly. It involved greater travel each day and also greater financial cost. But when we reflect on the nurturing education that our children have received at this school, we would make the same decision in a heartbeat.

That view of Berowra Christian School is the same as that of so many parents who send their children to non-government schools. I commend the bill to the House. I think it adequately and accurately reflects the desires of the Gonski review. (Time expired)

Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (16:50): I rise to speak on the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020—a bill that alters the way non-government school funding is allocated, in that it seeks to introduce a new method of calculating a family's capacity to contribute to the cost of their child's private education. I state up-front that Labor will not oppose this bill, but I would advise the House to also support the member for Sydney's amendment.

The legislation before the chamber is a significant departure from the current funding allocation arrangements, so the Labor Party has referred this legislation to the Senate's Education and Employment Legislation Committee to ensure that it receives proper scrutiny. It would be a speedy inquiry because there is some urgency because of some GST complications. Nevertheless, we do need to have a look at it. We do need to get this right. It is important. All members of parliament would care about our children's education. I say that from my previous life before I became a lawyer, when I spent 11 years as a high school English teacher. I've always seen education as the great transformational opportunity in life. It's the wonder of Australia that we provide strong, solid education for all. It is why, traditionally, we've been a very egalitarian society. Since we've provided funding to all, whether they be in the bush or the city, all Australian kids should be able to receive a world-class education. But the change being put forward by the coalition is significant. It would calculate the capacity to pay based on a direct measurement of family income using de-identified ATO information for the actual parents at a school, rather than the average of the neighbourhood in which the students live, which is basically calculated by census collection districts data. This reform was recommended by the independent National School Resourcing Board and, before that, by the original Gonski review.

Labor supports this move. It provides a more accurate and reliable measurement of a school community's capacity to contribute to the cost of education in non-government schools. Currently, if there is an elite school and a low-fee school in the same neighbourhood, parents coming from the same neighbourhood would receive basically the same socioeconomic status score, even if one school takes in all the students from the low-income families and the other school takes in all the students from the very wealthy families. Under this new arrangement proposed in the bill, the low-fee school's capacity-to-contribute score would be lower due to the lower incomes of the actual families whose children attend that school. The elite school's capacity-to-contribute score would increase because the families with children at that school can afford to contribute more to the cost of their children's private education.

I'll give a specific example of a school that I know well—St Brendan's Catholic Primary School in Moorooka, a school not far from my house that one of many two sons attended. I know St Brendan's church. It was where my parents were married and it's was where my mother was buried. So I know that church well and I know the school well—Mrs Cole and all those who do great work there. St Brendan's Moorooka in the southern suburbs of Brisbane only has 70 students, but almost half the students, 46 per cent, are from the most disadvantaged educational background. Forty per cent have a language background other than English and 17 per cent have a medically diagnosed disability. Under the current SES scoring system, St Brendan's has a score of 102, putting it above the national average, which is not actually a true reflection of the school community. The DMI score puts St Brendan's at the minimum level of capacity to contribute, which more realistically reflects the situation of the school community, meaning increased funding would flow to St Brendan's. I should say that my children do not go to that school now, so I'm at some length from it. On the face of it, there have been many stories like the story of St Brendan's. The implementation of this change should mean a fairer funding distribution within non-government schools compared to what currently occurs.

As I've said, the Labor Party have sent this bill to a Senate inquiry to make sure it will work as intended and have a fairer distribution of funding to non-government schools. I do note that there is some capacity for the minister to do something like the old funding maintain deal under previous quadrenniums of education funding for schools that miss out. Some might call it an education slush fund, but I wouldn't be that unkind. It would be for the minister to make sure that schools that are worse off in that gradual transition can be accommodated. So we might see people writing off to the minister.

As a former teacher, I absolutely agree that school funding should be guided by need. It should be the basics for every student in Australia and then loadings based on need. That's an appropriate way to approach education. Although this bill is intended to make funding for non-government schools fairer, sadly, it will not do a single thing to make funding for public schools fairer. I want to focus on public schools because, remember, public schools educate two out of three Australian children. Around 2½ million Australian students go to a public school. Some go to both, but 2½ million Australian lives are going to be impacted by government decisions. Public schools educate not just two out of three but 80 per cent of the disadvantaged students, 82 per cent of the poorest kids, 84 per cent of Indigenous Australians and 74 per cent of kids with disabilities. So that's not two in three; it's well and truly above.

Unfortunately, public schools get the least help from this government. Public schools are not the priority of the Morrison government. They haven't been the priority of the Abbott government or the Turnbull government. The Liberals and the Nationals will only fund public schools to 20 per cent of the schooling resource standards, but they fund private schools up to 80 per cent. In fact, this government's plan is for public schools to never, ever reach 100 per cent of the schooling resource standards, the costs associated with educating a student. They will make sure that non-government schools are funded to 100 per cent of the SRS—and some above—but not public schools. Public schools can only ever expect, under this government's watch, to get to 95 per cent, and some of those will be lucky to get there.

How can Australia's schooling system be so unequal when it has been the foundation for an egalitarian society? This is a fundamental departure, I would suggest. Under their agreements, by 2023 almost all private schools will be funded at or above their fair level of funding, but almost all public schools will remain below it. That's not sector-blind, needs based funding. Remember what Gonski was talking about: sector-blind, needs based funding. That was the philosophy. That was what the economic driver was. That's what Gonski recognised as a banker—remember, he wasn't a teacher; he was banker who saw the economic benefits in investing in education. And where do you get best bang for your buck? By having sector-blind, needs based funding.

The coalition government is not even trying to reflect some level of equality. Every parent knows that school funding is important. I could go through my private schools and my state schools. All parents are passionate about their children receiving the best possible education. I know that they give up their time to run lamington drives, to have sausage sizzles, to have trivia nights and raffles. They don't do it for the fun of it; they do it to give their children a better chance in life. I know that every dollar counts when it comes to educating our children. This government is happy to spend $3.4 billion to deliver targeted, needs based funding for private schools, but they refuse to provide a single dollar extra for underfunded public schools.

Before the next member of the coalition jumps up and says, 'We're spending record amounts in education,' I remind them of the basic mathematics that there is a record number of Australians now. Of course you're spending record amounts of funding in schools; there are more Australians than there have ever been before. The Grattan Institute has argued that teacher wages and increases in student numbers have meant public schools have not had a real increase in funding. We know that this year more students are enrolling in public schools than in any other sector. The growth numbers are in some of those areas such as disability. The increase has been greater than the general population increase.

What does this mean? It has implications for resources—not only teaching resources, not only physical resources but the physical classrooms and buildings needed to accommodate the extra 150 students over the past five years. An ABC investigation into public schools last August found there was an urgent demand in public schools for basic facilities such as new classrooms, toilet maintenance, leaking roofs, heating and cooling. It is not unreasonable for a parent to expect that their local public school will have adequate classrooms, adequate bathroom facilities, roofs that don't leak, classrooms that are not so uncomfortable that children can't concentrate to learn. These are basic requirements for learning. Coming from Queensland, where it does get a bit warm in summer, I particularly appreciate the commitment by the Palaszczuk government to provide air conditioning in schools. That is a great commitment to providing top-class schools.

Every child deserves a good education. Teaching resources are obviously critically important as well. The inequality that is being entrenched in school funding agreements comes at a time when we have seen a long-term decline in students' reading, mathematics and science skills. Australian students have recorded the worst results in reading, maths and science since international testing began. I remind you that we are in the 7th year of this coalition government. Our schoolkids are now around a year behind in these basic subjects. Australia has fallen behind the Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland and Estonia. If no action is taken to reverse these falling standards, Australia's performance in maths will be the fifth worst in the developed world by 2030. In reading Australia would drop to 23rd and in science Australia would drop to 31st. In short, we would have slumped from one of the best performers in the world to one of the worst. This is alarming, and the Morrison government should be addressing this decline urgently. They are now in their 7th year of government: seven long years of wasted opportunities, and they have done nothing to turn around these plummeting results. If our kids are not learning to read, write and do maths and science, this government is failing our kids and failing Australia. They are failing the ageing Australians who will need the jobs of the future that come with those STEM-type subjects.

We know that funding is important to address this decline. When Labor was in government, we started to see improvements at the school level because we demanded that schools spent the extra funding well. I can give you many concrete examples. I will particularly point to Kuraby State School in my electorate. They are a strong culturally and linguistically diverse community, and they are making investments in early education, as so many state schools do, where they turn kids around so quickly and the benefits come later in life. At Eagleby South State School—not in my electorate, but I wanted to mention it, because it is not too far from my electorate of Moreton—they hired and trained extra reading aides and introduced a new reading program. The year 6 and 7 reading age at that school went from 50 per cent up to 70 per cent. They are real changes.

This government seems incapable of addressing the decline in the literacy and numeracy standards of Australian schoolchildren, so I'll give you a few tips. Most of this is really common sense. We need to get back to basics. You need to learn to read before you can read to learn. We need to raise teacher entry standards so we can have the best and brightest people teaching our children. We know that the best performing schools take teachers from the top 30 per cent of achievers. Teaching should not be a last choice; it should be something that people are proud to do. We need to use evidence, like we do in medicine, so we teach the basics well, and obviously we need to properly and fairly fund all of our schools. We need to have targets and a plan to get there—for instance, a target that Australia is placed in the top five countries internationally in reading, mathematics and science by 2025. Labor had actually agreed to a detailed plan with the states to improve school performance in reading, maths and science in 2013, but the new coalition government under Tony Abbott junked that plan in late 2013, calling it red tape. They are in their 7th year of government now. Children who started primary school back when the Abbott government came in are now in high school. What have they done? They have locked in unfair funding. They think the schools with the greatest need deserve the least amount of funding.

The coalition's failure to address these alarming declines in educational standards is not only failing our children but has long-term implications for Australia's economy. There is evidence that a 1 per cent change in literacy is associated with a 2.5 per cent change in labour productivity. The economy under this coalition government is already in strife. Living standards have been eroded by stagnant wages, falling private investment, stalling productivity, record high underemployment and household debt. Economic growth is at its slowest since the global financial crisis, and more headwinds are coming our way. It doesn't bode well for Australia's future when the Liberal government can't get the basics right for our economy and it can't get the basics right for our education system.

The Morrison government has no plan to address any of the challenges that are facing this country—no plan to fix the economy, no plan to address the decline in educational standards and no plan to properly fund all schools. We need a leader, but all we have is fluff and spin and shiny, glossy brochures. I support this bill, but I also support the amendment moved by the member for Sydney, noting the government has damaged Australia's schooling system. I commend this amendment to the House.

(Quorum formed)

Ms SHARKIE (Mayo) (17:08): I rise to support this bill, Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020. Centre Alliance was critical in assisting the landing of the major Gonski education reforms in the last parliament, negotiating for Australian schools to receive $23.5 billion—$4.9 billion above the government's original proposal of $18.6 billion. This was critical for South Australia in particular, because, when the previous state government had an agreement with the then Gillard government, the Gonski agreement that was negotiated had the funding in the backend of the agreement. That meant that many South Australian schools were behind other state counterparts, because the funding for them was in years 5 and 6 outside of forward estimates, not that I'm being particularly critical there, but I do appreciate that we needed to make sure that we got reforms through. So we negotiated for those underfunded Australian schools to reach their new funding targets within six years rather than the government's original 10-year proposal. We felt that that was important because a child that was five years of age shouldn't have to wait until it was 15 years of age by the time that reform was completely implemented. It is important to recognise that this has led to record funding levels in education by the federal government, even despite the fact that funding for public schools ultimately remains a responsibility of states.

We also negotiated for a National School Resourcing Board to be implemented to review and improve the school funding methodology, with benchmarks for state and territory governments so that they pay their fair share of education. In the early days of Gonski, we saw that where the federal government tipped in a particular state or territory government would in some cases crab walk away from their responsibilities.

The central element of this bill comes directly from the school national schools resourcing boards reveals school funding, the June 2018 Review of the socio-economic status score methodology. A key recommendation of the board was that the socioeconomic status scores for non-government schools should be calculated on the capacity of school families to contribute to the cost of education rather than using area based calculations, based on postcode. The reason that this is important is that many families make enormous sacrifices to send their children to a non-government school because they are not as wealthy as the average resident in that particular school's area or postcode. This can often be because families live outside the area where the school is. This is particularly true in my electorate of Mayo, where families often live in outer lying rural areas and townships and send their children to the larger towns, where non-government schools are often based. It is worth remembering that not all non-government schools are wealthy schools from leafy inner suburbs. For example, a good number of students in non-government schools in Mayo are actually children on school cards. Many of them are children with special needs who are supported and included in the very inclusive and caring small environments for children. A long-running South Australian initiative, the school cards support children from financially disadvantaged backgrounds.

I know that schools right across my electorate, whether they be independent or state schools, are all fund raising. They're all running sausage sizzles, they're all running cake stalls and they're all organising school fetes. All of that is to put more money back into their schools. They are careful with their budget, particularly when they're a small school. That's because in many of our small schools in regional areas if one family can no longer afford to stay at that school, an independent school, that can drastically change enrolment numbers.

When I talk about school cards and about families who send their children to independent schools and sacrifice so much to do so, often the reason they do that is that they want their child to be taught in the faith that's in the home or they're looking for different learning styles that will suit the specific needs of their children, whether it be Montessori or Waldorf-Steiner models. I have Steiner model schools in the Adelaide Hills and in Wilunga. I will say, though, that every school in my electorate is a quality school, whether it is a public school or an independent school. For a regional area, we provide significant choice for families, and that, ultimately, is what we want to see in an education system, that there is choice for families.

I have received reassurances from the government that the funding transition is being made so as to minimise any disruption. Given my knowledge of the non-government schools in Mayo, I am confident that these changes will create positive funding outcomes for all of our non-government schools, and I therefore commend the bill to the House.

In closing, I would like to mention the school community fund, which provided $200,000 per electorate for small projects. I think that provided an enormous boost to our schools right across Australia. They were small projects organised through electorate offices. I would strongly encourage the minister to consider having a funding round in the future. I know that it was well oversubscribed in my electorate, and I'd like to think that more schools in my electorate would have the opportunity to participate in that grant round in the future. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr Neumann: Mr Deputy Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the House.

The bells being rung—

Mr Leeser: I have a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thought 15 minutes needed to elapse before one could draw attention to the state of the House.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr S Georganas ): I've just been informed by the Clerk that that's not correct. Thank you for your interest.

(Quorum formed)

Mr SNOWDON (Lingiari) (17:17): I want to thank all of those in attendance for coming to hear my contribution. I don't know if they'll stay long—

Ms Price interjecting—

Mr SNOWDON: It's hardly my maiden speech. I'm pleased to be able to make a contribution to this debate on the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020. I indicate that we in the Labor Party are supporting the legislation and that I'm also strongly supporting the amendment moved by the shadow minister for education and training. I remind the House that, under this legislation, the funding of non-government schools is a shared responsibility between parents, guardians and the Commonwealth and state and territory governments. Under existing legislation, non-government schools are transitioning to receive a Commonwealth funding share of 80 per cent of the school resourcing standard by 2027. The funding share is to be discounted by a school's capacity-to-contribute percentage, which calculates the capacity of the school community to contribute to the students' education. Certain non-government schools, including the majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander schools, are exempt from the CTC reduction and will receive full base funding.

Since 2001 the CTC had been determined using an area based SES score calculated every five years from census data, with schools assigned a score that is the average of certain SES indicators for the areas in which students reside. This means that the SES score for an area is based on the averaging of the characteristics of all people residing in a certain geographical area, not just the families of the students attending the school. This was the best available data when the measure was implemented.

The new DMI model will be based on the median income of parents and guardians at the school. Schools will collect names and residential addresses for all students, which will be provided to the department of education. The department will then provide the data to the Australian tax office, which will match it against income metadata and provide de-identified income data back to the department. A school's DMI will be based on a three-year rolling average to minimise year-on-year fluctuation. The bill also contains transition measures aimed to smooth the change from the current arrangements to direct measure and minimise adverse impacts.

Over 2020-22 schools will be moved to the new DMI when it is most financially beneficial for them to do so. In 2020 and 2021 schools will be provided with three different options for working out their CTC score. Schools would automatically receive the most beneficial of the three options. The new direct measure will apply to all schools by 2022.

The bill enables adjustments to the rate at which schools move to their 80 per cent Commonwealth SRS share, to smooth out any fluctuations presented by the phased implementation of the DMI methodology. Non-government schools which are transitioning down to an 80 per cent Commonwealth share of SRS will have an extension of two years from 2027 to 2029. All non-government schools will have their starting Commonwealth share reset from 2020 to 2022 to ensure schools are not unnecessarily disadvantaged by moving away from the SES methodology to the new direct measure of income. These transition arrangements are being funded through the $3.4 billion budget allocation. And then there are circumstances where a school can be considered a majority Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school, impacting its funding requirement.

Labor, as I say, is supporting this legislation. We have referred the bill to a Senate inquiry so it receives the scrutiny appropriate for a significant change to legislation such as this.

I should take note that whilst there is broad support across the education sector—I'll come to my concern about the failure to fund the public education system. There is broad support amongst private educators for this legislation. However, I need to point out that there is a coalition of regional independent schools across Australia who are very concerned about this legislation. They've put out a press release under the name of Stephen Higgs, the chair of the Coalition for Regional Independent Schools, and they are very concerned. They say they represent 50 schools from states and territories, and they say they'll be stripped of millions of dollars a year under this new model, forcing them to cut programs, increase fees and, in some instances, potentially close their doors. I've encouraged those schools to make representations to the minister. Clearly there are opportunities within the way in which the legislation's been framed for the minister to make exceptions and to deal with the concerns raised by these particular individual schools.

The problem I've got is that, while we're pumping $3.4 billion into the private education system, we're not putting a similar amount into the public education system.

Mr Pasin: That's because states do it!

Mr SNOWDON: Listen, knucklehead, just behave yourself.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr S Georganas ): Order!

Mr SNOWDON: It's very clear that the people who are being disadvantaged by this legislation are people who work in the public school sector and work—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Reid.

A government member interjecting—

Mr SNOWDON: What? He is not a knucklehead?

Dr Martin: I object to the language used in this place. It's showing disrespect for this place to speak in this way about another member of parliament.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Are you asking for it to be withdrawn?

Dr Martin: Yes, I'm asking for it to be withdrawn.

Mr SNOWDON: I withdraw.

The SPEAKER: The member for Lingiari has withdrawn.

Mr SNOWDON: But my concern about the government member stands. Their lack of support for the public education system is here for all to see. I want to talk to a particular issue in the public education system around the support of Aboriginal kids in remote Aboriginal communities.

These people across the other side, bar the minister sitting at the table, have absolutely no idea what I am talking about, but let's be very clear. I wonder if any of them have read the Closing the gap report which was recently introduced. Did they notice the differential rates of school attainment by kids who live in very remote communities like the communities I work in in my electorate? If they did, they'd be saying they want this government and the state and territory governments to spend more on public education to make sure the disadvantage which is being suffered by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who live in remote communities is properly addressed. But it is not only Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids; there are elements of disadvantage in the public education system right across this country, and this government effectively says it just doesn't care.

The Liberals think it's fine to provide public schools with only 20 per cent of the schooling resource standard while they give private schools 80 per cent. Why could that possibly be? I stand here as a proud former teacher who worked in schools in the Northern Territory and who has done research on Aboriginal education in the bush. I understand the nature of the challenges. But what I'm concerned about is the failure of this government to accept its responsibilities to address the disadvantage and the need in the public education system across Australia but most particularly in Aboriginal communities in the area that I look after. I just want to go to some of the figures in this report.

This demonstrates that kids who live in remote and very remote communities have an on-average attendance of two or three days a week at school. How can anyone achieve a reasonable educational outcome by going to school two or three days a week? Yet we've had the government and the former minister responsible for First Nations people, Nigel Scullion. He funded the school attendance program in electorates across Australia. Sadly, little has changed as a result of that investment. The government is currently investing $78.4 million from February 2019 to extend this school attendance program until 30 December 2021. Between 2015 and 2018 the investment was $80 million. The $18.1 million was after the initial trial in 2014. The total spent has been $176.5 million, but to what end? What is the evaluation of this expenditure? How has this money been spent to achieve better outcomes? What we know from this Closing the gap report is that school attendance levels have fallen, not improved. Despite that, this government has spent this $176.5 million.

There is merit in spending this money if it's directed to the right areas, if it's in partnership with Aboriginal communities and the public education sector, if it's the priority areas that money should be spent in. There are teachers around the bush who work their hearts out for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids for little or no reward, and they don't get properly acknowledged. They work in difficult circumstances and they work in partnership with the communities within which they work, but because of the failure of governments to fund them sufficiently they lack the resources to do the job they want to do. They don't have the resources and we have seen that this is not something that just rests with the Liberal Party. This is a policy conundrum which should have been addressed properly by both sides of this parliament and is yet to be. It's yet to be because we're not prepared to give Aboriginal people the opportunities they properly deserve to make decisions about their own educations.

There are members in the House who would remember the old ASSPA committees. The Aboriginal Student Support and Parent Awareness programs existed across the country and were partnerships where the government funded committees in every educational unit in every school for partnering with the community around what the school priorities should be and to engage with the community. These no longer exist, so there's no process by which the government relates to and works with the communities to provide a better educational outcome for these children.

They dictate. They promulgate by fiat. They spend money like the $170 million-odd—$176.5 million—I referred to. By the way, it has provided employment for Aboriginal people, but it has not got the outcomes that people are after in terms of improving school attendance. As a result, as you might rightly expect, the performance levels for Aboriginal kids in literacy and numeracy across the country are not what we would want, and it gets worse as you move further into the bush. It doesn't matter where you are, in which state or territory, the experience of remote and very remote communities is very different from the experience of Aboriginal kids who might live in major metropolitan centres. Yet there is no difference in approach to funding. When we think about need, these people need this money to be spent. They need it to be allocated. They need it to be properly partnered with state and territory governments, who also have a responsibility. It does require saying to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, 'We have confidence in you and will partner with you in making decisions about the education of your children.' Sadly, that is not the case.

While the government is spending $3.4 billion through this piece of legislation to support the private school sector, why isn't it putting an equivalent amount into the public education system? Why isn't it targeting money to those schools where there's massive disadvantage, like the ones I've been referring to, in remote and very remote communities, or indeed in metropolitan centres, where the needs are also great in some cases. There is an issue here about the government not accepting it has a responsibility to support the public education system. I say to the government: this legislation which has been introduced deserves support. I point out there are schools that have expressed their concern, but I ask you to contemplate what you need to do to provide an equivalent resource to the public education system, to support those educators who are working their backsides off, to support communities that need new infrastructure and to support bilingual education, Aboriginal support workers and the like. Why can't you do it? You've got the capacity to do it. You've shown you're prepared to do it for the private education system. Why can't you wake up to yourselves and do it for the public education system?

Ms PRICE (Durack—Minister for Defence Industry) (17:32): I thank those members who spoke on the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020. The Australian government is committed to providing every child with a quality education regardless of where they live or what school they attend. Government schools continue to receive record levels of Australian government funding, with an estimated $127.8 billion of recurrent funding expected to flow to government schools from 2018 to 2029, providing strong growth in funding.

This bill introduces a new, more accurate methodology to calculate a non-government school's capacity to financially contribute to the costs of schooling. This methodology was the result of recommendations made by the National School Resourcing Board in its Review of the socio-economic status score methodology: final report, June 2018. The new methodology uses a more robust and reliable set of data to estimate the capacity of parents and guardians to contribute to the cost of schooling, which will ensure more funding flows to the schools that need it most. To ensure that Australian families will have choice and equity in education, the Australian government will provide additional funding to 2029 of $3.4 billion for the direct measured income and $1.2 billion for the Choice and Affordability Fund.

The bill also introduces changes to non-government schools' rates of transition to the nationally consistent Commonwealth share of the schooling resourcing standard for non-government schools. This change will allow schools time to plan and adjust to the new measure. The bill also includes measures to support financial certainty by allowing schools time to plan as the new arrangements are implemented. To further assist the transition, under the Choice and Affordability Fund, the state based Catholic education commissions and associations of independent schools will flexibly administer the fund, including quarantining a percentage of funding that will flow directly to regional and remote schools.

A robust review process will be established by July 2020 to address unexpected or unique circumstances affecting financial capacity of a school's community. The National School Resourcing Board will examine the Schooling Resourcing Standard loadings as they impact students and schools in regional Australia, and the minister will be taking the terms of reference for this work to the next COAG Education Council. The review will commence by June. Further work will be undertaken in consultation with the ABS and the sector to investigate what additional data could be used to further refine how the capacity to contribute is calculated.

Overall, this bill supports the longstanding agreement that funding of non-government schools is a shared responsibility between the families of students attending those schools, the federal government, and the state and territory governments. Subsequently, the new methodology for calculating the capacity of parents and guardians to contribute to non-government schooling will ensure Commonwealth funding is fairer and more targeted. I thank members for their contributions and I commend the bill to the House.

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Ms PRICE (Durack—Minister for Defence Industry) (17:37): I would like to seek leave to move the bill be read a third time.

Mr Burke: No. The Senate's not sitting. This can be dealt with tomorrow in the normal way. Leave is not granted.

Ms PRICE: I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the motion for the third reading being moved without delay.

Mr BURKE (Watson—Manager of Opposition Business) (17:37): In speaking to the motion, it needs to be understood that any reason for rushing this through and not doing as standing orders presume in going through the normal procedures is something that only makes any logical sense if it can get to the Senate tomorrow. The Senate's not sitting tomorrow, so exactly what is the purpose in rushing this through? There is no logic at all in not just going through the normal practice of the standing orders.

Leave has been sought as a form of extra cooperation. I've got to say, if you're seeking an extra layer of cooperation in this House, that cooperation is being sought by member after member who time after time has voted that members of the opposition be no further heard. Every single time! And then, when it's been done back to them, the indignation has been spectacular. The indignation of those opposite, having voted to shut down any voices that are not their own, and then they come here saying: 'Oh, please, can't we have some cooperation? Please, can't we get a bill through today rather than do the third reading tomorrow so we can push it across to a Senate that isn't even on for a number of weeks?' You can't exactly second a bill to an estimates committee. You can't exactly rush it through today and think it's going to make any difference at all.

I know they're cranky because they've had to sit in the chamber, and they say, 'Oh, why are you being so mean with quorum calls?' You know, there's this thing called the Constitution. The quorum requirement is not in the standing orders. The quorum requirement is not even in Practice. It's as fundamental as the Australian Constitution, and they are devastated that it's being enforced.

Ms PRICE (Durack—Minister for Defence Industry) (17:39): I move:

That the question be now put.

The SPEAKER: The question is that the question be now put.

The SPEAKER (17:45): The question is that the motion moved by the minister to suspend standing orders be agreed to.

Ms PRICE (Durack—Minister for Defence Industry) (17:49): by leave—I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney) (17:49): I know it is a little unusual for me to speak on the third reading of a bill, but I do really want to make it clear, because we have delayed until tomorrow the third reading, that Labor does support the Australian Education Amendment (Direct Measure of Income) Bill 2020. We do support a more accurate measure of parental income. It is something that we sought to do coming out of the first Gonski review. There was a desire at that stage to have a more accurate measure of parental income to calculate the capacity to contribute at that time, but of course we didn't have the data available to us in the way that it is now with the project that the government has engaged in.

We also, of course, saw coming out of the National School Resourcing Board the suggestion that we would do this more accurate measure of parental income. It is possible to have two schools that are located in the one community. One of those schools might have very high fees. It might be a very wealthy school in terms of the resources, the buildings and so on. Another non-government school in the same area, drawing from broadly the same community, might be a low-fee school drawing from parents who have a lower capacity to contribute. In that instance you will see that school with the lower fees and lower resources will likely see that its funding from the Commonwealth will increase. We've never objected to this increase for non-government schools; in fact, it was Labor that stood side by side with non-government schools when—

Mr Falinski: Since when?

Ms PLIBERSEK: I hear the interjection from those opposite—since you cut $30 billion from school funding in the 2014 budget, having promised in the 2013 election campaign: 'You can vote Liberal. You can vote Labor. Not a dollar difference to your school.' Yes, those opposite all stood up during that 2013 campaign and said: 'Oh, you can vote for us. We won't cut any school funding.' And then with that very first budget, in 2014, we all remember the $30 billion that was cut from school funding. And then what happened? Those across the road got a little bit nervous. They couldn't get their massive cuts through the Senate, so they did a tricky deal with the Senate and, instead of cutting $30 billion from school funding, they went to a much more generous $22 billion cut to school funding.

What have we had more recently? We had a government that had to get rid of their previous education minister because he had so antagonised non-government schools that they found it impossible to work with him. They have a new education minister now whose job it was just to take this off the front pages. Now we have a scenario where non-government schools will receive several billion dollars of extra funding. Of course it doesn't go the whole way to restoring what's been lost by those schools during this period of delay, but it is a very important thing to restore the funding that we always campaigned for. We always said that Catholic schools and independent schools should be properly funded. It was only those opposite who said that those schools should not be funded appropriately. It was only those opposite who were looking to cut their funding.

But the big issue, the big problem with this proposal that we are voting on today is not what it does for non-government schools; it's what it doesn't do for public schools. There are 2½ million children in this country who go to public schools.

Mr Falinski interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): The member for Mackellar!

Ms PLIBERSEK: There are 2½ million children, who've got parents, grandparents, teachers and family members, who are being treated as second-class citizens in their own country. Their parents pay taxes, too. Their grandparents pay taxes, too. Those children deserve the same funding as the children going to non-government schools. But have those opposite offered those kids the same funding? They have not. The ignorance of those opposite, that they don't even understand their own funding system, is the problem here. Those opposite have baked into school funding arrangements that children who go to non-government schools will receive—

Mr Falinski interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): The member for McKellar, I have asked you to tone it down on about three occasions now.

Mr Falinski: Sorry. I didn't hear you.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That's because you were so loudly interjecting.

Mr Falinski: I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

Ms PLIBERSEK: Normally you stand and speak into the microphone if you're apologising. If you had any manners, perhaps you would.

Mr Falinski: I take your point. I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I apologise to the member for Sydney; and I will now listen in silence.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

Ms PLIBERSEK: I'm just going to savour that for a moment! Those opposite, in their interjections, betray their complete ignorance of the funding agreement that their government has entered into with the states and territories. What those opposite don't understand is that public schools in their electorates will only ever receive 95 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard and loadings for their school. This is baked into the funding agreements that you have with the states and territories. The public schools in your electorates will never receive more than 95 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard, of the fair funding level for that school. That's what you have signed up to. Non-government schools will receive 100 per cent or more of their fair funding level.

We on this side don't begrudge the non-government schools that they're getting their fair funding level. What breaks my heart is that there are 2½ million children going to schools where they'll only ever get 95 per cent of their fair funding level. Why is that fair? Those opposite talk about their support for sector-blind, needs based funding. This is not sector blind. This is sector specific. It's as sector specific as it could possibly be. If you go to a catholic school you will get your fair school funding, if you go to an independent school you will get your fair school funding, but if you're one of the 2½ million children who go to a public school in this country you won't. It could not be more sector specific.

We know that it's public schools that educate the majority of children who have a disability. It's public schools that educate the majority of children that are in a small school or a remote school. It's public schools that educate the majority of First Nations children in this country. It's public schools that educate the majority of children who come from a language background other than English. It's public schools that are looking after the most disadvantaged kids in our country by and large, so this is neither sector-blind nor needs based funding. For those opposite to feign ignorance—are you feigning ignorance of this funding arrangement or have you ignored it? The only way for us to understand the fact that the funding cuts that we campaigned against are being restored for kids in the Catholic and independent sector but are not being restored for kids in the public sector is to believe that those opposite have deliberately made a choice to privilege two sectors over the third sector, which educates the majority of children in this country. If that's what you are agreeing to you should just be upfront about it. You should just be upfront about turning your backs on those 2½ million children.

Government members interjecting—

Ms PLIBERSEK: You really are not listening. Someone up in cockies corner just interjected, 'Are you going to vote against the bill?' No, because we actually support extra funding for Catholic and independent schools. We just want you to treat public schools fairly too.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.