EDUCATION AND EARLY CHILDHOOD SERVICES (REGISTRATION AND STANDARDS) BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Mr PISONI (Unley) (16:10): Previously in this debate, I was discussing the drift from the government system—

Ms Chapman: Stampede, I think.

Mr PISONI: The member for Bragg reminds me that, by the numbers of the statistical data I inserted in Hansard, it appears to be more of a stampede. We have seen a 16 per cent increase in enrolments in non-government schools in the term of this government. I would argue that the Labor government needs to address the reasons why this has occurred under its watch. We know that there has been a national trend and, as I said in earlier remarks, the trend here in South Australia has been significantly higher than that in like states.

The government needs to understand why this has occurred under its watch and what the long-term solutions are to making public education in South Australia the standard to be measured by and a more attractive choice for families, with greater choice in education options for their children. I think it is important that we support choice in education, and certainly on this side of the parliament we are very much in favour of choice in education. My wife and I have chosen the government system for our children but there are many others who have chosen the non-government system, and that is up to them. I am not here to make comment or to judge. I support their choice in doing so.

Our public schools need adequate funding and efficient and better management to allow our state once again to lead the nation in education. That is something that this state used to do, but unfortunately we have seen that tag of 'education leader' that we once held slip off at a very rapid rate under this government. Of course, the Liberal plan in order to help achieve this is for greater school self-management—a devolution, if you like, of the bureaucratic system and centrally run system that we have here in South Australia now—where schools will work with their allocated funds to arrange their own staffing, to allow principals, governing councils and school communities to more adequately address the needs of their local community in terms of education outcomes.

This is why this bill is an important bill because it does remove the Department of Education's dual role as both a regulator and a competitor with the private sector. We, on this side of the house, are very uncomfortable with the government competing with the private sector. We know that in the education sector it is more of a complementary role that the government and private sector play with each other, but we do not want one sector advantaged over the other. We would like the rules that apply to the non-government sector to apply to the government sector as well.

Given the continuing drift to the non-government sector, it would be interesting to know if the Minister for Education has now submitted to the Gonski commission on funding for non-government schools and what the South Australian Labor government's position is on such funding. Does it support adequate funding to support the choice made by families who choose the non-government sector, or is the minister more in tune with the more illogical calls from the Australian Education Union for this funding to be reduced in favour the public sector?

We spoke a little about that before, about this fallacy that more money will fix problems when we spoke about the differences in what schools receive in category seven schools—in other words, schools that have low disadvantage as compared to schools that have high disadvantage—where that can be more than double the amount of money per student. I would argue—and on this side of the house we argue—that it is more about the way the schools are managed, the way the system is managed and how you deal with this.

It is, of course, disappointing that the Australian Education Union is funding an extensive and well coordinated campaign to convince Gonski and other committee members to take money away from the non-government school sector and redirect it to the so-called disadvantaged schools. Again, I refer to the comments I made earlier that it is about management and it should not be a class war, because we know there are many parents who make many sacrifices in order to send their children to schools of their choice.

School choice, where parents are supported in their right to choose between government and non-government schools, is anathema to the left-wing teachers' union. They continue to peddle the line that those who make this choice are somehow a wealthy elite. It is disingenuous and it ignores the statistics and the facts.

The federal President of the Australian Education Union, Angelo Gavrielatos, also has form in allowing his union to cynically misrepresent the relationship between the commonwealth and the states in these funding issues and in the media. This does not advance the objective of serious debate on funding or the important objectives of improving education outcomes of our government and non-government schools.

This is not the place for a debate based on an outmoded left-wing ideology of an 'us versus them' mentality. The mindset is disappointing and is unrepresentative of the realities of modern education in Australia and around the world or the aspirations of the parents for their children in terms of the outcomes and service delivery. Some of the class warriors in the Australian Education Union, such as Mr Gavrielatos, need to take a chill pill and put education outcomes ahead of ideology and move on. As I have said earlier, it is important that we have a balance; it is important that we have choice in education.

In terms of the Gronski review overall, there is a feeling among those in the non-government sector that it is opening up options but not yet giving clarity, so we are seeing that there are options, but the non-government education sector—one third of the education sector—does not know where that review is going. That is of concern, because we know that one of the important things that we need for our children, for students and for sectors such as the education sector is stability and the ability to plan for the longer term.

On the subject of clarity, the non-government stakeholders in this state would also be keen to know when there will be a movement on the increase in per capita funding committed by the Labor government in the 2010 election. South Australia, of course, has the lowest per capita contribution to non-government education in Australia. That used to be Victoria, but that has been addressed by the new Liberal government in Victoria. South Australian now holds the title for the least number of dollars per capita that is spent on education outside its own government system.

Of course, this bill also covers out of school hours care. Generally the peak body for out of school hours care (or OSHC, as it is often described) is supportive of the bill. However, it has expressed certain concerns with regard to the implementation of the national law. There is concern, while understanding the direction of this agenda, that the focus has been heavily on the early years services and that school-aged care services provided by the OSHC will also require support when the new standards of legislation are applied.

We did see last year, of course, another budget that was full of tough decisions. We saw a cut of over $550,000 to out of school hours care from the education budget here in South Australia, so you can see that the out of school hours care group, association or organisation is concerned about more changes that may very well be affecting its sector, and of course many of those are run by governing councils or they are run as not-for-profit organisations attached to the governing councils.

I know that, when I was on the Unley Primary School governing council, we were one of the last actually that ran its own out of school hours care separate from the governing council. It is difficult for parents. Generally, the parents who use the scheme are those who have the least amount of time to devote to managing the scheme, but I have to congratulate the Unley Primary School on the way it has managed to continue and improve that service over the years.

The second concern is the qualifications of assessors. The new role of assessors will require a high level of professional judgement where it applies to early years education and care. Where will the state government be sourcing the assessors, and what additional training or accreditation regime will be put in place for them? That is perhaps something that the minister may address in his closing remarks to the second reading of the bill. Will they be sourced from those potentially now surplus to DECS' needs?

I remind the house that the minister has identified a number of teachers that were suffering from burn-out, and we also know that there is about $4.4 million of unallocated surplus in members of staff, including about 51 teachers, from last year's Auditor-General's Report. The questions of course would be: where will the assessors come from? What qualification will they have? What training will they have, and is it something that the government already has in place?

We cannot discuss this bill without reflecting on the relationship that Department for Families and Communities has with the Department of Education and Children's Services. We know that in some states early childhood learning and development is managed by the equivalent to the Department for Families and Communities in this state, and we support the notion that it is managed by the Department of Education and Children's Services.

Professor Fraser Mustard, who was here in 2007 as a Thinker in Residence, is a world-renowned expert in early childhood education. I have to say that I am not a fan of the Thinkers in Residence program, and I am sure that members of this place could have had access to Fraser Mustard without such a program; however, he was adamant about the importance of early childhood development and very critical of the relationship between the Department of Education and Children's Services and the Department for Families and Communities.

I think we saw that come alive here in the estimates committee of 2008, when the 'house of horrors' was first revealed, and the then chief executive officer of the Department of Education and Children's Services made a remark in answer to a question of mine about that incident and mandatory reporting. His remark implied that it was the Department for Families and Communities that had heard. We then went to a meal break, and when we came back, there was a grovelling retraction and apology from the then chief executive officer of the Department of Education—such an outstanding performer was he that I cannot even remember his name.

Ms Chapman: Chris Robinson.

Mr PISONI: Chris Robinson. Thank you, member for Bragg. I notice that he is no longer with the department—

Ms Chapman: He's been promoted.

Mr PISONI: —but has been promoted as a member of the Gillard Public Service. That will be an interesting dynamic when we start discussing national programs that relate to South Australia. So, maybe it is a good thing for Mr Robinson that the Minister for Education here in South Australia is moving on to the top job and somebody else may be in that role.

After a time, Professor Mustard produced a report. It took quite some time to receive it; from memory, I think it was close to 12 months or so. At the time, the then education minister, Jane Lomax-Smith, told ABC radio that it was taking so long for the report to be tabled because they were checking Professor Mustard's work for spelling errors—an extraordinary response to a very fine and respected man when it came to understanding early childhood development.

I think one of the things that stood out from the briefing which Fraser Mustard provided the work-life balance select committee related to something that parents can do, even if they are not qualified to do anything else, to give their kids a head start in their education—that is, read to them at every opportunity and at every occasion.

As obvious as it may sound, when that advice is conveyed to others in a social situation or other situation, people take a step back and think 'Well, that does make a lot of sense.' But I think until people actually discuss it, and are reminded of the importance of reading at an early age, for some reason—and I know we have busy lives—people fail to make that time to sit down with their two-year-olds, their three-year-olds, and read the same book time and time again in order for them to develop an understanding of letters and numbers and colours and other sorts of things at that very young age.

In a speech that Fraser Mustard gave when he was in Adelaide, he described the relationship between the Department for Families and Communities and the Department of Education and Children's Services as being chaotic. That was the word he used: 'chaotic'. I think we have seen with the Cossey report that was released in May, that it found a similar relationship between the department of education and the police as being non-existent.

It is interesting that a program was set up in 2008 at the Hindmarsh building on Port Road for the special unit put together to deal with bullying in schools, and Bill Cossey was very critical of the way in which that unit was treated. It received budget cuts in 2008. It was set up in the early 2000s to develop a relationship between the department of education and the police, dealing with bullying and other matters in school. Then there were budget cuts in 2008 that saw that unit move to central office, Flinders Street.

Once that happened, the two seconded police officers were withdrawn from the program because they felt that there was not the support from the department. It is very clear in Bill Cossey's report that that was a concern, and there was no memorandum of understanding between the police and the department of education in how to deal with such matters. As a matter of fact, we are still seeing, even though that report has been around for almost six months, that there is a lack of coordination and process in reporting such matters in our schools.

In conclusion, while the legislation that we are debating today is generally supported by the sector and the opposition, there are questions surrounding its implementation, particularly with regard to new standards and requirements, the cost of providing a service, federal funding, and the impact on private providers and private businesses, particularly the smaller family-run businesses that have been providing these services for many years.

We are concerned about added costs to families. We heard from the energy minister in question time today that we will be seeing an increase of around about 8 per cent—he did not have the exact figure—but he explained an increase of about 8 per cent on power prices for those who do not have solar panels, who are offsetting the feed-in tariff rebates given to those people with solar panels.

We have seen increases in water. I think it is heading for a 400 per cent increase since this government came to office in the cost of delivering water. These increases in water and electricity are on top of increases that have already come into play in other areas. In the last budget we saw a great number of increases. Even yesterday, the minister for education tabled changes to the teachers registration regulations with another 10 per cent increase in the fees for teachers registration. It is interesting that five or six years ago in 2005, it would cost only $62 to register as a teacher here in South Australia. That figure is now $300 to register as a teacher in South Australia. It appears that this government seems to be looking under every rug and rock and behind every corner.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

Mr PISONI: Even a pebble is lifted to find somewhere to raise money for a government that has lost control of its spending. We are very concerned about the impact that will have on families. We know that the costs now are somewhere around $80 a day for early child care and, obviously, grandparents are used extensively. I know not everybody has that luxury of being able to engage the grandparents while they conduct their career, but that is an option for some people.

I am all for families working out their own arrangements, but we do not want to discriminate particularly against working women. I think it is fair enough to argue that, primarily, it is women who are the primary care-givers in relationships. I have often said that for every successful man there is a woman who has made sacrifices, and I think childrearing is one of them. I admire my wife and I admire people like the member for Bragg who have done both. She has had a very successful career and raised two charming young men.

I just hope that, if Alex Hart ever reports on state politics, he is soft on me and not too ruthless as is his reporting in Canberra. We will be going into committee, and there are some questions that I would like to ask during committee. There is also an amendment that I understand the minister has agreed to accept that we will insert and perhaps debate during the committee process. With those remarks, I commend the bill to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.W. Weatherill.