Public School Funding

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. R.A. Simms:

That this council—

1. Acknowledges the release of A decade of inequity report commissioned by the Australian Education Union which found:

(a) public schools in South Australia educate proportionally twice the number of students from low socio-educational advantage backgrounds compared to private schools and 3.5 times the number of First Nations students than private schools;

(b) under current settings, South Australian public schools will continue to be underfunded by the commonwealth and state governments by $1.8 billion over the next five years, while private schools will be overfunded by $79.7 million;

(c) every public school student in South Australia will be underfunded by $2,003 in 2024, rising to $2,259 in 2028; and

(d) on a per-student basis, every private school student in South Australia will receive $598 above their full School Resource Standard in combined state and commonwealth funding this year.

2. Calls on the federal government to increase their share to a minimum 25 per cent of the School Resource Standard funding to ensure South Australian public schools are fully funded.

(Continued from 16 October 2024.)

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (16:24): I rise to indicate that the government will support the motion of the Hon. Robert Simms MLC with some amendments. I would like to thank the Hon. Mr Simms for bringing this important motion to the Legislative Council. The government supports the call on the Australian government to increase their share to a minimum 25 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard funding to ensure South Australian public schools are fully funded. I might just take a moment to explain why we are moving the amendments that are standing in my name.

Under current national school funding arrangements, South Australian government schools are funded up to 95 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard (SRS). The SRS is an estimate of how much total public funding a school needs to meet the educational needs of its students. The Australian government contributes 20 per cent of the SRS entitlement for government schools, while the state government contributes up to 75 per cent. This creates a legislative funding shortfall of 5 per cent for government schools, which equates to approximately $190 million per annum in a 2025 value, I am advised.

I am committed to continue working with the Hon. Robert Simms on this matter and to ask our minister to continue his campaign, along with the AEU and other advocacy bodies in this area, to work for 100 per cent fair funding levels for all public schools in Australia.

The Hon. Mr Simms is absolutely right to call out in his motion that public schools are underfunded. He is also absolutely right to call out the fact that public schools have educated proportionately twice the number of students from low socio-educational advantage backgrounds and 3.5 times the number of First Nations students. This makes the task of getting to full funding that much more important.

The South Australian government's focus is to support all our students to have access to a quality education so they can learn and thrive not only in school but later in life. To do this, we need full and fair funding for all schools. However, the government does propose to amend the Hon. Mr Simms' motion as I will outline. We seek to amend (b) to call out the underfunding of public schools, but do not seek to suggest that any particular sector is overfunded and to correct the figures that are in the motion, which I have been advised are not correct. It is therefore not fair to suggest that any school is overfunded; it is just a relative comparison that is made between schools of certain sectors.

Further, the government proposes to remove (c) and (d) from the motion. These figures would require further investigation to ensure the accuracy and I do not have that accurate information at hand. The Department for Education has also queried some of the figures, so out of an abundance of caution I am seeking to remove (c) and (d) from the motion. Therefore, I move to amend the motion as follows:

That this council—

1. Acknowledges the release of A decade of inequity report commissioned by the Australian Education Union which found:

(a) Public schools in South Australia educate proportionally twice the number of students from low socio-educational advantage backgrounds compared to private schools and 3.5 times the number of First Nations students than private schools;

(b) Under current settings, South Australian public schools will continue to be underfunded by the commonwealth and state governments over the next five years.

2. Calls on the federal government to increase their share to a minimum 25 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard funding to ensure South Australian public schools are fully funded.

With that, the government will continue to advocate for full funding of public schools. It was a Labor government that initiated the Gonski reforms, and it will be a Labor government that finally gets schools to 100 per cent of the SRS and I welcome all members of this chamber working with us to achieve that outcome from the federal government.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (16:27): I rise on behalf of the opposition to speak on this motion. School funding has been a complex discussion in Australian politics for many decades. State and federal governments and government and non-government schools all have slightly different points of view. Ultimately, most Australians agree that all schools should receive an appropriate level of support based on the needs of their students.

The current framework for needs-based school funding in Australia was designed by a committee led by business leader David Gonski. It may not be perfect, but the current arrangements probably represent the most widely accepted resolution to this question that has been put forward and is in place under federal law. In honour of David Gonski's work, funding committed under this framework is still known as 'Gonski funding'.

The basic framework effectively identifies how much funding the state and federal governments should provide to schools based on their needs. The model starts with an assessment of average cost to educate a student and then provides loading for extra funding to students in six sets of circumstances:

1. Students with disability;

2. Regional and remote;

3. Low SES;

4. Aboriginal students;

5. Lack of English language proficiency; and

6. Small schools.

This combined calculation applied to the student at any given school results in a Schooling Resource Standard, or SRS as it is more commonly known. This effectively represents the amount of money that schools or school systems should be given. I note that public schools and Catholic schools are run by systems which provide a range of centralised services—learning support, allied health, human resources, etc.—which are managed centrally, and those centrally managed programs also count towards the Gonski spend.

For public schools, the current settings require states to fund 75 per cent of the SRS, or Schooling Resource Standard, and the commonwealth funds 20 per cent. For non-government schools, the current setting sees the commonwealth fund 80 per cent of the SRS and the states fund 22 per cent, less parents' capacity to pay, as assessed by analysis of the tax returns of parents of students at the school.

Paragraph 1(d) of the motion claims that non-government school students are receiving more than their SRS in state and commonwealth funding. This is simply untrue. Even the most disadvantaged non-government schools are assumed to require that at least 10 per cent of the SRS will be provided by parents. The most advantaged non-government schools are required to fund at least 80 per cent of the SRS from their parents. The only exception to this is a very small number of special assistance schools. These are schools such as Youth Inc., the Compass Catholic Community, and the Specialised Assistance School for Youth, better known as SASY, which seek to serve some of our most disadvantaged students.

Many of their students are returning to education having previously spent extensive periods of time outside of formal education. These schools have to be formally designated by ministers and, once that takes place, funding is adjusted without the presumption of any parental capacity to pay. As I said, there are very few of these schools, and I do not believe they are the intended subject of the Greens' and the Hon. Rob Simms' criticism today.

Despite what the AEU say, and despite what the motion implies, a non-government school with exactly the same student profile and population as a neighbouring government school will still receive substantially less government funding than its neighbour. Therefore, the second half of paragraph 1(b) and the entirety of 1(d) are just factually incorrect. For that reason, the opposition will be supporting the government's amendment. The opposition had put forward its own amendment seeking a similar change, and subsequently we are happy again to support the government's version.

We all want to do better for our children and young people, and for state members of parliament it would certainly not be unusual for us to seek extra support from the commonwealth government, but we cannot support a motion that includes factually incorrect statements and which is therefore offensive to the tens of thousands of non-government school families who pay their taxes, as well as their school fees, and whose children have an entitlement to an education too.

The Hon. S.L. GAME (16:33): I rise to address the Hon. Robert Simms' motion on Schooling Resource Standard funding and the opposition's proposed amendments. Like everyone in the house, and as a mother of three children, I understand the importance of giving every South Australian child the opportunity for a good education, and part of that is adequate funding for both public schools and private schools. I note information from the Independent Schools Australia body which says funding for independent school students is, on average, less than the government contributes to students in the public system.

The ISA (South Australian branch) told my office that, in 2022, independent schools in South Australia received an average of $13,290 per student in total commonwealth and state government annual recurrent funding. It said Catholic schools received $15,270 per student while government schools received an average of $21,579 per student.

The ISA also points out that independent schools rely on parents for funding, with more than half of independent schools' recurrent income coming from private sources, although the proportions vary between schools. The ISA said the only meaningful way to compare funding between school sectors is to compare combined commonwealth and state territory funding, and that the Schooling Resource Standard funding model referenced in this motion will always give state government schools more total government funding per student than non-government schools. That is because only non-government schools have their funding reduced according to parents' income; this reduction does not occur in government schools. In discussing and considering this issue, it is important that misleading comparisons using manipulated data are not used as a basis to form arguments.

I put on the record that I will be supporting Labor's amendments and addressing specifically the motion's call for the federal government to increase its share to a minimum of 25 per cent of the Schooling Resource Standard. I am happy to support an increase, provided it does not come at the expense of non-government schools.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:35): I thank honourable members for their contributions: the Hon. Mr Hunter, the Hon. Nicola Centofanti and the Hon. Ms Game. I want to also thank the education minister's office for alerting me to their amendments before this session. I understand there is some conjecture about the figures that are contained in the motion and on that basis I am happy to remove those figures and to support the government's amendments so that we can expedite this motion through this place.

In doing so, I also think this does potentially strengthen the arm of the government in their advocacy work. I recognise the work of the Minister for Education, the Hon. Blair Boyer, who I know is somebody who is very passionate about public school education and is taking up this fight over in Canberra. Hopefully, this motion strengthens his arm in those negotiations with his federal counterparts.

I briefly want to address the contribution made by the Leader of the Opposition, who has suggested that it is somehow offensive to imply that private schools are being overfunded. I think that is a gratuitous remark. I do not think there is anything offensive in the motion that I have put forward. In fact, I think most South Australians would find it offensive that we have public schools being neglected when it comes to government funding.

Public schools are by their very nature public; they are accessible to everybody in the community, not just the elite few. Access to public schools is not based on the size of your bank balance or what your mum and dad do. Everybody in our state has a right to access a public school and, as such, public schools should be funded accordingly. Public schools should set the benchmark in terms of quality education in our state, and they should be resourced as such. To suggest that it is offensive that a member of this place has suggested that public schools are getting a raw deal I think is a rather unusual contribution to the debate.

I make no apologies for fighting for public schools to get more resources. The Greens make no apologies for doing that. Rather than bending over backwards to curry favour from private schools, we need more members in this place to be advocating for public schools to get the funds they need. That is vitally important. The Greens make no apologies for that. I thank members for their support of the motion.

Amendments carried; motion as amended carried.