Wednesday, 8 February 2023

Education funding

Matthew BACH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:35): (20) I have an adjournment matter tonight for the Minister for Education in the other place. The minister recently made some comments about why it is that Victorian parents are paying more for a public school education than parents from any other state and territory, and obviously since then we have also learned that the Andrews Labor government is investing less in our public schools than occurs in any other state or territory. In the other place a question was asked, I think it was actually by Mr Pesutto, about this matter and the minister provided an answer. The minister listed a series of things that are done in our schools that the government pays for. These are things like free glasses, a school breakfast class – a good thing – the positive staff program and more tutoring. In and of themselves, these things are good things. My team and I have done a bit of an analysis across other states, and it will not surprise members to learn that these are things that are all funded by the government in other states and the fees are not passed on to parents as they are so often in Victoria.

The action that I seek from the minister tonight is for her to have another go – to go away and provide me, if she may, with an itemised list of the things that parents are currently being slugged for in Victorian state schools. I am actually very hopeful that she will do this, because every time the minister makes a public statement she comes out and then clarifies what it is. The minister has said almost nothing over the summer period because, of course, she was put in the freezer by the Premier when she said that poor lady with the brain tumour should just roll with the punches. But yesterday actually she was taken out of the freezer and put in front of the radiator. Eventually she thawed off, and she made some comments about the Voice and the teaching of the Voice in schools. And she said in the Australian that of course in our schools teachers will be pushing a certain position and that this concerned some people. She came out today and said she misspoke, just like she said that about the poor woman with the brain tumour who needed to drive to Adelaide to get some treatment. So my hope is that tomorrow, or the next day or within the 30-day time period – I am going to push the minister – she may in fact come out, clarify her position, provide to us the information that we need and also parents need so that we can have a sensible discussion about what is the government’s responsibility to do.

I am a bit old-fashioned when it comes to public schooling, in that really the government, through its quite extraordinary tax take, needs to be funding our public schools and that those costs for really basic things – we have seen even literacy and numeracy programs, the cost thereof, passed on to parents – are something that schools should be doing as part of their core business. But we need to have the information on the table, so I ask the minister to helpfully do that for us.