Tuesday, 12 May 2026

 Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (13:20): Pursuant to standing order 23.22, I table a report on the inquiry into public school funding and include an appendix and extracts of proceedings from the Legal and Social Issues Committee, and I present the transcripts of evidence. I move:

That the transcripts of evidence be tabled and that the report be published.

Motion agreed to.

Joe McCRACKEN: I move:

That the Council take note of the report.

At the outset I do want to acknowledge my colleagues right across the chamber who have contributed to this report, including deputy chair of the committee Mr Galea, his colleague Mr Batchelor and of course my crossbench colleagues as well. I have got to say that everyone worked in a very collegiate manner, and although there might have been some disagreements here and there, I think we all worked in a very positive way together. I also do want to thank the committee staff for all the work that they have done in helping us to get to this point. This was an important inquiry and an important report that reveals a lot of issues in the education system in this state.

I want to draw everyone’s attention to the first four findings of the report, which really do tell the story. The first finding is that Victorian government schools have only been funded at around 90 per cent of the recommended Gonski amount since 2018. That is since 2018, and that in itself is quite significant. The second finding is that it is unclear when Victoria will reach the 75 per cent SRS, school resource standard, funding share that has been committed to. We did note that there were references to 2028, 2031 and 2034, so it is very, very difficult to actually find when that will happen.

The Victorian government has not yet met its obligation to fund the 75 per cent of the school resource standard, which is the minimum standard. Other jurisdictions have reached 100 per cent, but we have not reached 75 per cent yet. And the Victorian government has yet to reach a long-term bilateral agreement with the Commonwealth for ongoing school funding. These are all incredibly important issues to ensure that we have an education system that is robust and that is fit for purpose. We heard a huge amount of evidence in the inquiry regarding teachers and the difficulty they are experiencing in terms of workload, burnout and stress. A lot of teachers have left the system, and that is very sad.

We had the Australian Education Union come in and talk to us as well, and some of their testimony on behalf of their members was extremely troubling, which is probably why we are seeing strikes across the state. Teachers are suffering, and we hope that in the future teachers are respected and valued as they should be in the supposed Education State. Perhaps that is just more in name than it is in practice. But we have got to say that at the centre of all this has to be the people that we serve, the young children in the state’s care, who are relying on an education to propel them into the future. When decisions are taken that delay or cut funding, which have a real, tangible, meaningful impact on their prospects and their future, what are we as a state if we claim to be the Education State but we are not? That is the great shame of this. I commend the report to the house, and I encourage everyone to read it.

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:24): I am pleased to rise to speak on this report, and in doing so I wish to acknowledge again all committee members and Mr McCracken, our chair, as well as the incredible hard work of the secretariat and committee staff as per usual. This was by and large a very collegial, collaborative inquiry in which we did get to explore this particular facet of public school funding in particular detail, and I anticipate I will run out of time to get through all of my remarks today. But as we look at it through the context and the prism of Victoria having both its best-ever NAPLAN results and the best results in the nation, with classroom student-to-teacher ratios at the lowest of any state or territory, it is an important opportunity to look at the point in time that we are in on the journey towards Victoria and the Commonwealth working together to maintain and to achieve full schooling resource standard funding as part of an ongoing, permanent bilateral agreement which we are very much looking forward to being signed – I anticipate and hope very soon – which will then supplant the existing interim agreement and set that path forward for the delivery of the SRS targets. There was much good evidence that we heard, including from the teachers themselves and AEU representatives.

Teachers’ pay and conditions certainly do comprise a significant part of the SRS as a whole, and that is something that is important to be taken into account as well. Something that is not taken into account in the SRS is capital funding, and whilst Victoria has built the same number of new schools as every other state and territory in the country combined over the past seven years, and that is matching the phenomenal growth that we have seen in Victoria’s public schooling sector, which has not been seen in other states, there is much more to say about the mechanisms and the ways in which targets will change throughout the year. I anticipate having more to say at a future date.

 Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:26): I too rise to speak on this report, and I want to thank the co-chairs, in particular my colleague Mr McCracken. It was a very collaborative inquiry, and I was following and monitoring the responses, because, obviously, having been a schoolteacher myself, having been raised in many generations of education and being aware of the issues from all of my local constituents within their schools, I wanted to hear what was going to be said through this report. It is interesting to note that the SRS funding, the schooling resource standard funding, cannot be used for major capital works. It has a specific use, and there is a target for 2034. Victoria is currently the only Australian state or territory that has not finalised its trajectory to reach 100 per cent of the SRS before the current multilateral agreement expires at the end of 2034, and we still do not know through this inquiry why that is.

However, there were a number of things that came out, and I am looking forward to speaking further on this particular topic. But it does concern me when we have schools that have putrid toilets where their buttons are broken, and when we have schools having to repair those themselves. This is part of what that SRS funding is for. It is also for supplies. I personally know that there are schools that are struggling just to have paper for students to use.

What came out of this was the inequity in which expenditure takes place, and people feeling that it is not evenly distributed. I think that these political punches of where money goes become a real concern when you are in an area that perhaps is not receiving the equitable funding that is required. While I look forward to speaking on this further, I want to thank you for the opportunity of being part of the committee, and I thank all committee members.

 Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO (Northern Metropolitan) (13:29): I rise to make a contribution to the recent Legislative Council Legal and Social Issues Committee parliamentary inquiry into public school funding. I want to thank the chair, parliamentary colleagues and especially the secretariat for the planning and organising that went into the hearings. I would also like to extend a huge thanks to teachers, parents, advocacy groups, principals and most of all the students – the students that are on the receiving end of the Allan Labor government’s reckless decision to cut $2.4 billion from the public schools. This inquiry revealed what is true and known – that Victorian public students are being left behind by this Allan Labor government when compared to other jurisdictions. We heard parents having to give donations to ensure that the basics were being met – things like tissues and paper. We heard from principals having to make tough decisions in order to support the wellbeing of their teaching staff and students. We heard about the ripple effects on students with disability, migrant and refugee students and our students taking alternative learning and online learning, all being left behind by this government’s decision.

These are not the conditions our Victorian students and public school teachers should be expected to work under. We heard loud and clear that the volume of volunteer hours teachers are giving to their schools and students is indefinite, as we heard from one of the principals in these hearings.

If this Allan Labor government really believes that we are the Education State, well, they had better start looking at public education as an investment now, because we all know that as a community we will be paying for it later. For a rich country like Australia this should not be the public education system that our students have to go through – our education system should be a system that is stellar. Instead we find ourselves with public education that is completely broken and in crisis and completely undervalued. It is high time that this government reinstates the $2.4 billion that should be going to schools, to students, to teachers and to the broader community.

Motion agreed to.