Wednesday, 12 August 2026

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:48): I rise today to speak on the Legislative Council Legal and Social Issues Committee’s recent report on public school funding in Victoria. It was a very worthwhile and interesting committee inquiry to partake in, and indeed very valuable for the point-in-time perspective that it provided, coming at the start of this year. There was much that was discussed and indeed much useful evidence that we heard from principals, from teachers, from parents and from other stakeholders in the public education system in Victoria.

We are very proud of the investments that we have made so far and indeed of the incredible results that public school teachers in particular and our schoolteachers across the state have delivered with our history-setting, best NAPLAN results in Victoria’s history along with the best results observed in the nation again, for the second year in a row, with the recent results.

The inquiry looked into detail of issues around pay for teachers and around the student resource standard model, the SRS, which is more commonly known as the full Gonski funding. This government remains committed to securing and achieving that full partnership of 75 per cent funding by the states and 25 per cent funding of that SRS in agreement with the Commonwealth government. It is particularly exciting that in recent days we have seen a firm commitment by new Premier Ben Carroll for Victoria to achieve its full SRS new bilateral agreement deal with the Commonwealth government this year. There is an interim agreement in place, but we are still working towards that final agreement.

One of the key parts of that agreement is based on funding for teachers pay as well as other educational resources. That is why it is also very good to see a pay offer before our teachers right now, which would make them not the worst paid in the country, as the previous EBA has led them to be, but the best paid in the country. I will not go into too much commentary on that, because it is up for teachers at the moment to be having their say, and we look forward to seeing the outcomes of that vote next week. Certainly this is a government that is committed, in particular with Premier Ben Carroll and the Deputy Premier and new Minister for Education Gab Williams absolutely determined to provide the best pay and conditions possible for our already very hardworking teachers and to reward them for the effort that they do in providing a very strong academic grounding and social grounding for students. The existing NAPLAN results obviously speak for themselves. It is their success to be proud of. We want to give them a pay offer that recognises that.

It is about more than just that as well. That is where the full SRS funding comes in, and it is a very, very good thing to see that. I know many teachers have been calling for it. Many in my community have spoken to me, both directly from within the education system as well as more broadly from the community. They have been very interested in this topic. I know for Mr Batchelor, Mr Tarlamis and me – it is always good to see fellow committee members in the room when you are talking about a report – it is something that we have been engaged with extensively, both within and beyond our party and through and beyond this report.

The SRS is a fairly complicated model, and this report does go into some of the nuances on which Victoria and other jurisdictions have sought some tweaks and improvements from the Commonwealth. One such thing is the variance throughout a school year that the SRS target is set at, with the example given of two consecutive years, 2022 and 2023, where the target shot up in mid-December. If you were to allocate a whole bunch of extra funds in mid-September to accommodate a shifting target, it is probably not going to do much for educational outcomes over the entire year by cramming all that extra funding into what is basically the wind-down week. There are perhaps some tweaks that are needed for the model to ensure that it is adaptive and responsive but also achievable. In those rare cases where Victoria did not in fact meet the target that was agreed to, it was because of those last-minute jumps and variations in the target. That is something that is important to be considered, and I understand that through the national education ministers’ meetings and other forums that is being discussed extensively.

Another thing that this inquiry looked at in some minor detail was the ongoing capital spend. We know that Victoria has built as many new schools in our state as every other state and territory combined. We have seen the phenomenal growth and demand for public education in this state. Where we have seen that at a lower rate or in some cases even declining, we have seen the value of that very world-class education that we have provided demonstrated in the demand, and we are building the new schools and upgrading the existing schools to meet that demand.