Mr SULLIVAN (6:44 PM) —I rise very proudly to support these two government bills: the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 and the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. These are both fine bills which, as the previous member speaking in this debate said, go a long way towards delivering on our election commitments. The debate on these bills has been quite lengthy and there have been a number of eloquent speeches made. I probably will not be troubling the timekeeper too much this evening. For those who might turn to my speech to read it, I commend to them the eloquent contribution of the member for Port Adelaide, Mr Butler, who spoke yesterday I believe. It is quite serendipitous that I should follow the member for Shortland in this debate as she and I attended the same primary school at the same time, which is almost the Nambour State High School example again except that Nambour State High School seems—

Ms Gillard —Who’s older and who’s younger?

Mr SULLIVAN —I am not telling.

Ms Hall —And it was an excellent public school at that.

Mr SULLIVAN —It was, and we both did fairly well. Nambour State High School seems to have been a little more successful than Macksville Public School in terms of the eventual outcomes for their students. As I read it, these two bills do not do much of anything that should have caused the length of debate that we have had. The Education Legislation Amendment Bill really only transfers appropriations from one area of legislation to another. It contains no reduction—in fact I believe there is a little additional spending that is attached to this. These nearly $780 million worth of measures are designed to improve the educational outcomes for Indigenous Australians. The education gaps that have been outlined in the parliament are inexcusable in modern Australian society. This is not the fault of the previous government alone but, I guess, the collective fault of all the governments that have preceded it, including some that, for a short period of that time, were Labor governments. We as a parliament and we as a government should be as one as we set out to remove those gaps. I note that there are some additional measures for Indigenous education included in the Schools Assistance Bill.

The Schools Assistance Bill simply provides exactly what we said we would provide for non-government schools. The same piece of legislation removes funding for state government schools which is still the subject of an agreement to be finalised later this year with the state governments. This is a funding regime for non-government schools. I want to quote a couple of sentences from the contribution of the member for Swan. He said:

He also said:

He went on to say—about something that we said we would do during the election campaign:

So what is the problem? This government is putting in place for the next four years what was in place for the previous four years. We are maintaining the existing SES funding and the indexation that goes with it. What has been happening here over the last couple of days as this legislation has been debated is a real concerted effort of dog-whistling. The opposition we see in the parliament these days is more interested in developing a narrative that says, ‘The government is doing this but we think that they are going to do this.’ The reality is that we are not.

In the parliament earlier today we had the member for Hinkler rise and make a personal explanation. He read to the parliament again some of his contribution to this debate. I would like to, for the third time, read a particular paragraph into the record simply because I think it deserves to be there and it tells the story. The member for Hinkler said:

and this is my emphasis—

That is what the member for Hinkler said: the SES system gives poor kids the opportunity to go to private schools which are good quality schools. Whatever he might say about having support for the state school education system as well as the private school education system is wiped away in that one sentence. I believe very strongly that state schools provide an education product easily the equivalent of the majority of private schools. Some of the private schools of course are uber wealthy and they have the capacity to provide resources that are not available to the state schools. But for a member of this parliament to stand up in here and make the comment that only by going to a non-government school will a child from a less affluent family receive a good education I think is disgraceful.

Mrs Mirabella —That’s not what he said.

Mr SULLIVAN —I take the interjection from the member for Indi. That is what he said. He said:

Those are his words not mine.

Mrs Mirabella —It’s all part of your class warfare. You’re just trying to create division.

Mr SULLIVAN —It is not my class warfare, Member for Indi; it is his class warfare. I am not standing here in class warfare. I went to a private school at high school. I have been in both the state and the private system. I support both. I have wonderful schools in my electorate, both private schools—whether they be Catholic or not—and state schools, and they do a wonderful job. The teachers in those schools do the equivalent—not better—job of the teachers in the public schools, and the students in my area are benefiting from that.

I want to say a couple of quick things about schools in my area. I am pleased that the minister is in the House as I can report that the schools in my electorate are very pleased with the computers that they have received. These schools include Caboolture State High School and Caboolture Christian School, which is a low-fee non-government school. The Edmund Rice Flexible Learning Centre at Deception Bay have received computers to help them with the children they are trying to teach who have not been able to be accommodated by the mainstream schools. Northpine Christian College has also received computers. I am particularly proud of the effort that was put in by the Caboolture State High School, the Tullawong State High School and the Morayfield State High School, who formed a cluster to get one of the trade training centres. The parents in my area are very grateful for the tax refund regime, which they are starting to gather their receipts for in terms of next year’s taxation.

I do not want to stand here and try to make the point that the opposition—the former government—did not fund schools. I have had the opportunity to go to a number of school events in the last 12 months to acknowledge federal government funding that the schools received as a consequence of the previous government—North Lakes State College, Caboolture State School, Narangba Primary, Narangba Valley State School and Grace Lutheran College. And next Sunday I will have the opportunity to represent the minister at the opening of the high school component of St Eugene’s, a school in my electorate where the federal government has contributed a little over $1 million.

But can I say that there have been varying degrees of priority afforded to education. I go back to a document produced in 1988 by the then Queensland state government. I believe at that time Mike Ahern was the Premier. That document, to give it its full title, was Quality Queensland, building on strength: a vision and strategy for achievement and was prepared by the Queensland government. In that document they decided that the Queensland education system was sufficient to prepare students for the jobs that were available to them after they left school. That kind of inferior policy is rife in business dominated, conservative-thinking governments who see the future generations as fodder only for the profit mechanisms of their masters.

People who are going to schools today should be fed the aspiration that they can take on jobs that have not been invented yet, not that they should do their schooling with a view to ending up in the jobs that are available today. As former Prime Minister Keating said once when talking to students, the job that he took when he first left school did not exist anymore. That is the way things are changing. The education revolution is about Australia’s future, but it is also about people’s futures—individuals’ futures. We need to train and inspire our children to take on these other roles. I am a little disconcerted at the concentration that has been evident in recent years on trades training, both at school and postsecondary. I think that we need to concentrate a little more, particular in the area where I come from, on conditioning our children to the idea that they may seek to do something beyond a trade course or a certificate course if that is their desire.

I have had a lot to say in other forums about the need for a full university campus on the north side of Brisbane to serve Brisbane north and the Moreton Bay region. We have an excellent campus of QUT operating at Caboolture, and I am in no way critical of the work done by the administrative or academic staff there; they do a first-class job. The students achieve first-class results as well and I do not wish to diminish the workers in that university or the students in any way, but there is a limited range of opportunities available for students there. Neither of my own children were able to study a university course locally and it is quite difficult for people from our area to access universities elsewhere.

I propose to say no more than that this evening other than to say that these bills, whilst they are remarkable in the amount of attention they give to the areas that are affected, really do nothing more than that. They are not making any radical changes in terms of the funding for non-government schools—it is steady as she goes. In terms of assisting our Aboriginal students to close the gap in educational outcomes, this legislation is continuing with those processes and adding to them. I commend both bills to the House.