Senator IAN MACDONALD (5:15 PM) —I am keen to participate in this debate on the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 and the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 but I only become aware of the debate earlier today. I am not one of those who follows education matters closely, but I fear that the government is going to make an enormous blunder that they do not fully appreciate. I am pleased that the minister at the table is Senator McLucas, who comes from Far North Queensland, and I am very pleased that the departmental officials are here because, if I am wrong in what I am about to say, I want them to explain it to the minister so that she can respond in her summing up of the second reading debate.

I want to indicate that unless I and the Catholic Education Commission, particularly in the diocese of Townsville, can be certain that the bills as they stand will not bring huge financial disadvantage to them, then I think the shadow minister will be introducing amendments—which might be all that is able to be done from the Senate. I do want Senator McLucas and the officials to listen very closely to what I am going to say. I know that the officials gave evidence to the Senate Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, and the committee appeared to be satisfied with the assurances by the department that the Catholic Education Commission in Queensland would be better off as a result of this legislation.

I might add that, strangely for me, I am not entering into this debate in a political sense. I am trying to address a wrong that the diocese of Townsville came to see me about and which I passed on to my colleagues who are more intimately involved in education matters. To put the background in place, the diocese of Townsville Catholic system looks after 391 Indigenous students, which is 59 per cent of Indigenous students who attend Catholic schools in Queensland. So, quite clearly, what happens to Catholic education in Brisbane, Rockhampton, Cairns and Toowoomba is not nearly as important as what happens to Catholic schools in the diocese of Townsville, because most of the students are in the Townsville diocese. They are either in Townsville itself, or at Abergowrie College near Ingham, or at Columba College at Charters Towers, or at Good Shepherd College at Mt Isa.

The problem is that this government is trying to change the current system, for reasons which everyone accepts are honourable. The current government says that there are too many buckets of funding for Indigenous students. They say, ‘It is too difficult and complex in an administrative sense, so we want to wipe the slate clean and make it a much simpler arrangement that will look after Indigenous kids. In doing that, we will put in some more money and we will guarantee that no Indigenous kid is worse off.’ That is a laudable goal. But as I understand the current situation, the schools are funded with a per capita grant—the SRA grant. I do not even know what ‘SRA’ stands for, but I am told that SRA is the per capita funding grant which all schools get. Then there are other buckets of money that go to various schools, depending on the different programs that the previous government, in their wisdom and experience, initiated over the years. There is one called ITAS, which I believe is related to homework, and one called RIS, which is another bucket of money. The end result, as I understand it—and I hope the officials will tell me if I am wrong—was that students received money not according to where they went to school, by remoteness or otherwise, but according to by where they came from.

One of the problems with the new arrangement is that, as I understand it, schools in remote areas are allegedly being paid better money—not students from remote areas. The situation that occurs in the Townsville diocese is that the Indigenous students come from remote and very remote parts of North Queensland—the Torres Strait out in the north-west, up in the gulf and the cape country. They are from very remote areas, but the schools are actually situated in almost city areas. The schools are not deemed to be remote and so the funding has fallen. In the old days, everyone would get a payment under the SRA scheme but then these extra buckets of money could be drawn upon for very remote students to assist them in their schooling in boarding schools in Townsville. This applies right throughout.

I understand the officials have indicated to the Catholic Education Commission in Queensland, ‘You will, overall, get more money’—and I think everyone accepts that. The schools in Brisbane will do very well out of this. They will get increased money per student. Some might say that the Catholic Education Commission, within itself, can say to Brisbane schools, ‘You’re getting a bit more than you should have got, but the Townsville ones, where all the problems are, are getting less than they would otherwise have got; so we will take some money off you and shove it up there.’

Senator McLucas —Your logic is wrong on that, Ian.

Senator IAN MACDONALD —You say that, Minister—and you can tell me about that later—but this is not my logic; this is from the Catholic Education Commission and the Townsville diocese. Perhaps they are wrong, Minister. You may know more than them. The difficulty is that that might be able to be done within the Catholic system, but can you imagine a principal of a school in Brisbane when the Catholic Education Commission comes along and says to them, ‘I know you thought you were getting this money, but we’re going to take it off you and give it to Townsville because they are more deserving.’ They may be able to work that out, but it is going to be difficult.

I will talk about the situation of St Patrick’s College on The Strand in Townsville. This is a stand-alone school run by the Order of the Sisters of Mercy, as I understand it. Because it is not in the Catholic education system, it has no-one to share its funding with. So it will be down, according to the college’s figures, by over $100,000 in any one year. So St Pat’s on the Strand, because it is not part of the Catholic education system—it is a stand-alone Sisters of Mercy school—is going to be down by that amount. Abergowrie College and the Columba Catholic College at Charters Towers are both within the system but I am told that they will also lose money.

The Catholics have also mentioned to me the question of Shalom College in Townsville and a number of Lutheran and independent boarding schools in the Cairns region who also take a great number of Indigenous students. They indicate to me that those schools have no other system that can share the larger payments that go to the capital cities. There is also Mount St Bernard College in Herberton and St Augustine’s College in Cairns. Even the Good Shepherd in Mount Isa—which is not a boarding school but which has a large group of Indigenous students—will also be down by about $40,000. These figures have been given to me by people who should know.

People who gave evidence to the committee thought they had a very good hearing from the committee but were then disturbed by what the officials said. I have got some of the record here. For example, ‘Mr Smith said that there is a guarantee that will fix them all up.’ I again repeat that this is not an area in which I have a lot of involvement normally. I saw the bill for the first time today, so I have not been able to go through it and work out exactly how what was said at the committee hearings relates to the position before us. But those schools in the Catholic diocese of Townsville feel that they are going to be substantially disadvantaged. Those within the Catholic education system may be able to get recompense from the system by taking it off Brisbane schools and paying it to Townsville schools—though it should not be put on the organisation to have to make those decisions—but schools like St Patrick’s, which are not in the system, and schools like Shalom College, which do not have a system that can help them out, stand to lose very considerable amounts of money.

The work that those schools do with Indigenous students is beyond question. Everyone accepts that the Catholic schools and also those non-Catholic schools that I have mentioned—and I am sure there are a lot of others that I have not mentioned—do great work. But they seem to be being penalised, and I am sure this is unintentional. When they first came to see me, I said: ‘Not even the Labor Party would be this mean. I do not think that that is what they intended would happen; I think it is an unintended consequence that needs to be addressed.’ I know that my colleagues have also raised this issue, and I think Senator Milne and Family First raised this same issue in the committee hearings. To a degree, they were assured by the comments of officials that everything would be okay, but I am told that that is not the case.

The new arrangement talks about ‘remote schools’, ‘very remote schools’ and ‘non-remote schools’; whereas the previous arrangement used to talk about ‘remote students’ and ‘very remote students’. When those very remote students came into schools in a locality that was not remote, they were entitled to the higher payments because, in many instances, coming from very remote communities, they needed a lot of extra attention. Some of them need a lot more tuition in English and a lot more help with homework. Those other buckets of money under the old scheme allowed the schools that looked after these children from very remote areas to be properly funded so these children could be properly taught, because they had the money to do it.

In the notes I have been scribbling—and I cannot at the moment put my hand on them—I have written down the actual costs that will be incurred by individual Catholic schools in the diocese of Townsville. The schools stand by those claims, notwithstanding the assurances given by officials at the committee hearings. I am very concerned by what I see is happening, and I again repeat that I think it is an unintended consequence. I would like the minister, in his summation speech, to please address these issues. I will certainly be participating in the committee stage, where we can get more of a running commentary on the issues that have been raised.

As I said, since I became aware of these issues, and after talking with people in the Catholic school system this morning, the shadow minister has very helpfully prepared some amendments. Senator Mason, who represents the shadow minister in this chamber, will be moving those amendments in the committee, more or less to provide for regulations that would provide assistance to address the problems before us. In my limited understanding of this bill, not having had the chance to read it before I got up to speak, I would have preferred some major renovation of the bill to be included to make sure that these schools do not miss out. I am sure that the government does not want them to miss out. There is reference to clause 70, which relates to a guarantee.

If I am wrong in what I am saying and if the information I have been given is not correct, or alternatively if perhaps I have misunderstood the information given to me and people are going to say to me, ‘No school will end up with less money than they had previously’, then I would like the minister to name the schools by name and give me an assurance that, over the next funding period—which I think would be four years—none of those schools will get less than they got previously. The schools I mentioned are Abergowrie College at Ingham, Columba Catholic College at Charters Towers, St Patrick’s College on The Strand, which is not part of the system, the Shalom College in Townsville and those other colleges in North Queensland. I am speaking as a North Queenslander here and these are the schools that have contacted me. Also, I think everyone accepts that the North Queensland area schools more Indigenous children at boarding schools than any other location in Australia, so it is important for North Queensland.

My information is that the act does not provide for that. I am sure that that is not the government’s intention either. That is why, if the officials, with their much greater knowledge of the bill—and of course they drafted it—are going to say to me, ‘No, no; you’ve got it wrong, Senator Macdonald; you and the people who have been talking to you haven’t understood this particular provision of the bill’—or that provision, or that I didn’t understand quite what the section 70 Indigenous Funding Guarantee meant—then you can explain that to me in the committee stage. But in any case, I want someone to put on the record in this chamber that those schools that I have specifically mentioned will not, under the new scheme, do worse than they would have done under the old scheme. In many instances, Indigenous young people get the best education possible by leaving their home communities and coming into these schools and colleges that are closer to the bigger towns. It is essential that the schools continue to have the funding necessary to enable those children to be taught properly and to be given some chance in life.

I hope I have explained that in a way that the officials can understand. I just repeat, though, that those involved were not assured by departmental officials in the committee hearing. Everybody seems to agree on what we want to achieve but there is a genuine concern that the bill, as it now stands, will achieve that. There is a real fear that these schools, which do so much work for Indigenous young people up in the North Queensland area and the Catholic diocese, and also the Protestant and independent schools that deal with Indigenous boarding kids, will not do so well. Nobody wants to cut them back but there is a real concern that the new arrangements inadvertently will shaft them, and we want to make sure that that does not happen. So, in the second reading reply from the minister and then in committee I would ask for those assurances. (Time expired)