Alan Jones: Simon Birmingham, good morning.
Simon Birmingham: Good morning Alan, good to be with you.
Alan Jones: Thank you. How do these arguments stack up? On the one hand, a wonderful articulation of the fact that spending more money doesn’t produce appropriate educational outcomes, and then in the next breath you spend more money.
Simon Birmingham: Because Alan the type of spending growth we’re proposing is growth that is affordable and knocks out of the park any suggestion that Commonwealth investment in schools will in real terms go backwards at all. It ensure that spending growth keeps up with costs in schools in terms of wages and other administrative costs, but equally that we want to turn the focus, as you rightly highlighted, onto how the money is used, that we are [indistinct] …
Alan Jones: [Interrupts] But it’s miles in front of the inflation rate. When you talk about spending growth to go from 2.5 per cent to 3.56 per cent, it’s nearly double the rate of inflation.
Simon Birmingham: Well that 3.56 per cent figure is based on recent history in terms of the cost of growth in the education system. So we have actually based that on real cost growth in schools. It’s something that the non-government school sector have particularly worked with us on in terms of that rate of funding growth, because the Catholic system and the independent system of course are particular recipients of Federal Government funding. We’ve heard of course the states and territories largely asking for much greater funding; now they will benefit very clearly from this funding growth as well.
Alan Jones: But see, Simon, this is all borrowed money mate. I mean, the budget is hopelessly in deficit, and you’re saying well every year, it says, the school funding will grow every year from current record levels of investment. Record levels of investment, and we’ve got record failure in delivering literacy and numeracy outcomes. You don’t control a school or a teacher, you’re spending all the dough, how do you guarantee the outcome?
Simon Birmingham: So Alan, two things there, to again emphasise that funding growth is affordable, we think it’s responsible, and it’s tied to the costs of growth [indistinct] …
Alan Jones: [Interrupts] Well none of it’s affordable Simon, it’s all borrowed money.
Simon Birmingham: Well you’ll see in the Budget tomorrow that we’ve made sure we’ve found further savings to pay for these types of growth. Look, yes, as the Labor Party promises to spend billions of dollars more than us we think there is [indistinct] …
Alan Jones: [Interrupts] Don’t worry about them, they’re a write-off, they only know how to spend and tax. You can forget about them. All you’ve got to do is persuade the public that you’re on the right track.
Simon Birmingham: Yep. And …
Alan Jones: Now, you know, as a Commonwealth Government you’re spending dough, but who’s going to determine what happens in the classroom for state governments which run the schools?
Simon Birmingham: Which is why yesterday’s policy was a very detailed and quite prescriptive policy in terms of outlining areas of reform, starting in the absolute earliest years, so that for a year one student who’s been at school for 12 to 18 months through their foundation, kindergarten, for prep year, that we will actually have a national standard for assessment of their literacy [indistinct] …
Alan Jones: [Interrupts] But you can’t tell the states to do this. Are you going to tie this to money?
Simon Birmingham: Well …
Alan Jones: [Talks over] Is it a tied grant?
Simon Birmingham: There …
Alan Jones: [Talks over] You can’t tell Queensland or New South Wales how to run their schools.
Simon Birmingham: We will be tying future funding to reform, and we …
Alan Jones: [Interrupts] Do they know that?
Simon Birmingham: That’s what we’ve been [indistinct] about.
Alan Jones: [Talks over] Have you discussed that with the states?
Simon Birmingham: We will have those discussions with the states, yes, [indistinct] …
Alan Jones: [Talks over] So this is tied money, they will only get the money if they meet certain outcomes?
Simon Birmingham: That’s right. That is the absolute intention of the reforms we’re proposing.
Alan Jones: [Talks over] But I mean you say for instance …
Simon Birmingham: It’s because we’re tired of seeing more money be wasted on poor outcomes.
Alan Jones: Well I agree, I agree, but I’ll tell you what, it will be wasted. I mean, you’ve said they’ll have to complete an English or humanities subject, and a maths or science, fine, maths or science subject. Does that mean they just have to read a Timmy Cahill biography?
Simon Birmingham: Well no there have to be standards of course associated with those, that that is a requirement …
Alan Jones: [Talks over] But who sets those standards?
Simon Birmingham: That is a requirement that we want to set for those going to university.
Alan Jones: [Talks over] Who’ll set the standards?
Simon Birmingham: And again, we will have to work through with the states and territories to do so. I’m not saying this is easy Alan …
Alan Jones: [Talks over] Sure tell you it’s not easy.
Simon Birmingham: … we of course tried a month or so ago at the COAG meeting to say to the states and territories how about you take on funding responsibility entirely? They didn’t want to do that, they didn’t want to do that, we wanted to give them the tax powers to take on the responsibility to have the autonomy. They didn’t want autonomy, they wanted the Commonwealth to be an engaged partner.
Alan Jones: [Talks over] Well I wouldn’t be giving them any money. I wouldn’t be giving them more money.
Simon Birmingham: But what’s more important …
Alan Jones: [Talks over] We’re already got buckets of money, as you said, record levels, and dreadful outcomes.
Simon Birmingham: But Alan what’s more important is that we leverage this funding – and it’s not about the additional funding, it’s of course about leveraging the entirety of the funding we have available and that’s going into schools to change what they’re doing. Because the nation is of course in a terrible situation if we don’t turn around these failures in our schools, if we don’t actually get …
Alan Jones: [Interrupts] Yeah but you don’t control a school or a teacher. That’s your problem.
Simon Birmingham: But we have to try. We have to try. There’s no point in …
Alan Jones: [Interrupts] What, give an educational manifesto to every state? Good luck.
Simon Birmingham: Well, there’s no- I don’t want to be an Education Minister who says it’s all too hard and I’m willing to accept failure from the states and territories.
Alan Jones: [Talks over] Righto well we’ll talk in 12 months’ time and see what the international scales say in the light of the extra funding, and I can tell you now Simon what they’ll say. I mean this is really pushing stuff uphill.
Simon Birmingham: It won’t be fixed overnight, that’s certainly truthful. But we have to make a good start on this, and we have to use the leverage we have as a Federal Government responsible for growing the economy and creating jobs, and we know that a sound education system is pretty central to that in the long-term.
Alan Jones: Yeah but you’ve got to tell us as a national government how you’re going to improve educational outcomes. You’ve got to tell us that clearly, how you’re going- that’s the detail, how are you going to improve educational outcomes? That’s what the punter wants to hear, that’s what parents want to hear.
Simon Birmingham: … policy is all about a focus on the basics, on literacy and numeracy, a focus on making our teachers more capable, and on …
Alan Jones: [Interrupts] But every Education Minister has said that Simon, and look where we are.
Simon Birmingham: And we’ve actually detailed some specific measures …
Alan Jones: Okay.
Simon Birmingham: … about how we’re going to try achieve that.
Alan Jones: Righto, good luck.
Simon Birmingham: I don’t pretend it’s easy, but it’s critically important …
Alan Jones: Good on you.
Simon Birmingham: … and we have to do it.
Alan Jones: Well thanks for talking to us and good luck.
Simon Birmingham: Thank you.
Alan Jones: Simon Birmingham, the Federal Education Minister.