National plan for school improvement; Gonski reforms
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the numbers you're talking about today are enormous, but the actual Gonski review actually asks for more money to be injected in schools.
Are schools being short-changed?
PM: The numbers we're talking about today are enormous, and this is an historic change for our nation.
What we are working towards is at the endpoint in 2019 that every school around the country has available to them the right resources so kids can get a great education.
So it doesn't matter whether you choose a public school, a Catholic school, an independent school for your child.
Doesn't matter where you live - you know that those schools have the right level of resources to give your kids a great education.
The numbers are large - $14.5 billion extra, plus indexation at 4.7 per cent from the Commonwealth Government.
Yes, this is a big amount of money. We were very clear last year that it with such a big amount of money, that we will work for a six-year transition.
That's partly about the money but also about getting the reform agenda right.
You can't just make available new resources, you've got to drive new ways of working, so kids get a better education.
JOURNALIST: You're funding education by, in part, cutting education.
Is that contradictory to say the least?
PM: What we have done is in the university sector we have increased funding over the life of the Government by 56 per cent, by more than half.
It's a huge increase and of course well-justified.
I want our universities to be strong, to be growing, and I'm very proud that as a result of our changes in universities, we are seeing people who are the first in their family to go to university.
Against that huge increase in funding, what we're asking universities to do is one year, have a 2 per cent efficiency dividend, and on the second year have a 1.25 per cent efficiency dividend.
University funding will still grow, it's just the rate of growth will be slower.
JOURNALIST: You haven't said where all the $14.5 billion is coming from.
Are there more cuts to come?
PM: We are backing in this expenditure through the change to the rate of growth for universities that I've just described, through some changes in student income support.
But this is against a backdrop where we are putting in 78 per cent more into student income support than when we came to government.
A change in tax arrangements for education expenses for people who are in the workforce and going to seminars and the like.
The savings we have made in superannuation, which have also made the system fairer and more sustainable.
And of course there's been some money for things like improving schools which is now going to be part of the school funding system.
JOURNALIST: What about further changes, are there going to have to be more announcements either in the budget or before the budget?
PM: Well those changes taken together acquit what we need to across the Government's forward estimates period, and make a very big contribution for the future.
I have said consistently I am going to ask the nation to make some difficult choices to put our priorities where the need to be.
And in my view, properly resourcing teachers, kids, classrooms, not just for tomorrow but for all of the generations to come, ending forever the fighting between state schools, Catholic schools, independent schools all hoping to get some money from the table.
Ending that forever, getting our kids the education they need for the future and ensuring our economy can service the high skill, high wage jobs of the future.
This is worth paying for, and that's why the choices are justified.
JOURNALIST: Your new formula would deliver about $5 billion of new funding to New South Wales, but around $300 million for Western Australia.
Is that fair?
PM: What we are doing here is moving every school across the country to a school resourcing standard. And yes, some schools, some states, are further away.
Now you've got to make a choice.
Do you look at that system which means that there are different resources available for our kids' education today, and say just keep that system running until the end of time, which means that some kids in some parts of the country will always miss out forever?
Or do you actually say every child, whether they live in Western Australia and go to a Catholic school, live in Queensland and go to a state school, live in Victoria and go to an independent school, every child should be walking in the gates of a school that can properly meet their needs and give them a great education?
That's my goal, and yes it does mean when you look around the country, some states, some jurisdictions have got further to travel, but that is a national goal worth having.
JOURNALIST: Premier Barnett says he'll be nuts to sign up to a deal like this.
What happens if you can't get agreement from all the premiers and leaders next Friday?
PM: To Premier Barnett I would say that Western Australia has done a good job in resourcing its schools.
But we are talking about additional public funding with $300 million, where we're prepared to back it in two-for-one and we are prepared to index our contributions by 4.7 per cent provided Premier Barnett will back in the reform agenda and index school funding by 3 per cent.
I think for the people of Western Australia, they would want to see more money in their schools and I'm sure everyone wants to see every school trying to get better every day and meet the needs of kids.
If we can't get global sign-on, every state, every territory, then we will work with those jurisdictions who do sign on.
But I am going to keep arguing for this and campaigning for it because it's the right thing for our nation's future, for our kids, and for our economy.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, thank you.
PM: Thank you very much.