Sydney
PM: I'm very pleased to be here with Premier O'Farrell for an historic announcement. An historic announcement for the 1.1 million school children in New South Wales and all of the school children for generations and generations to come.
This is an historic announcement, not only for New South Wales education, but for Australian education.
I believe this will be remembered as the day our nation reached out to seize the opportunity of the biggest improvement agenda for our schools in 40 years.
This is an historic day for our nation because I believe, following in the footsteps of New South Wales, we will see more states and territories seriously consider standing for improved schools and improved school funding.
For me, this is the culmination of five years of work in government and a lifetime of passion for change in education beyond that.
What we've done over five years is we've made clear what's happening in Australian schools. We've made clear what we need to do to improve Australian schools.
We've worked out what it is we need to do to make sure that in our schools today people are getting ready for the high-skill, high-wage jobs of tomorrow.
And we topped all of that off by making a funding offer tied to a school improvement agenda.
It is the offer I outlined in recent weeks to provide $2 for every $1 that states and territories put in to improving education, so we can work towards a school resource standard for every school, knowing that every school is properly resourced, the teachers, the classrooms for kids not only today but for generations to come.
It was that offer that was discussed at the Council of Australian Governments meeting last Friday.
I will turn now to Premier O'Farrell to describe New South Wales' response to that offer.
PREMIER O'FARRELL: Well, thank you, Prime Minister. We are delighted today to sign up to this agreement because it provides additional resources, fairer distribution, to deliver higher standards and better outcomes in schools across New South Wales.
The New South Wales Government has said since the Gonski Report was released that we supported the thrust of its recommendations.
That's why last May we changed our own resource allocation scheme to reflect the Gonski principles.
What we've done now though, is to prioritise education by ensuring that the $1.7 billion required of us under this deal can and will be found.
We know that the reforms the New South Wales Government has been pursuing; reforms around local schools and local decisions by school principals and school communities, our reforms around higher teacher standards, our reforms around improvements to literacy and numeracy result across New South Wales are in line with the Gonski Report.
This agreement, with the Federal Government, means additional resource will be able to assist to further those reforms and deliver the better education that every student in New South Wales deserves.
I'm pleased that New South Wales is the first state to sign up to this agreement.
This is the state where education started in Australia.
Importantly, this is the state in which public education was pioneered by a New South Wales premier.
This reform today has the potential to ensure that some of the debates of the past, debates about funding mixes, debates about system versus system are consigned to history and we continue to focus on what's most important in education, which is giving our young people the best possible start and opportunities in life.
PM: Thank you very much and can I thank the Premier for reaching this agreement.
What this agreement represents is a practical approach being taken by the Federal Government to work with the New South Wales Government.
What this agreement sees is 3 per cent indexation from the New South Wales Government from 2016. And what this agreement would achieve is us reaching a 95 per cent of the school resource standard by the end of the transition period in 2019; so within striking distance of the full school resource standard.
What this agreement means is that $5 billion of extra money will flow to New South Wales schools, and on top of that there will be better indexation arrangements than there would have been if this agreement had not been struck.
I am particularly excited about the really defined improvement measures that this agreement will bring in New South Wales.
I've consistently said that what we've learned over five years is that if you tie new resources to better ways of working, then you lift the outcomes for every Australian child.
The agreement that we've reached today will see some very clear things change in New South Wales schools, and they will be things that people will be able to see in operation.
To take just some examples, under this agreement you will see the best teachers rewarded for staying in classrooms, not going off into management or administration to get a pay increase, but being able to be paid more than $100,000 a year to stay in the classroom where they are doing the most important work that our country needs done.
What you will see under this agreement is meaningful annual performance appraisals of teachers, not tick-a-box, not tick-and-flick, but actual work observing classroom practice and working out year after year after year how teachers can improve.
What you will see under this agreement is if a school is falling behind and other schools teaching similar kids are doing better, then instead of that school being left to languish it will be lifted up to the same levels of improvement as other schools, so no child will be left behind and no school will be left behind.
What you will see under this agreement is the spread of Asian language teaching, so important to make sure we seize the opportunities of this age of the Asian Century of growth and change that we live in.
And what you will see under this agreement too, will be more empowered principals and parents getting more of a say in the running of their local school, including parents being able to participate in selection committees for key positions in schools including the position of principal.
A real agenda for change and improvement for every child in New South Wales.
This has always been about making sure every child can reach their full potential and no child gets left behind, and that we get school resourcing right in our classrooms with teachers, with kids, for years and years to come.
That we end the kind of inter-sector dialogue that we've seen where Catholic schools and independent schools and state schools have been there trying to have to contest with each other over limited school resources.
Now, can I conclude by saying the New South Wales Government runs the biggest school system in the country. Premier O'Farrell has just described how historic a school system it is.
And what Premier O'Farrell's agreement today demonstrates is that this deal is in the best interests of New South Wales and it's also setting a benchmark for other states to meet.
I'm determined that we see this kind of agreement right around the country.
So I will keep working with First Ministers and with schools and parents and communities right around the country to secure more of these arrangements for change and improvement over the weeks to 30 June.
All of this means Australians have got a clear choice; a choice between ensuring that we properly fund and work for improvement in our schools, or a choice to see schools go backwards with cuts to funding.
Our nation's future will be strengthened if we make sure every school is strengthened for the future.
And I'm certainly very pleased that this agreement in New South Wales today will strengthen education in this great state.
JOURNALIST: Premier, how do you think Tony Abbott will take your decision?
PREMIER O'FARRELL: Well, I watched interviews with the Opposition Leader on Sunday.
He made clear whether in relation to GST distributions or other issues that a state premier's principal responsibility is to their citizens.
I'm the Premier of New South Wales. I've said throughout this debate that if the proposal was in the best interests of New South Wales, if we could find the funding, that we would sign up to a report that for more than a year the Education Minister and I have said is broadly in line with the directions of the reforms we've been introducing in education in New South Wales.
JOURNALIST: It is a matter of locking it in before perhaps there is an Abbott Government?
PREMIER O'FARRELL: Well, certainly part of the deal which the Prime Minister offered Sunday week ago talks about legislating for the funding package, also that the funding will appear in the next Commonwealth budget.
But can I answer your real question, Andrew, and that is that we in Cabinet yesterday decided that we would fund our $1.7 billion by the deferral of the intergovernmental agreement business taxes. By the introduction in 2015/2016 of a new efficiency dividend, and by further budget savings across the whole of government but also including a continuation of our reforms to vocational education and training, including the levels of fees and subsidies that are paid which of course is at the present time subject to an IPART report.
That's the way that we've been able to prioritise education, by delivering our $1.7 billion, and getting a return as the Prime Minister said of $2 for every $1.
I don't believe that additional dollars alone delivers a better education system.
What I do believe is the resources to cement the sorts of reforms that we've been pursuing in New South Wales - reforms that are reflected in the Gonski Report - will help to empower local schools, will lift the standards of teachers across the state and will ultimately deliver better outcomes and better results for our students.
JOURNALIST: Premier, do you believe that this will put pressure on your Liberal counterparts to reach a similar agreement?
PREMIER O'FARRELL: At COAG on Friday, only two jurisdictions, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, were positively opposed to the proposal.
Every other jurisdiction that I saw and heard on that day said they would do what New South Wales had been doing.
So last Monday, Monday week ago, Cabinet had a first look at what the cost to the state would be, had a first discussion around whether the entirety of Cabinet was happy to share the load, to prioritise the delivery of this agreement for New South Wales.
Over the week between last Monday and yesterday, led by the Treasurer and the Minister for Education, further work was done which was presented to me when I came back from the COAG meeting on Friday which led to Cabinet's decision yesterday to enter the agreement, but to do so by making the responsible but tough decisions to rein in expenditure in other areas.
JOURNALIST: Can you explain again just how you are planning to do that, it sounds like TAFE fees might go up?
PREMIER O'FARRELL: Well vocational education reforms are being pursued by the government and yes, IPART already is looking at issues around fees and subsidies and that will be part of the package.
But equally, there are a number of business taxes that under if intergovernmental were due to be abolished that will continue temporarily to assist us to fund this, in addition to the introduction of an efficiency dividend in the 2015-16 financial year and thereafter.
I'm happy to get you those figures, Andrew.
JOURNALIST: This would survive a change of government if it's embedded in legislation before 14 September?
PM: Well legislation can always be changed and there is a clear choice here.
I'm passionate about these reforms. It's taken us five years to get here, five years of hard work driven every day by a passion for making sure that every Australian child gets a great education.
It's a question now for Mr Abbott and the other side of politics to make their position clear.
But let's note that to date their position has been to say that the current system is not broken and it should continue.
What that means is a recipe for cutbacks in our schools. What this agreement means on average is an additional $4,300 per child, an additional $1.5 million per school.
What the approach of the current system would lead you to on average is a cutback of half a million per school, so the choice is pretty clear.
JOURNALIST: When will that money begin to flow?
PM: This is money that will flow for the school year next year; 2014.
PREMIER O'FARRELL: And I have to say, to be perfectly frank and blunt that it wasn't an easy decision because a decision not to sign up to the agreement comes with a pretty big sting in the tail.
Not just termination of national partnership funds but also a reduction in the rate of increase in base funding for schools across New South Wales. So devil and a hard place.
Ultimately what Cabinet decided was to back in education, to take the tough but responsible decision to find the savings, to deliver those additional resources to deliver them more fairly, to raise standards and to aim to deliver better outcomes for students across the state.
JOURNALIST: You're characterising this as a carrot and stick approach by the Prime Minister.
PREMIER O'FARRELL: There's no secret in that. I don't think I'm making news here but it wasn't as if, Quentin, if we said we weren't going to sign we could simply sail along unaffected.
The national partnerships finishes and there would have been a penalty in relation to the rate of increase to funding to schools across the state.
JOURNALIST: Is this a special deal for New South Wales? [Inaudible]
PM: No, this is the same deal that is on the table for every other state and territory.
It's two for one; $2 from the Commonwealth, $1 from the state of territory.
It's the six year transition period, it's the commitment that there should be no more cuts to education, it's a commitment that jurisdictions should step up to a 3 per cent indexation rate; NSW will do that in 2016.
And it's a drive towards the school resource standard, and that school resource standard is about making sure that in every school there is the right level of resourcing to get the children in that school a great education, knowing as we do that it takes more resources to teach a disadvantaged child, an Indigenous child, a non-English speaking child, a child with a disability and it just costs more money to run schools that are small or in remote locations, so that's all factored into the standard and the model.
JOURNALIST: Now that you've got New South Wales signed up have you had any approaches from the other states in the meantime and are you expecting other states to fall in line?
PM: I'd have to go check my mobile phone to answer that question.
JOURNALIST: Premier, what do you say to businesses who for the sake of Gonski may not be getting the tax reform they wanted at the moment to pay for students who may be paying higher fees for the sake of Gonski?
PREMIER O'FARRELL: Ultimately we had to make some tough decisions. So those tough decisions mean that we're prioritising school education, which ultimately is the way most of us end up in business, in other professions, or in training.
We need to ensure that our students get the best possible start to education, we need to end some of the conflicts that have affected government and non-government education in the past, and we need to deliver reforms that put principals and communities in greater control of our schools, that seek to raise teacher standards and that start to address some of those literacy and numeracy issues that have plagued this country for too long.
JOURNALIST: Can I ask you, just on a different topic, the population is moving to 23 million estimated tonight. Is this time for more discussion about population, a target?
PM: As I understand it, we will see the 23rd million Australian sometime tonight, presumably a new baby born, number 23 million.
I think what this reinforces for all of us is by the standards of the world we are a relatively low population country. But we've got to 12th strongest economy in the world - now that's an achievement.
But it's an achievement that isn't guaranteed in the future, we've got to work for it. And a key way we've got to work for it is making sure that our children are getting the best education.
As part of this arrangement today, we have both endorsed the goal that I set for the nation's future that our schooling systems be in the top five in the world by 2025, which is a recognition you can't have a strong economy in the future with high-skill high-wage jobs unless you've got great schools.
And so that's a shared ambition from the agreement we're signing today.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, can we just ask you about some comments that you made last night. [Inaudible] revenue coming in to the Federal Government will recover over I was just wondering if you had a time frame on when you think that's likely to happen, how it's going to happen and by how much?
PM: You'll see the budget updates when the budget is delivered.
JOURNALIST: Back on to Gonski, you said that New South Wales indexation doesn't start until 2016 and that by the end of the transition period they'll only by 95 per cent of the commitment. Can you please explain that a little bit further, and does this mean that New South Wales students won't get the full amount?
PM: No, New South Wales students will get the $5 billion amount. There's no doubt about that.
We were in discussions with New South Wales, we've been in discussions for some time so as we were generating the offers we were putting out we recognise that there's a real tightness on government budgets, it's true for us, it's true for New South Wales.
That means that everybody who is stepping up to wise investments like money into schools has to look at the rest of the budget and make savings.
So we knew that that was going to be a tough thing to do, we knew it was going to be a tough thing to do for New South Wales.
So what we wanted to see was at the end of the transition process schools were in striking distance of the school resource standard, that there wasn't much of a gap remaining and that's what we've achieved through this agreement.
JOURNALIST: Why haven't you gone to 100 per cent?
PM: It's a question of the money constraints, particularly money constraints in New South Wales and the sorts of choices that need to be made so that you can free up this amount of extra money for schools.
JOURNALIST: Will other states go to 100 per cent?
PM: It is possible that we can see some other jurisdictions get above the 95 per cent
but I want to assure you we've got the same deal out on the table for other states and for other territories, the architecture of the deal, the details of it are the same.
The two for one, it's the same school resource standard, it's the same drive to the school resource standard or within striking distance, it's the same ask in relation to indexation and no further cuts.
And importantly, it's the same drive for school improvement because that's what this is all about; the money working in our schools so every child reaches their full potential.
We've shown in some remarkable national partnership schools what you can achieve for kids if you get that precious combination of more money and better ways of working together and it's happening in the classroom.
The aim of this is to make sure that's happening in every classroom every day.
JOURNALIST: Premier, how would you describe the deal today to the 48,000 Koori students in New South Wales?
PREMIER O'FARRELL: In addition to the connected community schools that we're delivering, this for Indigenous students, this for students with special needs, is a boon because it means that the resources will be there across both sectors to ensure that those students get the same opportunities, the same choices in education that have been available to the rest of the community.
JOURNALIST: Perhaps a question for you and the Prime Minister: should Indigenous Australian history be the same importance as the ANZAC history and if so, why so?
PREMIER O'FARRELL: I think we can do both. No-one denies the fact that Anzac Day is the nation's most sacred day.
No-one denies the fact that Aboriginal Australians, Indigenous Australians have fought and died for this country.
But we can't ignore the fact either that 225 years ago before Europeans arrived here, this was a nation inhabited by our first citizens for tens of thousands of years.
We should be proud of both.
PM: And if I can make a comment about that, the new Australian history, the Australian curriculum appropriately deals with all of these issues. This debate has been started in recent days as a deliberate distraction from the agenda that we are talking about here.
And so I'd suggest that those who have raised this debate be asked, what is their response in detail to the historic agreement that we have announced today?
JOURNALIST: Premier, given you just outlaid $1.7 billion what do you think of the idea of giving up some of the grants commission funding to help out Western Australia?
PREMIER O'FARRELL: Well, that is an internal debate as I said, Mark, before you signed up and fronted up, Western Australia did vote no to their first Federation referendum and you do get the impression, particularly after COAG meetings that they regret that they ever voted yes.