13 November 2024
The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (20:50): I am not very good at maths, but I can tell the numbers are not really likely to move in my favour on this one. I am disappointed that there does not seem to be an appetite in the parliament for more transparency in terms of private school reporting. I think it is important to note that private schools currently receive $290 million in state government funding each year.
Pembroke, for instance, receives $1,236 per year per student from the state, in addition to $5,340 per year from the commonwealth. Each year Sacred Heart College, one of the state's most elite schools, receives over $10,000 per student in combined state and commonwealth funding. The funding received by Blackfriars Priory School each year for each student is even higher. It receives over $13,000 per student. In fact many catholic schools receive over $1,400 per student. This is a significant amount of public funding. Indeed, six independent and 15 catholic schools received more combined federal and state funds in 2019 than the lowest funded government schools, according to the Sunday Mail.
The ABC reported that in 2019 in Sheidow Park their primary school was one of a thousand schools across Australia that spent $25,000 over a five-year period on new facilities while the richest private schools were spending roughly $100 million. These institutions are getting a lot of public money, and I do not think it is too much to ask, to say that if you are getting a large amount of public money, you need to be subject to transparency measures.
I know that a lot of the private schools will say they are already required to provide some of this information, but what my bill is seeking to do is provide all of this information in the annual report. What the bill would do is include the following information in those reports:
- audited financial statements, including income from sources and expenditure on purposes;
- attendance rates for each year level;
- number of complaints made, including complaints about student behaviour;
- workforce information, including staff qualifications;
- the number of work health and safety, and student-related incidents;
- fee structures; and
- issues around discipline as well, and suspensions and expulsions.
That is really important because there has been a spate of scandals over the last six months engulfing some of our state's most elite private schools. The Advertiser has reported extensively on these scandals, and there is not transparency around how these matters are being handled. If this sort of behaviour occurred in a public school, the way in which the matter is being dealt with would be subject to an FOI request, and so that information could be publicly disclosed, but private schools remain at arm's length from that. That is a problem.
I have had a parent who has reached out to me who has sent their child to a private school who has had a less than satisfactory experience, and they have not been able to get any recourse from the government because, of course, the government does not control these schools. Well, if these private schools were required to report on how complaints were managed and the number of student incidents and complaints then this would provide further impetus to private schools to change their culture.
This is an issue I will continue to look at. It may be that I need to consider reforms of the FOI Act to ensure that some of the activities of private schools are brought under some level of public purview. I understand there has been significant resistance to this reform from some schools, but it seems to me to be a very sensible proposition.
I am encouraged to hear, however, that the government is open to having the conversation around how we improve transparency, and I look forward to engaging in those discussions. But watch this space, because I think members of the community are tired of our private schools, these elite institutions, being able to take huge amounts of public money and simply pull across the drapes and conceal the way in which they undertake their affairs.