Thursday, 2 August 2018 ______

2 Aug 2018 Estimates—Education and Industrial Relations 1 THURSDAY, 2 AUGUST 2018 _______________ ESTIMATES—EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT AND SMALL BUSINESS COMMITTEE—EDUCATION AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS EST IMATES—EDUCATION AND INDUSTR I AL R EL ATI ONS Estimate Committee Members Ms LM Linard (Chair) Mrs JA Stuckey Mr N Dametto Mr MP Healy Mr BM Saunders Mrs SM Wilson _______________ Members in Attendance Ms SL Bolton Mr JP Bleijie Mr MC Berkman Ms FS Simpson _______________ In Attendance Hon. G Grace, Minister for Education and Minister for Industrial Relations Ms S Durham, Chief of Staff Department of Education Mr T Cook, Director-General Mr J Hunt, Deputy Director-General, Corporate Services Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority Mr C Rider, Chief Executive Office of Industrial Relations Dr S Blackwood, Deputy Director-General _______________ The committee met at 9.00 am. CHAIR: Good morning. I declare this hearing of estimates for the Education, Employment and Small Business Committee open. I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. My name is Leanne Linard. I am the member for Nudgee and the chair of this committee. Mrs Jann Stuckey, the member for Currumbin, is the deputy chair. Other committee members are Mr Bruce Saunders, member for Maryborough; Mrs Simone Wilson, member for Pumicestone; Mr Michael Healy, member for Cairns; and Mr Nick Dametto, member for Hinchinbrook. The committee has granted leave for non-committee members to attend and ask questions at its hearing today, so other members may be present over the course of the proceedings. 2 Estimates—Education and Industrial Relations 2 Aug 2018 Today the committee will consider the Appropriation Bill 2018 and the estimates for the committee’s areas of responsibility. I remind everyone present that any person may be excluded from the proceedings at my discretion as chair or by order of the committee. The committee has authorised its hearing to be broadcast live, televised and photographed. Copies of the committee’s conditions for broadcasters of proceedings are available from the secretariat. I remind all present that food and drink are not permitted in the chamber. The committee will examine the portfolio areas in the following order: Education from 9 am to 12.30 pm; Industrial Relations from 12.30 pm to 1.30 pm; Employment and Small Business from 2 pm to 3.30 pm; and Training and Skills Development from 3.45 pm to 5 pm. The committee will now examine the proposed expenditure in the Appropriation Bill 2018 for the portfolio areas of the Minister for Education and Minister for Industrial Relations. The committee has agreed to first examine the minister’s portfolio area of Education, including the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority, until 12.30 followed by the portfolio area of Industrial Relations from 12.30 to 1.30. The committee will suspend proceedings for a break from 10.30 to 10.45 am. The visiting members present are Mr Jarrod Bleijie, member for Kawana, and Ms Sandy Bolton, member for Noosa. Welcome. I remind those present today that the committee’s proceedings are proceedings of the Queensland parliament and are subject to the standing rules and orders of the parliament. It is important that questions and answers remain relevant and succinct. The same rules for questions that apply in parliament also apply in this hearing. I refer to standing orders 112 and 115 in this regard. Questions should be brief and relate to one issue and should not contain lengthy or subjective preambles, argument or opinion. I intend to guide proceedings today so that relevant issues may be explored in a respectful and fulsome way and to ensure there is adequate opportunity to address questions from government and non-government members. On behalf of the committee, I welcome the minister, the director-general, departmental and statutory officers and members of the public to the hearing. I now declare the proposed expenditure for the portfolio areas of Education and Industrial Relations open for examination. The question before the committee is— That the proposed expenditure be agreed to. Minister, if you wish, you can now make an opening statement of up to five minutes. Ms GRACE: Thank you, Chair, and good morning, everyone. I welcome the opportunity to address the Education, Employment and Small Business Committee. I am joined at the table by Tony Cook, the Director-General of the Department of Education; Jeff Hunt, Deputy Director-General; and my Chief of Staff, Sharon Durham. I have been education minister for a little over seven months, and I can say it has been a pleasure and a privilege to see firsthand the difference that a first-class education brings to all. From Kirwan State High to Currumbin State School and from Caravonica State School to Marburg State School, I have spoken with many of our passionate and dedicated principals, teachers, teacher aides and staff as well as parents and students, and what I have seen while travelling the state is the outstanding work happening each and every day in our schools. I also know that there are few things more important to everyone than a great education. In 2018-19 the Palaszczuk government will deliver a combined $14.1 billion in funding for education and training, $13 billion in the Department of Education and industrial relations sector alone. We have over 550,000 students enrolled in our state schools—at 1,240 schools—taught and assisted by over 50,000 teachers and over 19,000 teacher aides. With figures like this, we know that we need to continue to plan for Queensland’s future by delivering the schools and infrastructure needed to support our growing communities. Four new primary schools were opened for business this year—Yarrabilba in Logan, Baringa in Caloundra, Picnic Creek on the Gold Coast and North Shore in Townsville. We will continue to deliver new state schools in growth areas across the state such as Mango Hill and Ripley Valley, where new secondary schools will open in both centres in 2020. In fact, across this term of government we will build 10 new schools and master plan for our network of inner-city schools. Our two new inner-city secondary schools will open in Fortitude Valley in 2020 and South Brisbane in 2021 to cater for 3,500 additional students expected in the inner city over the next five years. We will also plan for new schools in many fast-growing areas including the Sunshine Coast, the northern end of the Gold Coast and Logan. 2 Aug 2018 Estimates—Education and Industrial Relations 3 Important student focus initiatives like the Instrumental Music Program and the centres for wellbeing will continue across the state and of course our important infrastructure program will continue to roll out. State school infrastructure projects will see a record of over $923 million invested in our education facilities in 2018-19. We are committed to providing high-quality state educational facilities so that all students can participate in and gain positive outcomes from schools. We will provide new and additional classrooms to accommodate for student growth as well as substantially refurbish and upgrade some of our existing older schools to provide improved learning facilities. The Palaszczuk government also recognises the importance of working with the non-state school sector by providing $676.4 million in general recurrent funding and $98 million in capital assistance funding for 508 accredited non-state schools with 268,000 students. In the 2018-19 state budget we also provide funding for an additional 1,000 teachers as part of our four-year commitment to employ more than 3,700 extra teachers. I also continue to advocate for a national comprehensive review of NAPLAN, especially following the over 8,000 responses received to our recent online parent survey—a strong indication of how important this issue is for Queensland parents. During term 3 our school leaders, school communities and key stakeholders will have an opportunity to share their views on the NAPLAN testing program. Meanwhile, the evaluation of the independent public schools initiative is also underway. There is no hidden agenda with this review. I honestly want to know what is working, what could work better and, more importantly, what opportunities the model has presented to IPS schools and how we can spread these learnings across all state schools. In the early childhood space, my department is leading the development of a whole-of-government early years plan to give every child in Queensland the best start. The plan will cover key elements in the early years of a child’s life including their education, safety, health and wellbeing as well as family and community supports. Also, the government’s $24.3 million investment in early years places in 2018-19 is supporting the operation of early years places in more than 50 locations across the state which are accessed by more than 19,000 children and 13,000 families each year. We also want to take our schools into the future by investing $97 million in the installation of solar and energy efficient measures in state schools under our Advancing Clean Energy Schools program. Tenders have now opened and phase 1 will commence during the 2018-19 summer holidays involving up to 210 schools from each of the department’s seven regions. Unfortunately, amongst all the positive news is the fact that Queensland state schools are worse off under a Turnbull government. For example, in 2018 alone, Queensland schools will receive $84 million less than we would have received if the National Education Reform Agreement was still in force.

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