Tuesday, 4 February 2025

Bills

Education and Training Reform Amendment Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ben Carroll:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (14:58): I rise to speak to the Education and Training Reform Amendment Bill 2024. I am very pleased to be able to do so, because obviously this is an important bill in a very important area of government business, and that is to ensure that standards in our education system are adhered to and that Victorian children can get the quality education that they deserve and need. I will come back to a bit more on the education system and where we are going in Victoria with it. The results say quite a bit, actually, and I think it would be very concerning for many Victorian parents to understand the state of our education system. I know that there have been some concerns raised by various Victorians to members and colleagues around ensuring that standards are adhered to but also that parental choice and other aspects are able to be upheld.

Back to the bill, the purpose of this bill is to improve, as I said, the regulation of schools and other educational institutions across our state. Specifically, the bill aims to do a number of things, but before I go to that I want to speak to the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority, or the VRQA, which has responsibility for ensuring that these standards are adhered to.

There are a number of technical amendments to the act that appear to be aimed at strengthening deterrence mechanisms against unregistered schools and school boarding premises. That is when the VRQA can actually look at some of these issues that are raised throughout our education system. It also empowers principals to delegate their current authority to make work experience arrangements.

In saying what it does to make that series of amendments to the act, what it does actually do is it removes the show cause process where cancellation of the registration of a non-government school or a non-government school boarding premises is voluntary or the school or school boarding premises has ceased to operate; increases the maximum penalties for carrying on or conducting an unregistered school or school boarding premises; clarifies that the VRQA may share information, including documents, with a prescribed person or body without receiving a written request; enables the VRQA to issue notices to produce and notices to comply to a person, body or school that the VRQA has reasonable cause to believe is required to be regulated; and expands the scope of matters in relation to which the VRQA may accept an enforceable undertaking from a non-school senior secondary and foundation secondary provider, an institution approved to provide courses to overseas students, or an institution approved to operate a student exchange program. It amends various references to days in various parts of the act to improve consistency of terminology, enables principals to nominate other persons to make work experience arrangements and structured workplace learning arrangements in accordance with any ministerial order, standardises and streamlines provisions relating to the appointment and fixing of remuneration and fees and resignation of members of boards, allows the VRQA to consider whether an applicant for registration or re-registration as a registered training organisation or an RTO or a high managerial agent or the applicant has ever failed to comply with the child safe standards regardless of whether the VRQA is the integrated sector regulator for the applicant and makes various minor and technical amendments to improve the operation and clarity of the act.

Now, I have gone through the shopping list of what this bill does, but it is actually quite important, because what it is aiming to do is improve those standards and their compliance. It does provide a number of provisions aimed at strengthening the compliance and enforcement powers of the VRQA. As I said, it is increasing the maximum penalties, for entities found to be conducting an unregistered school or school boarding premises in Victoria. And why is that important? Well, it actually is important. You cannot have schools or boarding premises that are not regulated and not registered. You need to ensure that these education facilities do have proper regulation and proper oversight. So I do think this is an important component around the main thrust of what this bill is talking about.

As someone who went to a boarding school, I understand the complexities of how they operate and the enormous responsibility on teachers. They are entrusted to look after children 24 hours a day, seven days a week, sometimes for weeks on end before there are any exits or any holidays. It is an enormous responsibility, and you need to have proper compliance and proper standards in place to ensure the safety of those children. Sometimes in boarding schools there are hundreds of children that are educated and cared for, and there is an array of issues like in any school that children might be confronted with around their needs and the complexity of their learning capacity and their overall educational experience.

I thank you, Ms Bath, for bringing in something that I forgot to bring up. When I was preparing to speak on this bill, it took me back to the very important parliamentary inquiry that we undertook here in the Parliament in 2013, for which I was the committee chair and which had an enormous impact on what we do in this state.

The Family and Community Development Committee, which was a joint committee – unfortunately we do not have those joint committees between the two houses anymore – conducted an enormous inquiry. For years the former government had done nothing, but it was the Baillieu government that took on this very important task. We inquired into the handling of child abuse by religious and other non-government organisations. In that, we specifically looked at safety standards in the education system, and as the report states, one of the areas we looked at was standards for Victorian teachers. We go on to say that:

Teachers are required by the Victorian Institute of Teaching … to meet specific standards relating to codes of conduct and professional development. The standards are broad and are relevant to knowledge, practice and engagement in ongoing learning.

Teachers in Victoria are expected to meet the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, which are monitored by VIT. In the context of ensuring children’s safety, the relevant standard is Standard 4, which requires teachers to ‘create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments’ …

The report goes on and we make various recommendations, and one of the findings was that:

Funded organisations and registered professionals are expected to meet standards relating to child safe practices that vary considerably across sectors such as early education, teaching and community services.

And then we went on to make the appropriate recommendation around the issue of a child-safe environment. So it was in the context of that, because we did hear from so many victims of child abuse that were subjected to some heinous crimes. Over the coming years, when the national royal commission was undertaken, a lot of the abuse in schools was exposed or further exposed. So it is important to have these child-safe standards in place. I wanted to just make that point because governments have that responsibility to ensure that children, when they do attend school or a learning facility, are safe, and I do not think anyone in this chamber would doubt that aim. Unfortunately things do happen, but nevertheless, this is around, as I said – I have gone off on a bit of a tangent, but I do think it is all related to standards and safety aspects of the bill.

I mentioned the issue around penalties and the increasing of penalties. The amendments will increase the maximum penalties for unregistered schools or school boarding premises from 10 penalty units to 120 units. These significant increases in the penalties are for the offence of carrying on an unregistered school or boarding premises. I think it is actually very interesting and very relevant to discuss this aspect. I got an email overnight from a constituent, and I am sure the government members have received the same email. It was from somebody, a concerned Victorian, who wrote to me about this very bill. He was urging me to vote against it, talking about the issue around the pandemic and when homeschooling became not just an alternative but, as they say, a lifeline.

I do understand that during that very significant dark period of this state, when children were not allowed – shamefully, the Labor government did not allow children to attend school, even though the experts, the medical experts, were saying that they should attend school. They were not allowed to, and there was concern from many Victorian parents about the homeschooling that the parents had to do because the children could not attend their school. That is a slightly different issue, but now that the pandemic is over, there are still many parents that are worried about the standards and the education that their children are receiving in the state system, so they are choosing to homeschool their children.

As Liberals and Nationals, we are very supportive of parental choice. We understand that there are issues around parents wanting the choice to have their children homeschooled. But this bill came out of what was happening at an education facility in Hawthorn where there were concerns around how it was being regulated – Riverside Grammar. The VRQA, which I mentioned, had investigated Riverside Grammar and found it to be an unregistered school. It appeared there was no accountability mechanism in the current regulatory framework to inform any legal consequences as a result of that school providing education in the way it was without having those safeguards in place.

I do think there was real concern, understandably, in the department that Riverside Grammar provided an education-like – and I have that in quotation marks – environment for troubled teens, but there was no attempt to meet any of the educative, child safety or quality standards that schools must meet. That is my understanding of the point of this bill – that there are establishments like this. Riverside Grammar sounds like a school that is conducting what you would presume to be a very worthy education curriculum for students. But in actual fact there were problems with that, and that is why these standards and why this bill have come about. So I do not have any problem with any of that. As my colleague Ms Wilson has pointed out, the concept of a school is very important. It is an institution providing educational instruction to children. You cannot have entities set up that claim to be such organisations when in actual fact they are not providing what Victorians think they are. That is why the Liberals and Nationals are not opposing this bill.

I do have some questions for the committee stage, but I just want to make a couple of other points before I finish. I think it is concerning to note that Victorian students are really falling behind in so many areas. I want to just commend those members – and Ms Bath is in here – on the education inquiry that was conducted recently for their findings and their recommendations. It has been noted that one of the issues that they did point out was the shortage in the teacher workforce – and it is a huge issue. The government has spent something in the vicinity of $1.6 billion, and we are still short of hundreds and hundreds of teachers in the system. It is a huge amount of money, and we are still short of hundreds and hundreds of teachers. I do think that is an absolutely massive issue for the Victorian community and Victorian parents.

The other point is that, very concerningly, one in three kids are failing the basic maths and reading standards based on the international data – the PISA data. There are record lows for 15-year-olds in maths and science. Those results need to improve. You cannot have these results and standards going backwards. Our children need our education facilities – our schools – to be absolutely going as hard as they can to get to the highest of standards. Often it is not the fault of the teachers. Far from it. The government has to provide the gaps in those shortfalls. But we do know that the curriculum is very crowded.

I think there was another aspect of the inquiry, and I am sure Ms Bath will speak to some of the findings of that inquiry. But the curriculum is so crowded with so much stuff. Really, is it necessary? What do our kids need to learn? We need to raise those standards. We need them to be the best they possibly can. Not everyone is going to be of the highest academic standard, but you need to give children the best opportunity to be able to get to their best capacity. That is about bringing it all together and having an education system that is absolutely working.

We are seeing terrible situations in some of our schools. The level of violence in our schools is completely unacceptable, and this goes back to a range of education initiatives that need to be drawn back. We need to be looking at what we are doing in our schools to ensure that we get the best outcomes for our children – absolutely critical – and that no matter a child’s capacity, they can rise to their capability and be the best that they possibly can. Only a good education will enable a student to do that. It sets them up through their pathway to whatever they might do in their adult life. It starts at a very young age. Far too much emphasis is on issues that, in my opinion, need to be scrubbed – some of the rubbish that is taught to preschool kids. Get them back into the basics so that they have got the building blocks to be able to then participate appropriately and properly in primary school, then go on to secondary school, then go on to university. Those educational building blocks are critical. As I said, there is too much crowded into the curriculum. You need to give kids just the basic building blocks so that they can achieve to the best of their capacity.

Again I say this is an important bill. We need to ensure that safety standards are in place for children, that children do feel safe, that parents have the confidence in the education system to know that their children are safe, that these institutions that want to pop up and just be created without any oversight do not occur, that we do have proper oversight and that there are mechanisms to ensure that those standards are in place to ensure that proper educative systems are there for Victorian children. I say it is another important bill that is coming through this place. But there is lots to be done, and I do have concerns around the government’s approach in many areas in the education system. They need to do much better to lift those NAPLAN results, to lift where children are falling behind so that they can have the best opportunities in the lead-up to their adult life and are able to do whatever they choose to do.

John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:18): Today I rise to contribute to the discussion on the Education and Training Reform Amendment Bill 2024. This bill is the incredible work of my friend in the other place Minister Carroll, our Minister for Education as well as our Deputy Premier. I would also like to thank the Deputy Premier and Minister for Education for bringing these prospective reforms to the Parliament. His continued attention and efforts on education reform ensure that Victoria remains the Education State, and they do not go unnoticed by us or Victorian students and teachers.

The bill we discuss today amends the Education and Training Reform Act 2006. It includes a series of reforms that strengthen the compliance and enforcement powers of the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority, known as VRQA. Through these reforms the VRQA is afforded greater oversight and regulatory authority over entities that may be considered unregistered schools. The expansion of the powers of the VRQA proposed in this bill is accompanied by increases to the maximum penalties for unregistered schools and boarding facilities.

It also enables school principals to nominate others to create work experience arrangements and structured workplace learning arrangements. It is a sensible and practical change to existing legislation, which mandates that school principals approve every work experience and structured workplace arrangement at their schools. It will enable principals to nominate other persons to make work experience arrangements and structured workplace learning arrangements in accordance with any ministerial order.

Examples of nominated persons might include an assistant principal at a school or a teacher or education support member who has the responsibility for coordinating the school’s work experience program.

I had the pleasure to supervise a young person named Kevin Raju, who is currently completing his education at Mount Waverley Secondary College in the great electorate of Ashwood in my community of Southern Metro, which is dutifully and diligently represented by my friend in the other place the member for Ashwood and Deputy Speaker, no less, Matt Fregon. So I know firsthand the importance of getting the paperwork right. The student’s host employer – earlier this year that was me – has the duty of care for the student while they are in the workplace, and why shouldn’t they? This amendment does not impact that duty of care at all. Merely it reduces the burden on principals and allows work experience and workplace learning arrangements to be made by staff who are more familiar with the individual students.

All together, these reforms will make it more difficult for unregistered and non-compliant schools to operate unnoticed, and they will reduce the administration burden on principals, allowing them to focus their energy on managing their schools effectively. They will improve how schools and other education institutions are regulated and create better outcomes for students and teachers. We know what happens when there are gaps in legislation and when we let the private sector run rampant through our kids’ minds. Take, for instance, the sad case of Riverside Grammar school. What started with optimism on the banks of the Yarra, where a Mark Twain quote hung that said, ‘Don’t let the schooling get in the way of my education’, we found out later much worse. As we know, the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority began investigating whether it was compliant with the legislation that we are amending today. But even worse than being non-compliant, we know the school was referred to the independent body that oversees the care and safety of vulnerable Victorian children. It is really a sad affair, and I know it touched my community of Hawthorn in my great community of Southern Metro. The bill seeks to address these sorts of problems from occurring in the future. It seeks to close the existing legislative gaps that are present that enable schools to operate in the wild west unregistered, disjointed and rampant, without meeting the minimum standards – standards that all Victorians expect from their education system and what our children deserve.

To ensure that no schoolkid in Victoria falls through the cracks, this bill prioritises, protects and promotes the safety of our schoolchildren. We are the Education State for a reason, and we must protect it. We have a global reputation as an education city, and we must fight for it.

As a father of six kids who all attended school in Victoria, I know the importance of this bill. Our students are engaged in education at the highest rates in the country. I am particularly proud of this. More than 80 per cent of our students complete year 12, and 96 per cent of those who start year 12 complete their VCE. These statistics do not exist due to chance. We owe a massive debt to our teachers, who are the backbone of our education system. They play a critical role in shaping the minds and futures of Victorian students. Strong legislation is how we as members of Parliament support our teachers and empower our students. This is not an area of policy we can neglect. The Allan Labor government stands with teachers. Our government school teaching workforce has grown by almost 1700 teachers since 2023. I am proud to support this bill. It is a continuation of the Allan Labor government’s record investment into teachers and students.

The amendments that this bill make to the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 are as follows. It will remove the show cause process, where cancellation of the registration of non-government schools or non-government school boarding premises is voluntary or the school or school boarding premises has ceased to operate. It will increase the maximum penalties for carrying on or conducting an unregistered school or school boarding premises. It will clarify that the VRQA may share information, including documents, with a prescribed person or body without receiving a written request. It will enable the VRQA to issue notices to produce and notices to comply to a person, body or school that the VRQA has reasonable cause to believe is required to be regulated. It will expand the scope of matters in relation to which the VRQA may accept an enforceable undertaking from a non-school senior, secondary or foundation secondary provider, an institution approved to provide courses to overseas students or an institution approved to operate a student exchange program. It will amend various references to ‘days’ in various parts of the act to improve consistency of terminology. It will standardise and streamline provisions relating to the appointment, fixing of remuneration and fees, and resignation of members of boards.

It will allow the VRQA to consider whether an applicant for registration or re-registration as a registered training organisation or high managerial agent of the applicant has ever failed to comply with the child safe standards, regardless of whether the VRQA is an integrated sector regulator for the applicant. Finally, it would also make various minor and technical amendments to improve the operation and clarity of the act.

It is our intention that the provisions of this bill come into effect by October next year. The amendments this bill makes pertaining to the VRQA empower it to: firstly, issue a notice to schools and other educational providers requiring them to produce documents or information that it reasonably believes are necessary to determine if a person or entity is engaging in conduct requiring VRQA regulation under the act, and secondly, issue a compliance notice to any person or entity that it reasonably believes should be regulated under the act, requiring them to apply for registration or approval under the act or to stop the relevant conduct.

Currently the VRQA cannot require schools or other educational providers to produce this information or documents, which limits its authority as a regulatory body. The VRQA’s present limitations as a regulatory body inhibits its effectiveness and puts students at risk. This is not an area of policy we can neglect. By providing the VRQA with greater powers of oversight and enforcement, this bill aims to provide a greater deterrent to schools, boarding premises and other education providers from operating without registration or approval. Amendments to the maximum penalties for unregistered schools and boarding premises will act as a further deterrent. Presently, the maximum penalties for these offences in the 2006 act are only 10 penalty units. It is both insufficient as a deterrent and inadequate as a punishment. Further, there is little value in prosecuting these entities that commit these offences for such a small maximum penalty. The maximum penalty will be increased to 120 penalty units for an individual and 600 penalty units for a body corporate. This will bring these penalties in line with the penalties of similar offences under the Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010 and the Children's Services Act 1996. These amendments further the ability of the VRQA to deter individuals and corporations.

The primary purpose of this amendment is to reduce the administrative burden on our school principals. This process is a massive burden for principals at large schools where dozens of students participate in these programs. The amendments to the bill enable schools to amend this process in a way which makes sense for them and their individual circumstances, whether they be delegating to individuals or to teams of staff. The ability of principals to delegate under this reform additionally enables the responsibility of approving workplace arrangements to be handled by teachers and staff close to the students.

The bill also legislates numerous reforms to affect the boards within education as well as the training and skills portfolio. The bodies that are affected by these amendments are: the pools of Merit Protection Boards, the pools of Disciplinary Appeals Boards, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority, the council of the Victorian Institute of Teaching, the VIT hearing panel pool, the board of the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership, the Victorian Registration of Qualifications Authority, the Adult Community and Further Education Board, and the board of AMES Australia.

Finally, this bill makes minor amendments that improve the consistency of terminology in the act.

The purpose of these reforms is to increase the standardisation and streamlining process through which members are appointed and resign. They also deal with amendments regarding the fixing of the remuneration and fees as they relate to the board and board members.

Only under a Labor government Victoria will remain the Education State. The most important public investment any government can make for our future, whether it be phonics or updating our teaching or learning model to embed explicit teaching at its core, including the use of systematic synthetic phonics, our record funding of medical practitioners, the head start of apprenticeships and traineeship programs and doctors in high schools – all the state is benefiting from our reforms. We are supporting disadvantaged students through the school saving bonus; the Camps, Sport and Excursions Fund; affordable school uniforms; free period products in all government schools; breakfast club program delivering free school breakfasts; Glasses for Kids; Smile Squad; out-of-school care; student excellence program; primary mathematics and science specialists; reduced face-to-face teaching hours; active sports programs; additional school nurses and allied health services; establishing the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership, including the teaching excellence program; support for tertiary teachers, teaching students and teachers to work in regional Victoria; and of course free kinder and further expanding our kinder spots to all Victorians.

In my patch, who could forget the almost $10 million – a record, massive amount of money – invested in a great local school in my community of Hawthorn, Camberwell Primary School. Since being elected in 2014 we have funded over 2200 school upgrades at more than 1150 government schools and we have funded 66 school expansions. In fact 50 per cent of the schools that have been built in Australia over the last 10 years have – surprise, surprise – been in Victoria. But there is always more to be done.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:30): I am glad to have an opportunity to make a contribution to the debate on the Education and Training Reform Amendment Bill 2024. The Minister for Education was quoted in an article about homeschooling earlier this week, stating:

The best place for students to learn is in the school … the most important protective factor for a young person [to be] in the school in front of a qualified teacher …

This quote is a good one for explaining the difference between the government’s position and the Libertarian position. My view is that the best place for students to learn is a place where they are safe, their education is supported and they have their best opportunity to thrive. For some kids, and an increasing number recently, school is not the best place. Parents and families agree. A recent article on the ABC noted that Queensland had seen a doubling of homeschooling registrations in the past four years. I do not know the figures for Victoria, but conversations I have had with people who are involved in the sector have told me that there is definitely an increased interest. Some people make this choice because they believe they can deliver a better and more well-rounded education experience for their kids or maybe the local schools do not match their values or priorities. Others have taken their kids out of school because of bullying issues. But there is also another reason, which has been more of a COVID phenomenon. There has been a lot of reporting about the school refuser challenges. After the lockdowns and home learning enforced by the government’s response to COVID, some students have developed severe anxiety and other mental health issues, something that I warned about at the time.

Fortunately, there is also a growing number of organisations dedicated to supporting homeschooling families, with networks of homeschoolers organising meet-ups, sporting activities or excursions to museums and other venues. There are also organisations dedicated to helping families navigate the shift to homeschooling or assisting their learning needs with professional tutoring services. This really gets to the heart of the difference in perspective. I do not think the government really likes this trend at all. They would prefer everyone go through the standard education system, as central planning is part of their DNA. Libertarians are the opposite of this. We support maximum freedom, diversity, innovation and competition. It has been a longstanding policy of our party that funding should follow the student and allow maximum freedom for families in how they choose to allocate that funding. In this country this idea has not gained much traction yet, but I think that we are going to see increasing interest in education reform to support greater diversity. The idea itself has a long history, with Thomas Paine suggesting that the government should support, but not direct, the education of poor families in his book Rights of Man in 1791. John Stuart Mill made a similar argument in 1859, stating that:

All attempts by the State to bias the conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects, are evil …

This is undoubtedly a common reason for parents choosing non-government schools or homeschooling. Mill did, however, support ensuring that all children had an education and, where required, government support be allocated to the family for them to choose where best to source that education. In more recent years it was Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman, who popularised the idea of school choice with a school voucher system in a 1955 book and reiterated it in his famous book Capitalism and Freedom in 1965.

It is not just a theory, though. This model has been trialled in several places and is increasingly popular in the United States of America. Sweden used to have a highly centralised education system, probably far worse than here. But in 1992 they shifted to a voucher system. This was done partially to allow more freedom and choice and partially to encourage competition and innovation in the education sector.

There have been many reviews, but it is likely that these reforms led to better outcomes overall – and not just in independent schools – slowed the increasing costs of delivering education, reduced violence in schools and allowed for different specialisations.

Millions of students in the USA now participate in some kind of school choice program, from school vouchers to tax credit schemes and others. This policy approach is receiving a lot more interest, with multiple jurisdictions considering implementing or expanding programs. Homeschooling is now the fastest growing education choice in the United States, with about 2.5 million students in 2019 growing to almost 4 million in 2024. Corey DeAngelis and the Educational Freedom Institute, amongst others, are helping to support this change.

Back here in Australia it is all a bit of a mess. Overlapping state and federal responsibilities and funding make truly radical and ambitious reform difficult. There are frequently debates about funding for private versus public schools, and the poor homeschoolers are lucky to get a few crumbs. It would be simpler, more effective and likely lead to better outcomes to simply fund each student and allow maximum freedom. Our policy settings are still embedded in 19th-century thinking, and no amount of centres of excellence are going to boost standards and innovation in the ways that we need to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

As for the bill itself, it does several things that I support, such as streamlining some processes and allowing principals to delegate some authorisations. It also tidies up a process around schools that cease operating and makes a few other minor amendments which I support. Mostly the bill is either benign or has provisions that libertarians could support. There are some issues, however, the first of which is that the whole policy area is devoid of any substantive ideas for reform, efficiency, freedom or innovation. That is a broad critique of high-level policy and funding, though.

In terms of this bill, I have received a lot of correspondence from people involved in the homeschooling sector. They have expressed a range of concerns, some of which I will seek clarity on during the committee stage of the debate. Before I go into these, though, I do want to thank the minister’s office for providing a briefing to discuss these matters.

Some of the concerns are related to the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority and whether they are going to target homeschoolers. I do not believe that this is the case, or at least not directly, but I do have concerns about how the regulator is currently engaging with businesses that provide support to homeschoolers and how this legislation might give even more power to the VRQA. One of the main concerns is around requests for documents that are currently occurring. Several organisations providing tutoring and support to homeschoolers have stated that they have received notices to provide documents that they believe would be breaching the privacy act to comply with. I do not know if this is the case, but I would be unsurprised, as we saw it during the COVID pandemic. Everybody just seemed to ignore the requirements for businesses to hold certain medical data in ways that likely breached the privacy act, but no-one seemed to care – for the greater good or something like that.

The key concern is that there seems to be no justification for them to do this. It is not clear that there have been any complaints, and I struggle to understand why there would be a reasonable suspicion that these tutoring services are operating in a way that would require them to be registered as a school. The whole thing seems like an unnecessary targeting of the homeschooling support system when the VRQA likely has more important things to do.

I have been hearing whispers for a while now about the quality of education being provided by many registered training organisations, and I believe that recent scandals are the tip of the iceberg. We can probably expect more revelations over the course of the year and probably an inquiry at a minimum by next year. What I would like to see is maximum freedom and options with private schools, specialist schools, homeschooling cooperatives and microschools and a streamlined system which reduces bureaucracy and provides more sensible oversight, focused on child safeguarding and ensuring basic quality and service delivery.

While there are aspects of the bill that I like, I am reluctant to support giving more powers to the regulator to go on witch-hunts without strong justification, so I will not be supporting this bill. I will seek further clarification on aspects during the committee stage of debate.

Ann-Marie HERMANS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:39): I also rise to speak on this reform bill for education and the amendments that have been prescribed here. I want to first of all thank my colleague Jess Wilson, the shadow minister, for the work that she has done in preparing for this and engaging stakeholders. She has clearly done an excellent job, particularly in her own area, where she has looked at some of the issues that have been of concern to her particular constituents.

I want to start by going through the actual definition of a school. As many of you may or may not know, my background is in education. I am a qualified and experienced schoolteacher, having trained in the secondary system. I have also had the opportunity to work in the primary system, and what might surprise some people is I have also had the opportunity to homeschool my children.

I would say that in the beginning I was not a tremendous fan. It was a great idea of my husband’s who had looked into it before we got married. It was, for me, a very difficult undertaking, even though I had been a schoolteacher, because I did not really have much of an opinion or any understanding of it; I did not know anyone that did it. It was, for me, an incredible undertaking, which I must say I did not last a long time doing – it would be less than two years – and I would say that in that time I met some of the most amazing families. I came across incredible resources and recognised the value of what homeschooling could actually provide. That, for me as a teacher, might seem a surprise, but I can say where I found it difficult was I tried to create school at home instead of trying to understand the difference and the nuances in the different academic and educational options that homeschooling actually provided and does provide. So it took me on a journey of reading a whole lot of resources that I would never have engaged in had I not undertaken this for a short period of my life of which I am very, very grateful. I think that my children are also very, very grateful because it allowed us to have more time as a unit and for me to understand my children in a way that perhaps I would never have had the opportunity to had I been working in a school and not spending time with them.

I want to start by actually defining a school based on what this whole amendment in this bill is looking at, the definition of the school and actually not referring to it in a direct way, so I want to give that to us so that I can actually expand on some of the concerns. School, by definition in the actual act:

… means a place at or from which education is provided to children of compulsory school age during normal school hours, but does not include—

(a) a place at which registered home schooling takes place;

(ab) a school boarding premises;

(b) a University;

(c) a TAFE institute;

(d) an education service exempted by Ministerial Order;

(e) any other body exempted by the regulations;

Now, I realise that when this was being drafted that that was taken into consideration and constantly heard, and I want to thank the department for providing me with an additional briefing based on concerns that I have had from homeschooling-providing resource groups. I realised at the time that this has been an issue. Since this bill was passed in the lower house there are homeschooling resource groups that have become aware of the bill being passed, were not even aware that it existed and have become extremely concerned.

Now, back to the homeschooling issue, but I first want to tackle one of the things that I did mention when we had our briefing. Again, like I said, I do want to thank the minister for making the departments and the heads available, and the people that were advisers available, for me to ask questions of. I too will have questions when we go into committee.

I want to raise, first of all, the issue of work experience, and I know that I have raised that in this time. I know from experience working in a school that if you are in a big school you can have a whole section of people who are working in compliance. You can be paying the lawyers; you can have that huge response from staff that can be making the calls to make sure that with something like work experience every ‘i’ is dotted and every ‘t' is crossed. When you are in a small-to-medium school – and let us take a non-government small-to-medium school because clearly the government is intending, I would think, to help its small and regional schools that may want to have work experience and provide that to students. Clearly I am assuming from this that they are going to be undertaking to provide services to support these schools given that it is now going to be allowed, with this bill, to actually prosecute individuals if they make a mistake and not actually look at the school as a whole or the leadership. So I want say that in the non-government schools I think that the government is now undertaking with this bill to actually make sure that it provides the additional support and education to the non-government schools to ensure that they understand the signing off made by a teacher, which could change every year as to who is in charge of work experience.

They always do this, usually with one teacher who is in charge of it, but it gets signed off currently by the principal and it is all covered by school insurance. It is now looking to me, and I will be looking for answers on this, like that is not necessarily going to be the case – that individuals can be prosecuted should they make a mistake in the work experience situation and in the way that all of the paperwork is done. Now, as an educator I am all for child safety. In fact you could not find someone that would want to work hard enough and advocate strongly enough for child safety. What happens to our children in schools is incredibly important to me and what happens to our children in this state is incredibly important to me. I am a mother of four kids myself, and I have worked with young people who have been out of home. I have seen the distresses that go on both in school and out of school because of decisions that get made either in the family or because of, at this stage, the lack of services provided by this government to actually protect our children who are under 18 and may not have anywhere to live, making them vulnerable even when they are trying to attend school.

Moving on from that, I do want answers in this particular area. I am concerned that we are putting our educational staff at further risk and at a time when it is so difficult to retain teachers, a time when it is almost impossible to keep teachers in schools and young people who are training do not even want to go into the teaching profession and be locked in to having to prepare for classes. They are all opting to be relief teachers because they do not like the responsibilities, and here we are making it so that a person that takes on the responsibility of work experience could actually be also undertaking a situation where they can personally be sued if something is not quite right, and that is a genuine concern for me.

Moving on, I want to take up some of the things that Mr Limbrick has mentioned, because I too have been contacted by a number of businesses. I have discovered some of these businesses only just recently. I have never actually met these people face to face; I have only talked to them via the internet and on the phone based on them contacting me, and I want to thank them for doing that. They have businesses – they are constituents of mine – and they are providing resources and opportunities to homeschooling families. Now, I can say that any resource that is provided to a homeschool family is of great value to that family. Families want to have options. I met with one of these providers that was interstate, not the ones that are my constituents, and they mentioned to me, ‘Look, English is my second language. I wasn’t born in this country. But my kids were suffering from anxiety, and the situation was that I needed a resource that could provide support for me in teaching English, in teaching language and in teaching things that were going to help my child to be at the level that they needed to be in English and in that area of education.’ That meant looking for resources.

As I understand it, the resource groups that are based in areas in my electorate and sprang up during COVID actually were providing for many of these families where there is school refusal – where there are young people who do not want to go to school. They actually sprang up during COVID when there was not the opportunity for children to go to school and for young people to go to school. In that time the level of anxiety rose, and as a result of that level of anxiety rising, some of those kids, once it was time to return to school, found that they actually had issues and found it more difficult.

As has been mentioned before, bullying is also an issue behind why some parents choose to homeschool. I can say that there can be learning needs and an understanding of what is going on in that young person’s life. Homeschooling in Victoria is actually meeting a need for families that is not being met by this current government. Not everybody can afford to have a private school education. Or do they live in an area where they feel that that private school is going to be the one that they would want to send their kids to? There are many families who are bravely undertaking the task of wanting to teach their kids at home – often, I will say, because of anxiety that was caused during COVID or in the COVID period and often because of bullying or because their child has different learning needs that cannot be met in the system as well as the parents feel that they could do – and they are willing to look for those resources.

The VRQA, which we are about to give the most incredible powers with this bill, has never been known to actually allow online learning to be approved as an educational resource. In fact it appears to me that for any of these groups that provide tutoring, that provide learning, whether it be videoed, whether it be individual or whether it be provided to them in small groups, it is something that they have a real issue with. I think that that is a backwards step. I remember being part of a discussion group about what we have learned in education as a result of the COVID lockdowns. I remember having to be able to teach using the online learning systems, and I can say it revolutionised my thinking. I thought there are new ways to do school, there are new ways to do learning and there are new ways that we need to start to explore so people can have options and resources. I think it would be a backwards step if we start to now discriminate against groups that are providing resources to families. They are not schools. They have not in any shape or form pretended to be a school. They are not a school. They are simply providing resources. The VRQA have given us the undertaking that that is not what they are going after, and we are going to be watching. I can tell you that both my colleague Jess Wilson as the Shadow Minister for Education and I will be monitoring very, very closely what happens to these particular businesses, because we will support – absolutely will support – the right for parents to have the choices and the opportunities for education available to them.

We are not going to support taking down small businesses. We are not going to support taking down medium-sized businesses. We are not going to support taking down the opportunities that should be freely available in a country like Australia and in a state like Victoria, which I know under this government has made everybody nervous when you look at the sort of powers that we are now attributing to the VRQA through this bill. It concerns me because the penalties could actually cripple and take out people that are providing services that we desperately need, which this government is not tackling. This government has record highs of teachers that do not want to teach. It has record highs of students that do not want to go to school. It has record highs of students that have been suspended. It is an appalling mess, our education system, with this cluttered curriculum that is driving people and even teachers mental because they cannot even get through it. I remember one principal saying to me, ‘Oh, my goodness, they’ve just sent us another email of something else they want us to stuff into the curriculum.’ It is just getting ridiculous.

I actually think that homeschooling provides a tremendous opportunity. I think the proof is in the pudding when you meet not all homeschooling families and not all homeschoolers, but let me say there are some fantastic families out there who are homeschooling , and they deserve to have choice in their resources. These businesses also deserve to be allowed to stay open and to continue to provide opportunities for resources for families, whether it be during school time or after school, after all these families are homeschooling. I just want to say that we will be looking into that. I do have questions that I will be taking to committee. Our shadow ministry here will be absolutely committed to following up any concerns – and I say any – and please contact us if you have any concerns. My name is Ann-Marie Hermans. Jess Wilson is our shadow minister. I am the assistant shadow minister. Please contact us if your resource group and your provision of homeschooling is under attack from the VRQA. We want to hear from you. We will stand with you and have a look at your issues, because we want to make sure that options and opportunities are available to all Victorians who want to have choices in their education.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (15:54:374:): On this, the first bill that I am speaking to here in 2025, can I take a moment to say happy new year to all those listening at home or indeed in the chamber, and what a good one it is because we are starting our parliamentary year here in the Legislative Council with a bill about our youngest Victorians and those that are looking to educate themselves for the big, bright futures we know that they have.

It really is my honour to get up and speak in support of the Education and Training Reform Amendment Bill 2024, and support it I do indeed. You see, this bill is an important step towards ensuring that Victorian students receive the highest standard of education in a safe and a really well-regulated environment. In particular, can I take a moment, now that we have gotten past their first week of school, to acknowledge and commend the tireless efforts of the schools in the Northern Metropolitan Region and of course right across the state. To those in the northern suburbs, the principals, the teachers, the support staff and the broader school communities who have dedicated themselves every day to fostering the development of our youngest Victorians, can I say thank you for all that you do.

Education truly is the foundation of our society, and in our schools here students are not only taught academic subjects but also instilled with values – values of resilience, collaboration and curiosity that will serve them throughout their lives. The dedication and passion of school leaders and staff in our region cannot be overstated. In Northern Metro, whether it is Epping or Preston, Coburg or Craigieburn or all the way out to our outer suburbs, educators work beyond the classroom and are supporting students’ wellbeing, championing inclusive education and ensuring that every young person has the opportunity to thrive, which is just so good.

I have had the opportunity over the course of my time here in the Legislative Council to visit many schools across Northern Metro and have seen firsthand the exceptional work that they do, whether it is the innovative STEM programs at Thomastown Secondary College, the outstanding arts and music initiatives at Northcote High School – which I know the member for Northcote is deeply, deeply committed to – or the inspiring VCA success stories coming from Glenroy College. The member for Broadmeadows speaks about that with such pride – and so regularly too, I might say. Thank you to Kathleen Matthews-Ward for making sure that I know all about the inspiring VCE success there in the northern suburbs.

Can I also say our schools continue to go above and beyond in providing high-quality education for all their students. I have got the occasion to head to some school assemblies in the next little while, which I am very much looking forward to, and it is a chance for me to acknowledge and thank them. It is for so many reasons that I just want to extend my deep appreciation to the principals, the teachers and the staff in the public, independent and Catholic schools right across the northern suburbs for their truly unwavering commitment. Their work not only shapes the future of individual students but strengthens the very fabric of our local communities.

Going back to this bill, can I just say one of the key aspects of the bill before us is a reform that enables school principals to nominate other staff members to make work experience and structured workplace learning arrangements. This is really a much-needed change, one that will significantly ease the burden on our principals and our school leaders, and allows some career coordinators, teachers and support staff, who often have the most direct knowledge of the students’ needs, to take on this responsibility. We know that work experience is really an invaluable opportunity for students to gain firsthand exposure to the workforce, develop employability skills and explore potential career pathways. Whether a student is gaining experience in health care, technology, construction, retail or hospitality, these placements provide a vital bridge between education and employment.

I will just take a moment to acknowledge the work experience student I had in my office last year. I know they are a little shy, so I will not put their name on the record. I know that my office as well as many others right across the Parliament proudly supports local students through work experience placements, and every year we welcome here into the Parliament schools from across the Northern Metropolitan Region, giving them insights into the working of government and public policy. I kind of wish that was something that was available to me in high school; that was not something that I did in high school. I instead went and hung out at an engineering firm and learned a thing or two about what goes into world-class infrastructure in our state and indeed overseas.

I have got to tell you, some of the most phenomenal engineers, building world-class projects right across the world, come from this state, and maybe some of them are through some of the great initiatives like the STEM schools that we have got.

Back to the other point about work experience programs, throughout this program, students really do gain hands-on skills in research, public engagement and legislative processes. I know that the program that we have got here at the Victorian Parliament has been around a little while, and it is pretty good. I know that because of the big smiles on the faces of not only the participants, but the families as well, who I had the good fortune to meet as I celebrated the work experience students that have come through my office and just loved immersing themselves in the legislative processes of our state, knowing that the decisions made here, in this place, impact their lives – like the bill that we are discussing right now. I would love to see a higher uptake of this great program from our public schools. In recent times, participation from our private schools has been higher than our local public schools.

Even though public school students make up nearly 65 per cent, in fact, of the secondary schools, inclusion in the program has not been reflective of that, and I would like to see that change. Just know that is something that I am thinking about and others are as well. I take the opportunity then to encourage the public schools in the Northern Metropolitan Region to get that application in for the Parliament of Victoria work experience program. It is really critical that our students from all backgrounds have access to these experiences and understand the impact that public policy and governance have on their lives. My office will continue to work with school leaders and career advisers to increase participation and ensure that more public school students benefit from these opportunities.

I know that other speakers, including the first government speaker Mr Berger, who spoke earlier about the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority, has talked a little bit about changing the regulatory environment around education, and I thank him for those contributions.

We have got some really rapidly growing schools in the northern suburbs, and the demand for school placements really is rising. Whether that is from the growing areas up in the north or some even closer to this here building, I have got to say families need to have the confidence and must have the confidence that every school operating within their community is properly registered, adheres to child safe standards and meets educational requirements. I am so happy to see some of the measures in the bill. This is not standalone. This is around to complement the existing work of the Minister for Education, including delivery of some key reforms and programs to support our school students. They include the strong commitment to mental health and wellbeing programs, and the Head Start apprenticeships and traineeships. I am a big fan of the apprenticeships, and I have spoken about them many times. We have got the minister in here, so I am just going to have another plug.

I encourage students to consider apprenticeships. They are incredible choices for life – ones that I wish we had spoken about and had more pride in many, many years ago. But right now there is never a better time to take up an apprenticeship. To the young fella I know that is about to start his tunnel-boring apprenticeship, you are going to have the very best time, because you are very much changing the fabric of our state each and every day with your apprenticeship. There are not only great programs that are out there, but through some of the enormous investments we have made with apprenticeships and traineeships in some of our exciting projects, there is a very big future for you.

There is also doctors in schools. I know that it is hard as a busy student to find the time to see a doctor, and so big thanks to the minister for that program. I know that there are all the other things that we do, things that we are celebrating – things like the school saving bonus and the Camps, Sports and Excursion Fund. It is just absolutely incredible. Big thanks to each and every school for helping do what they do to make those possible.

I might finish up a little bit early, but know that I am eternally grateful for all of the programs that are out there to support our school students. Before you get to school you of course are going to be supported in our state through our amazing three- and four-year-old kinder. To all of the principals, teachers, education support staff and school councils, who make it possible for us to have such incredible programs right across the state, thank you for all that you do. Education truly is at the very heart of our state’s future. This bill only strengthens that through some improved oversight, access to our work experience program and of course reducing the administrative burden on our school leaders. I am looking forward to hearing contributions from other speakers in this chamber. With that, I will finish my remarks and commend this bill to the house.

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (16:06): I am pleased to rise today to make a contribution on the Education and Training Reform Amendment Bill 2024. In noting the importance of education, there are a number of speakers on this bill today, and I think there is an overwhelming sense of vitality of a workable, supportive, comprehensive and functioning education system. By ‘system’ I mean the way to enable young people in our state to become the very best of themselves; to feel confidence in their ability to communicate, to read and to be able to work their way through the world; to have mathematics and a comprehensive understanding of how to be when they leave the halls of the education institution or the homeschool that they are in; to make a positive contribution; and to feel safe in this state.

Just for context, because the Nationals and the Liberals certainly agree with choice and the importance of having a choice, if we look at the students in Victoria – I think these stats are reasonably relevant – there are approximately 63 per cent in government schools and 21 per cent in Catholic schools, and in independent schools there are around 16 per cent. I was just doing some research before and noted that the number of children with parents and guardians choosing to homeschool their children has escalated – doubled – since 2019. There were about 5500 students back in 2019 in the state, and there are upwards now of around 11,500 to 12,000. You can see when you look at that graph that there was a spike in 2021 and thereafter – around that time. That will not be a surprise to many parents, and certainly we on this side understand. We were in our electorate offices speaking with frustrated parents about having the situation where students were being schooled at home or having lessons at home during COVID. It certainly did not suit the overwhelming majority of those students to be learning from home and learning in front of a computer. There were mixed and varied reports on how effective and committed and able particular schools were in meeting the needs of those students while learning from home. Of course there were a few that had to go in because they were children of essential services workers.

Nonetheless, just as I begin my contribution I do want to say that I am pleased that on the Liberals and Nationals side here we will be asking the relevant minister at the table today about the concerns that have been flagged by the homeschool parents and the homeschool fraternity. I note our shadow minister Jess Wilson has been forensic in her analysis and her contribution in the lower house but also in investigating with the department. I know she thanks the department for answering further questions about ensuring that people are not continuing businesses who are unregistered and unworthy of providing education material and that that does not disadvantage those who are exemplary and are providing a very good service in the homeschool area.

I just wanted to put that on the record. We very much support education on this side – and I am sure all members will make that same statement – but we also want to ensure that this bill is doing its job without diminishing the fact that people do have the right to homeschool their children.

In relation to strengthening this bill and its aims, it certainly helps to strengthen the deterrence mechanisms by increasing penalties for operating unregistered schools or school boarding premises and by empowering the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority, which we affectionately call the VRQA, with greater oversight and regulatory authority. I want to make some comments about the VRQA in a little while.

Also this bill seeks to allow principals to delegate authority, particularly in that work experience space and in relation to work experience teachers. They are fantastic. We had a great one at my school. They are very busy because they have to cover a lot of students, but they are really on the pulse. They are often doing those negotiations or discussions with industry and workforce, the local hairdresser, the local mechanic or wherever else, so for a principal to be able to delegate to the appropriate teacher or leader in that school is certainly something that we would support. It is also about improving administration, looking at standardising and streamlining provisions that relate to board appointments and resignations.

The other part I would certainly like to touch on is around enhancing information sharing and compliance in relation to the VRQA but also in relation to the child safe standards. I think it is part 3 of this bill that looks at child safe standards. This is a really important instigation. It has been around, I think, for almost 20 years now. I would like to drill down into some of the important work that these child safe standards should be doing. Without going through each and every one, I just want to capture the flavour of some of those 11 child safe standards. They look at providing a culturally safe environment which will support diverse and unique identities. They also provide that child safety and wellbeing are embedded in the organisation, in the leadership and in the culture of the school; that families and communities are informed and involved in promoting child safety and wellbeing – ‘informed and involved’ is a really important one; that people working with children and young people must be suitable and supported to reflect child safety and wellbeing values; that staff and volunteers are equipped with knowledge, skills and awareness in relation to keeping people safe through their education and training; that the physical and online environments must also be safe for those children and young people; and that the implementation of child safe standards is regularly reviewed and improved.

One of the things that I have heard in my time is that, unfortunately, it seems to be parents, carers and guardians of children in the disability sector that have come with the most concerns around child safe standards. It is a policy of government, but it also has to be a practice of government and embedded by government every day in the schools, whether it be in our state or our independent and Catholic schools et cetera. It needs to be a practice. What I have heard during my time is concern from those parents, whose children may be non-verbal. They cannot communicate what has happened in the day through their expression, but they can act out what has happened.

That parent often relies on the school – and part of the child safe standards is about good communication between school and parent – to have those communications and to write them in the book. But I was only speaking to someone quite recently, a parent, who was saying sometimes those communications are limited to non-existent. So how do they know? How is there confidence that that school is providing a child safe environment?

Indeed the CCYP, the Commission for Children and Young People, have on their website today – and I thank the commissioner and indeed the traditional owner commissioner for coming and speaking at our inquiry some months ago, last year – some of the examples of child safety concerns. These are quotes off the CCYP, concerns about child safe standards:

My child has been harmed or abused by another child at the organisation and when I told the manager they told me it was not their problem.

A different quote:

I asked the organisation for their Child Safe policy and code of conduct and they said they did not know what I was talking about.

And:

A person engaged by an organisation has a proven history of inappropriate behaviour with children, but the organisation engaged them for a role with unsupervised access to children.

And then it goes on to talk about reportable conduct and raising the concerns. Now, I think the CCYP do a very good job, an exemplary job, and they have made multiple recommendations to government. I think there were 46 in one of those to do with out-of-home care, and those recommendations should be accepted in full by this government. It is important that when a bill looks at considering compliance with child safe standards for registering of training organisations, whatever those training organisations be in that form, it ensures that they actually have not only the policy but the practice of that policy. Our children are the most important and most fragile asset that this state has, and we need to be first educating them better but protecting them and ensuring their safety better.

Some of the other points that I would just like to go to in my contribution are around the principal workload and the administrative burden on principals, as I said, to approve work experience and also just around streamlining processes and cutting red tape. One thing that we heard about in our inquiry as well was that burden that teachers and principals have. It seems to be an ever-growing burden. As I was in school, I know that for some of my colleagues who were retiring, part of their parting gift to me was to say ‘Once upon a time we were able to teach students. Now we just seem to write forms about them.’ So there is a balance. I am not saying that we should not keep that balance in a good state education system – there needs to be that balance – but streamlining is not unneeded; it certainly is needed.

I do want to put on the record some sobering statistics about principals. This has come to me, and I am going to say that it is a fact. It has come to me in a quiet sense, so I will not be talking about individuals by any stretch. In the important region of inner Gippsland, that fantastic area in my electorate, there are 12 secondary colleges. Seven of those secondary colleges have acting principals, so not a stable principal population. One principal is working part-time and four are full-time substantive principals, but two of those four are in their first two years of the role. So if we look at that corporate knowledge, that understanding, that maturity of leadership, we see that there are some pressures happening. It is not only in Gippsland – I am sure it is right across the state – but there are some examples of the pressures on schools, the pressures on principals and the pressures on teachers. I have heard of regular occasions where principals are having to backfill into classes because there are multiple staff missing. Either they just cannot fill the position – that staffing position, that teaching position – or indeed teachers are away on extended illness or leave.

Indeed in outer Gippsland secondary schools we know that on average there is only 0.7 of an application per job. Again, we were in Bairnsdale at the time, and we heard there was some astronomical number of applications that went out, and it was frightening – I cannot remember it off the top of my head, but there were many, many jobs still going that could not be filled. I understand also that Jenny Atta – and I am sure she is a very conscientious person – has now moved on and the Department of Education is looking for a new deputy secretary. But I am aware that her parting email was actually in relation to praising very much the education department staff – and maybe that is rightly so – but ahead of the school staff, so I want to put on record my thanks to all the teachers who front up every day to do their very best in what I consider in many cases very trying circumstances. Education is important. This bill will go through, and we do not oppose it, but we need a better system in our state.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:21): I do rise today to speak on the Education and Training Reform Amendment Bill 2024. I am very excited to be speaking on the first bill before us this parliamentary year, and in doing so I acknowledge that it is quite appropriate for us to be doing an education bill at the same time that so many new schools are opening across the state of Victoria. Indeed just in the past week we have seen three new government schools open in my region alone, which has been wonderful to see – all of them in Clyde North – two new primary schools and also the new secondary school as well, Wollert Secondary College. It is very exciting to see those schools now opening to students, those schools of course continuing to round out this government’s commitment to build 100 new state schools across Victoria.

I reflect on the regional schools that have opened, the inner-city schools and especially those schools such as Mirniyan Primary School, for example, in Clyde North in the South-Eastern Metropolitan Region. Also of course we had a new Catholic school open just this week in my electorate in Clyde North as well – St Josephine Bakhita Catholic Primary School, which is going to be wonderful to have contributing to the educational outcomes of our local community, providing, along with Clyde Grammar as well, alternative schooling options for my very large growing community out in Clyde North.

Indeed this is a government that has consistently delivered on the mantle which we have put for ourselves, has consistently risen to that title of making Victoria the Education State, whether it is within these 100 new schools that are being built right across Victoria, whether it is with the introduction of phonics as well, another significant announcement by the Deputy Premier just last year –

Ann-Marie Hermans: Shameful.

Michael GALEA: It is not shameful, Mrs Hermans, it is actually a very good announcement. It is a very, very good announcement that is going to considerably improve the educational outcomes of our youngest Victorians. It is a very good thing in fact that we have the implementation of phonics in the state of Victoria. Do you agree that is a good thing?

Ann-Marie Hermans: Yes, absolutely.

Michael GALEA: Good. Well, I am glad that you do agree, Mrs Hermans, because it is. It is going to contribute to those improved educational outcomes for our youngest Victorians and set them up well. We are setting them up through free kinder for three- and four-year-olds. We are setting them up at the later stage with free TAFE courses as well and with those investments in 100 new schools – including, Mrs Hermans, in our electorate in the south-east, that you should be very much supportive of as well, I am sure; I hope you are – these new schools that have opened this year, and of course more are coming next year as well.

This is a government that has continued to invest in our young Victorians, and indeed it is a government that has not been afraid to speak up for these young Victorians as well. In the past several months there have been a number of conversations between the Deputy Premier and indeed the Premier herself and their counterparts at the federal level. We have seen strong advocacy on behalf of Victorian students for our fair share of Commonwealth funding. As members will know, there was an offer made by the Commonwealth for 20 per cent of funding to be provided to Victorian public school students by the Commonwealth government. It was not good enough. It was not the full amount that we are supposed to be receiving under these funding models.

While some other states did accept that lower offer, Victoria held out; Victoria held out, and we have a minister that worked diligently and relentlessly in that pursuit. I spoke in adjournments last year about the impact that that funding would have: the difference between 20 and 25 per cent; the hundreds of thousands of dollars per school per year; and in some cases for some of my larger high schools more than a million dollars worth of funding that this government was fighting for on behalf of Victorian school students.

And what did we see over just the last few weeks? A wonderful announcement that the federal government has come to the table. Whilst I was happy to be criticising and holding them to account last year, I will in equal measure give them much credit for coming to the table and providing Victorian students with the most significant increase in federal funding in a generation, if not ever. I congratulate the Albanese federal Labor government for coming and meeting us at that 25 per cent, and I particularly congratulate the efforts of a very hardworking minister, Deputy Premier Ben Carroll, who has been relentlessly fighting on behalf of Victorian students to get that outcome, including, as I understand, right over the Christmas break as well. Whilst the Liberal Party members were fighting over their own numbers our Minister for Education was fighting for the numbers that matter, and they are the dollars that go into the funding for our school students.

That is the most perfect illustration of the contrast that we see here; when we have contributions from those members opposite, such as Ms Crozier and others who have been speaking before me today, that is the contribution that they make. Whilst we are focused on getting the educational outcomes of Victorians improved, whilst we are focused on getting the funding for the Victorian students that they need, for those opposite the numbers that they are looking at are their own spreadsheets, their own factional figures. Who has got the numbers? Mr Mulholland got through by two votes. Who else has got the numbers? We have seen the wonderful, regal rise of Mrs McArthur, but above all we have seen just relentless focusing on themselves, – because that is all they do, and that is all they have done for the past two years in this place.

Meanwhile, though, we will continue to do the hard work in education, in reforms, in the significant new schools.

Ann-Marie Hermans interjected.

Michael GALEA: Again, Mrs Hermans, you are free to tut at me for saying that, but it is a very important set of set of new schools that we are delivering. It is a very important set of improvements in policy, such as in phonics. And even with shall we say less large-scale bills such as those before us today, they are still nevertheless very important contributions to the improvement of the educational landscape and to the impact that it will have on Victorian students – making it easier for principals, making it easier to facilitate work experience arrangements and the like, including defining schools as well in terms of the powers of the Victorian Registration Qualifications Authority, the VRQA.

This is a bill that does many important things which will improve and simplify that back-end paperwork that schools have to deal with and improve those outcomes, freeing up those teaching resources to focus on what is really most important – and that is the education and training of our next generation of Victorians.

Like many members in this place, like Mr Batchelor and Dr Heath over there as well, we did partake in an education inquiry as part of the Legal and Social Issues Committee last year, and it was very wideranging inquiry. We got to hear from students, from teachers, from principals and from other stakeholders in the educational system, and a very enlightening inquiry it was. I will not dwell too much on what I have already talked over, but most particularly on this there was the serious advocacy we saw on behalf of phonics, and indeed how wonderful it was to see that announcement made that this government would indeed hear those concerns and implement a phonics-based training system in Victoria.

But we also of course heard the concerns from schools and teachers about recruitment and retention and worked together to find ways in which we could really improve those outcomes as well, because when you have the unprecedented level of investment that this government has put in for Victorian students, it is important that you are doing that in the smartest way possible. That is why we have to show for it now the 100 new schools that are being built by this government for Victorian students. Indeed my colleague Mr Tarlamis knows all too well – again, also from the South-Eastern Metropolitan region – we have had Topirum Primary School last year and one new primary school in Clyde North; this year we have two new primary schools and a new high school as well. Indeed I was out –

Lee Tarlamis: And more coming.

Michael GALEA: That is quite right, Mr Tarlamis, there is more to come next year, with Clyde Creek North primary and secondary schools. I understand we will have confirmed new names for them as well.

I do not often as a member for the south-east find myself in Werribee, but I did actually quite a few times over the past couple of weeks supporting our fantastic candidate John Lister in the Werribee by-election. He is a true local; he rents in the area. He is going to make a great contribution to this Parliament, I know. So I am very excited to hopefully see him joining us in this place in a couple of weeks. I did note in fact when doorknocking an outer suburban area, part of Wyndham Vale, that there was a brand new school right across the road there too. It is great to see that the infrastructure that we are building is not just in the south-east, it is right across Melbourne. It is right across Victoria.

There are a number of things that I could continue to talk about with this bill. There are a number of very important things that this bill will do. This bill is one more piece of the mantle, as I say, that is making Victoria the Education State, which this government is doing.

Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (16:31): Once again we have witnessed the absolute jaw-dropping delusion of Labor, who manage to have the most disconnected and outrageous contributions, calling this state the Education State when one-third of children do not reach reading or writing proficiency and in our areas 50 per cent of children cannot read properly – and they manage to stand there and talk about being the Education State. That is obviously one of two things: ignorance or something completely worse. This government is all about announcements and very little about outcomes. No matter the outcome, no matter what is happening to the children in this state, they manage to find a way to pat themselves on the back. You have to give it to them; it is quite a talent. They are more obsessed with the Liberal Party and the coalition than they are with the outcomes for the Victorian people that they were put there to serve. It is unbelievable.

This bill focuses on peripheral issues rather than tackling the structural challenges in Victoria’s education system, such as student learning outcomes, which I have gone through briefly and I might just talk about a little bit longer if time permits; teacher shortages, which are actually staggering, especially in our area, Mr McIntosh; and curriculum reform. As a result, it risks alienating families seeking better options outside of the mainstream system, which people have completely lost trust in after the world’s longest lockdowns caused a mental health crisis in our kids, no matter the fact that there have been more and more investments into education over the last 20 years. Despite that – despite more money spent – over the last 20 years as the funding has gone up, the outcomes for our students have gone down. That is a devastation. That is a waste of public funds, and it is something that needs to be changed.

I was amazed to hear over and over again members of the government spruiking the Education State while completely ignoring the devastating statistics and the facts – it has been absolutely amazing – forgetting that behind every child that cannot read, behind every child that is struggling in mathematics is a child with dreams and aspirations that are being paralysed by a system that is not there to serve them, that is teaching about ideology rather than education. It is just absolutely wrong.

During the education inquiry we heard many, many staggering stories – devastating stories – about kids that could not focus in a chaotic classroom, about kids who because of the woke agendas and because of the overcrowded curriculum –

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Renee HEATH: If you like, Mr Batchelor, I can refer to the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office (VAGO) report that actually says the curriculum is overcrowded. But laugh away; that is fine. It is what you do best.

So regardless of that, they have not made the reform necessary to serve the next generation. What our education system should be doing is it should be laying a foundation that kids can build their dreams on and become fantastic citizens, that can not only build their personal dreams but can continue to build a fantastic Victoria.

If members of the government approached this subject with honesty, they might actually be talking about the crisis in this state, the crisis of education, an education crisis that is affecting the most vulnerable in this state, the children.

So the facts are this education system, our education system, is at breaking point, and we have to actually dig down a little bit and look at why people are beginning to look at options other than the traditional state system. Anyway, I am going to talk about a couple of quick points. The first one is teacher shortages and burnout. Teachers in this state work so hard to serve children, but this state does absolutely nothing to serve the teachers. In fact they graduate from universities in Victoria and they have not been taught how to teach, they have not been taught how to manage a classroom, and because of that, most teachers that are up against it from the beginning burn out and get out of the education system within five years. That is a fact. Victoria’s outcomes show that whether it is the flawed curriculum or universities not equipping them to do their job, from day one teachers are up against it and it is hard. The cross-curriculum priorities that overcrowd our curriculum are ensuring that children are indoctrinated from day one and struggling with their education

We should be laying that foundation, not having a state school system where we manage to completely pat ourselves on the back, yet one in three children cannot read –

Tom McIntosh: On a point of order, Acting President, I see the members have come back from the break with a lot of excitement with this contribution, or perhaps lecture, but there is continual finger-pointing, which I think we all understand here from recent years that we do not accept.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): I have not seen any finger-pointing since I have been in the chair – I may have previously – but I will ask Dr Heath to direct her comments through the Chair.

Renee HEATH: Maybe I was speaking with my hands too much. It is a bad habit, so thank you so much, Mr McIntosh, for pointing that out to me. But I bring us back to the fact that in Mr McIntosh’s electorate one in two children cannot read proficiently, and this could be to do with the fact that across Victoria there are 2500 vacancies in teaching. In outer Gippsland, Mr McIntosh’s area, secondary schools say that per job vacancy there is an average of 1.7 applicants. That is really devastating. One in five graduate teachers leave the profession within five years. The teacher shortages and administrative burdens are more severe in our area of regional Victoria, with nine out of 10 principals in Gippsland reporting a teacher shortage. So regardless of those facts, I do apologise if it maybe looks like I am pointing and it offends people.

The shortage exacerbates workloads for existing staff, leading to burnout among teachers and admin staff, and this bill does not go far enough to reduce that administrative burden, and I am going to talk about that shortly if time permits.

First, I want to talk about the academic and social decline among students. According to NAPLAN results, one third of Victorian students fail to meet basic reading and numeracy standards, and that is while the government are spruiking the Education State. One in three children – that is devastating. Rural and regional areas show even worse outcomes, with half of students unable to read properly. There is nothing good about that. There is nothing to brag about there. I pointed briefly before to the VAGO report, which highlights worsening learning outcomes for Indigenous and disadvantaged students.

We are failing the most vulnerable in this state and patting our backs at the same time. It is unbelievable. The Grattan Institute’s The Reading Guarantee report revealed one in four Victorian children cannot read properly. Again, I mentioned before, this rises to almost half – actually half – in regional areas, and recent NAPLAN results showed one-third of Victorian students are not meeting standards. That is 300,000 Victorian students who are not meeting the most basic standards. They are not being taught adequately, and their options are limited because of it.

Ms Crozier spoke before, Ms Bath spoke before and so did Mrs Hermans about the overcrowding in our curriculum. Some opposite like to say that that is some sort of ideological thing. It is actually not. If you are overcrowding our curriculum with things that are not building blocks for these children’s future, you are serving yourself, not the next generation. There is some evidence around that. The Auditor-General’s report emphasised widening gaps for disadvantaged students.

I remember the day that I met the Acting President, Mr Galea. I remember I said to him, ‘Why the heck would you be a member of Labor? That to me just seems a very old choice.’ I still remember what he said. He said, ‘It is because I believe in equality’ – you remember it, don’t you? You said, ‘I believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.’ I said, ‘Hang on a minute. You should be a Liberal then. That’s a Liberal value.’ If we do not get this situation sorted out in the state of Victoria, children will not have equality of opportunity, and they most certainly will not have the chance of the best outcome.

In the next few minutes I just want to ask these questions: why is it that there is public dissatisfaction in the education system, and why is it that there is a rise in homeschooling? I think the inability to address these systemic failings is driving parents towards alternatives like homeschooling. This bill may inadvertently target those families, increasing their frustration without providing solutions for the broader crisis that we are facing. I will skip all of this because I really wrote a lot of things down just in response to some of the statements from those opposite.

This bill allows principals to delegate work experience matters, but this change is unlikely to benefit regional schools struggling with severe shortages and compliance burdens, and the reason for that is they just do not have the staff for it. The proposed changes in this bill fail to address chronic challenges facing regional schools, particularly teacher shortages and compliance burdens. Schools need relief from excess regulation, and they need to return to evidence-based teaching practices to improve student outcomes and ensure that education serves the purpose that it is meant to serve.

Here are just a couple of statistics in my region. In outer Gippsland secondary schools I spoke about how nine out of 10 principals reported a teacher shortage. Schools cope with this by merging classes, sending students home and holding study sessions under principal supervision. A lot of teachers that I have spoken to have said, ‘This is just not working. We are absolutely exhausted. The kids that we want to serve – we want to see them achieve their dreams. They’re not getting that.’ That is actually devastating. We need to really address what those key compliance demands are, and these can be mandatory reporting standards or conducting risk assessments. All of these things are very important, but there is just not the staff and the ability to do that. I just wanted to address those few issues, because sometimes, I tell you what, listening to those opposite pat themselves on the back continually while the next generation cannot read, write or add up – I believe it is completely wrong. Some of the things in this bill I absolutely support, but I think we cannot focus on the periphery and fail to address the real issues.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (16:44): I am pleased to stand and support the Education and Training Reform Amendment Bill 2024. Education is incredibly important, and it is something I am incredibly proud of as a member of the Labor Party, as a member of the Labor movement: to support the work that generations and generations of people from the Labor Party have done to ensure that we have investment in improving, supporting and enabling the education of Victorians and indeed Australians.

I will go to some of Dr Heath’s comments in a moment. I do want to pick up on some of those, because it is farcical for the Liberal Party, indeed the coalition, whether it be in this state or in this nation, to lecture this side about education when I do not believe we have seen a policy or investment from them in probably the last 10 or 20 years in Victoria or Australia that has seen an improvement in education. I will go so far as to say that the economic policies that underpin their thinking actively suppress wages, whereas this side wants to see an improvement in people’s wages.

There are many reasons why education is so important. One is obviously the emotional capacity that kids now get as they start early education and go through to primary school, high school and whatever people go on to do. But it is also that ability to be a full participant in our economy – to be able to work in a job that these young people see that they want to work in and to earn their best income so they can support themselves and, if they choose to, support a family and make active contributions to our communities.

I am really proud of the way that we support education – our teachers and the work we do with teachers to support them in the work that they choose to do. And it is far more than work; it is taking on something bigger than themselves to support the next generation. I am proud of the investment we make in education infrastructure, in the buildings. I am so proud that across my electorate, whether it is in Korumburra, Rosebud, Dromana, Paynesville, Leongatha, Mt Eliza North or Lakes Entrance, just to name a few, there are the upgrades we are making to schools to ensure that our kids and our teachers have the best facilities possible for them to go on and get that world-class education.

As I said before, it does not matter whether our students are leaving for university at the end of school or indeed if they are leaving to do a trade or a traineeship, it is absolutely so valuable to the rest of that student’s life – the skills they get in literacy, in maths – to be able to take that skill set and apply that wherever they may go in life. More and more we see that people will work in multiple jobs throughout their time and their lives, and that skill set to be able to problem-solve and have those fundamental literacy skills and those mathematics skills enables that versatility to be able to work in jobs that they choose. It is so great to have had some students in the gallery just now.

This bill will amend the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 to strengthen the compliance and enforcement powers of the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority, the VRQA. The bill also amends the Education and Training Reform Act to allow school principals to nominate other persons or classes of persons to make work experience arrangements and structured workplace learning arrangements, to streamline and standardise processes relating to board appointments to education portfolio entities and skills and TAFE portfolio entities and to reduce the administrative burden for the VRQA, other portfolio entities, regulated entities and school principals.

I have talked a bit about teachers, investment and infrastructure. I also just want to touch on so many of the other services that are within schools that I am so proud of and that this government has invested in, whether that be school nurses and allied health, our breakfast club program, Smile Squad, Glasses for Kids or of course out-of-school care – because I talk in this place a lot about that early education piece and getting families back to work. It is the same with out-of-school-hours care to enable parents to go on in the workforce while their kids are getting an education.

I could go on for the full time, but I am going to stop here. But I just think it is very interesting that those opposite want to come in and lecture Labor about education when we know that for decades it has been a fundamental Liberal policy to underinvest in education and to close schools. If we want to talk about regional Victoria and the Liberals and the Nationals, I am not even going to go there because we do not have enough time – school closures, a lack of investment in teachers and all the flow-on that has to regional towns and to the workforce of future generations. I am proud that we have made the investment that has seen around 8000 more registered teachers in 2023 than there were in 2020 and proud that we are making all these investments right across the board in education.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (16:50): We know that education has the power to change lives – that for children, their education, their schools, their teachers, their parents and their families can be transformational. Education provides the building blocks of knowledge. Schools provide those building blocks – a power to unlock a world of opportunity. For a government, particularly a state government here in Australia, education must be a top priority, and for the Labor government here in Victoria, education is a top priority. We made the commitment to make Victoria the Education State when we were elected in 2014, and for the last period we have been absolutely focused on making that the case. The legislation before us today is part of the necessary administrative amendments that we need to make to ensure that from a quality point of view our education regulatory system is modern and meeting the needs of our school system and the students that are in it. There have been a number of contributions about the details in this bill; I think they have been exceptionally useful. I want to spend the limited time I have got today just talking about a couple of things that make those administrative changes so real and important.

I have said that education has got to be a priority for a Labor government – it is for the state Labor government. It is gratifying to see that we have finally got a federal government in the federal Labor government that also views public education in this state as being a priority. After nine years of neglect when the coalition were in power in Canberra, we have now got a federal Labor government that is stepping up, putting money on the table and finally agreeing to invest in public schools here in Victoria. The agreement that was recently struck between the Commonwealth and the Victorian government will finally see the Commonwealth step up and fund the 25 per cent of the schools resourcing standard under the National School Reform Agreement. The largest ever investment in Victorian public schools from the Commonwealth has been signed – an agreement reached, negotiated hard by the Allan Labor government and by the Deputy Premier, Minister for Education Ben Carroll, that is going to see $2.5 billion coming into Victorian schools over the next 10 years. It is the biggest ever additional investment to help Victoria deliver excellence in every one of our public school classrooms, because that is the goal of our Education State agenda: to bring excellence in every classroom.

Dr Heath, in her contribution, wanted to talk down the achievements of our government schools. She wanted to talk down some of the outstanding achievements that the students in this state have realised for themselves in a range of benchmarks in reading, writing and numeracy. Our year 3 students lead the nation in reading and numeracy, and last year was the third year in a row that Victorian year 3 students had led the nation in their reading and their numeracy. Victorian students achieved the first- or second-highest scores of any jurisdiction on seven of the eight measures in NAPLAN. They were top of writing in years 5, 7 and 9, and in reading, years 3, 7 and 9 improved on their 2023 results. In numeracy in primary schools we are leading, but we know we need to do more in our secondary schools, particularly on the numeracy front.

We are aware that we must do more and that we can do better. That is why the Victorian Labor government is introducing changes to improve the teaching in our classrooms. That is why our Education State agenda, at its core over the next couple of years, has improvements to the way that reading is taught and the introduction of a structured synthetic phonics program in all Victorian government schools, starting this year, to be completed by 2025. It will see 25 minutes of structured synthetic phonics education in our prep, 1 and 2 classrooms. It is going to vastly improve the way that our schools teach kids how to read and write. Those foundational skills are very important. That effort will now be supported by more money from the Commonwealth government into our public schools – the biggest investment the Commonwealth has ever made into Victorian public schools. This government, this state, prioritises our education system. Excellence in every classroom in the Education State – that is Victoria under Labor.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (16:55): I too am delighted to speak on this bill and endorse all of the speeches that I have already heard, particularly around the fact that Victoria is the Education State. I too wanted to acknowledge the efforts and advocacy for the Victorian education system by Deputy Premier and Minister for Education Ben Carroll. He refused to accept a lower figure and achieved a terrific improvement in the figure, increasing the funding for the education system in Victoria. All of this advocacy happened around about the time that Christmas was occurring and at the same time those opposite were perhaps otherwise occupied in their latest episode of leadership biffo.

This bill secures further education refinements for principals and teachers. It amends the Education and Training Reform Act 2006 to strengthen the compliance and enforcement powers of the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority, or the VRQA. These amendments provide simpler and shorter administrative processes for principals and teachers so they can do what they want to do and what students and families want them to do, which is spend more time with their students and supporting their teachers. The Allan Labor government is determined to simplify and streamline administrative workloads for schools, and that is why this bill is before us today.

The Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority will now have the necessary powers to respond to the increase in unregistered schools. A school registration regime provides a framework to support student and workplace safety, student welfare, curriculum development, curriculum consistency, checking teacher qualifications and assessment processes. They provide suitably qualified teachers that are trained to deliver the effective instruction required. I was educated in the state and the Catholic systems, and in the Catholic system back when I was at school the process for appointing teachers was more focused on their religious qualifications, perhaps being a nun or a brother or a priest, and so most of the teachers were qualified, but there was not always the same level of qualification and accountability as there is today. Let me say the majority of my teachers were good at their job, and often their qualifications were focused though on religion and vocation rather than education. This resulted in an incredible hit and miss. Some teachers were brilliant and some were not.

Registered schools provide for accredited student welfare and safety within strict safety protocols and procedures. They offer services that are required to comply with child protection laws and regulations. The bill absolutely ensures that responses in schools now are less focused on spiritual responses to children’s safety but rather are focused on their compliance with Victorian law around child protection, which is very important. Of course there is a place for each. We can see that a framework to ensure schools are administered in accordance with all expected standards is central to accountability for students, families and community.

This bill will also alleviate some of the ongoing administrative burdens for principals and teachers, which we have already referred to today in the chamber by members from all sides. As the Minister for Education Ben Carroll stated:

School leaders, teachers and staff play a vital role in supporting young Victorians – while administration is a necessary part of their roles, we need to make sure they have as much time as possible time to teach and support students.

We have terrific examples of that in the south-west of Victoria. The principals in the south-west are relieved the government is working on administrative reforms. Tara Hulonce is the principal of Narrawong primary school, and she acknowledges that a certain amount of administration comes with the job but is also pleased the efforts are actively being made to reduce the admin workload. She feels her main role is to help support teachers to improve and build their capacity in teaching and learning in order to best support our students. Dean Clements, principal of the Merri River School, our special education school in Warrnambool, also welcomes these changes. He personally sees his role as not being stuck in the office. It is important to him that he is visible to parents, visible to kids, visible to staff and visible to the school community. Sean Fitzpatrick, principal of Brauer College in Warrnambool, was pleased Brauer took part in the independent review into schools’ admin burden last year and said it was a great opportunity to give frank feedback. He believes principals need to be able to give priority to focus on improving students’ outcomes by building relationships with teachers and students backed by a robust and achievable curriculum.

Schools do shape the lives of young people. In summary, this bill strengthens the compliance and enforcement powers of the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority to help ensure all children have access to high-quality education in a safe and supportive environment, and I commend this bill to the house.

Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Skills and TAFE, Minister for Water) (17:01): I thank all members for their contributions this afternoon to this debate. It is pleasing to see such strong contributions on the bill, albeit that there were many contributions that did not actually specifically deal with the bill before the house today, should I say. I want to take an opportunity to address some of the issues raised by members in the other place as well. I will take a moment to respond to the issues raised in the debate.

I understand that the Minister for Education’s office has provided numerous briefings on this bill to members of the opposition as well as to the crossbench members, with follow-up correspondence and information. We believe that the bill will strengthen the compliance and enforcement powers of the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA), and it will also allow school principals to nominate others to make work experience arrangements and structured workplace learning arrangements, easing the administrative burden on principals and allowing them to focus their energy on running their schools. The passage of these amendments in the bill will improve the operation of the act to make sure students are getting the best education in a safe and supportive environment and streamline and simplify administratively burdensome processes.

One member spoke about the amendments in the bill that expand the VRQA’s oversight of unregistered schools and noted a potential concern that the bill might unintentionally capture legitimate homeschool activities. I just want to put on the record that this bill does not make provision for further oversight or regulation of homeschooling families and legitimate homeschooling activities. In fact correspondence from the executive director of the international education and partnerships division of school education programs and support, in a letter to stakeholders and in particular homeschooling organisations, says:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

The Victorian government supports parental choice in education, and I would like to assure you that the bill does not propose any changes to homeschooling regulation or parental autonomy.

I hope that that also allays concerns that have been raised in the last 24 hours or so.

These reforms, we believe, will make it harder for unregistered schools, schools that are already legally required to be registered but are not, to fall through the cracks and will help ensure all students who attend schools get the safe, high-quality education they deserve. I appreciate the concerns some of the providers of education services have raised with me and of course the Minister for Education and some of the concerns that have been raised in the chamber today.

However, as I have said on the record, in Hansard, please be assured that this bill does not make any provision for further oversight or regulation of homeschooling families and legitimate homeschooling activities. This is not what we are doing today.

The VRQA will continue to work with organisations to ensure their compliance with existing legislation and other standards. As I understand it, one of the main issues that are of direct concern on this bill goes to the point of penalties and the other, as I understand it, is purely in relation to the powers of the VRQA. I am sure that we can quickly deal with those in the committee.

In summary, though, the bill contains a suite of amendments to improve the regulation of schools and other educational institutions across the state, including the removal of the show cause process where cancellation of the registration of a non-government school or non-government school boarding premises is voluntary or where the school or the school boarding premises has ceased to operate. It increases the maximum penalties for carrying on or conducting an unregistered school or school boarding premises; clarifies that the VRQA may share information, including documents, with a prescribed person or body without receiving a written request; enables the VRQA to issue notices to produce and notices to comply to a person, body or school that the VRQA has reasonable cause to believe is required to be regulated.

It expands the scope of matters in relation to which the VRQA may accept an enforceable undertaking from a non-school senior secondary and foundation secondary provider, an institution approved to provide courses to overseas students, or an institution approved to operate a student exchange program. It amends various references to ‘days’ in various parts of the act to improve consistency; enables principals to nominate other persons to make work experience arrangements and structured workplace learning arrangements in accordance with any ministerial order; and standardises and streamlines provisions relating to the appointment, fixing of remuneration and fees, and resignations of members of boards. It allows the VRQA to consider whether an applicant for registration or re-registration as a registered training organisation or a high managerial agent of the applicant has ever failed to comply with the child safe standards, regardless of whether the VRQA is the integrated sector regulator for the applicant; and it makes various minor and technical amendments to improve the operation and clarity of the act.

For these reasons I am pleased to commend the bill to the house.

Council divided on motion:

Ayes (35): Ryan Batchelor, Melina Bath, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Gaelle Broad, Katherine Copsey, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Anasina Gray-Barberio, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Shaun Leane, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Sarah Mansfield, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Evan Mulholland, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Gayle Tierney, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Sheena Watt, Richard Welch

Noes (1): David Limbrick

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Committed.

Committee

Clause 1 (17:15)

I will just ask the minister all my questions, if that is okay, on clause 1. I would like to go to a number of issues. One is about the homeschooling component, but also the bill increases the maximum penalty for unregistered schools. Will these changes align the penalties for comparable offences in this act or other related acts?

Yes, they will. It will be consistent with section 103 of the Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010 and also with section 99 of the Children’s Services Act 1996. I can be more specific in terms of the money amounts, but they are within the ballpark. Would you like me to put that on record?

Yes, please, within the ballpark of what has been stated in the bill around the penalty units. Is that what you are meaning, Minister?

Yes, that is right. The amendments will bring the penalties for these offences in line with similar offences in other legislation, specifically section 103 of the Education and Care Services National Law Act, which for the offence of providing an education and care service without provider approval or service approval provides for a maximum penalty of $22,900 for an individual and $114,900 for all other cases. Section 99 of the Children’s Services Act 1996, which is for the offence of providing a children’s service without service approval, provides for maximum penalties of 120 penalty units, the equivalent of $23,710.80 in 2024–25 for an individual, and 600 penalty points, equivalent to $118,554 in 2024–25, for all other cases. The amendments in the bill will increase the maximum penalties for carrying on or conducting an unregistered school or school boarding premises from 10 penalty units, equivalent to $1975.90 in 2024–25 for a person, to 120 penalty units, equivalent to $23,710.80 in 2024–25 for an individual, and 600 penalty points, equivalent to $118,554 in 2024–25, for a body corporate.

Minister, the bill also expands the scope of matters to which the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority (VRQA) may accept an enforceable undertaking from a non-school provider. What is the current scope, and what additional matters will now be included given these changes to the legislation?

I just want to double-check on something.

The key point here is that the broadening of the framework for these persons and bodies will allow the VRQA to use enforceable undertakings more broadly as a compliance and enforcement tool, consistent with how the VRQA can currently use undertakings for schools, school boarding premises and registered training organisations The framework for non-school providers, institutions approved to provide courses to overseas students or institutions approved to operate a student exchange program to give enforceable undertakings is more limited than the framework for schools, school boarding premises and RTOs. Currently the VRQA may only accept enforceable undertakings from the providers in the VRQA’s capacity as an integrated sector regulator for the child safety standards. The reference to the VRQA’s capacity as an integrated sector regulator has caused confusion as to whether the matters for which enforceable undertakings can be accepted are limited to enforcing compliance with the child safety standards.

In practice, this has limited the VRQA’s ability to use enforceable undertakings as a tool to support compliance of non-school providers, institutions approved to provide courses to overseas students or institutions approved to operate a student exchange program to enforce compliance with all of the standards for registration.

You referred to schools and RTOs but you did not actually talk about the homeschooling framework. I know that in your summing up you referred – and you were very specific – to that there will be no further oversight for homeschooling, but can you provide a brief description of the current homeschooling framework and the role of the VRQA within it given what you have just spoken to the committee about in relation to that framework that is specific for schools and RTOs?

What I can say without going down that pathway is that this is a bill that is not in any fashion connected to homeschooling. It is just not. It is about the VRQA and its powers and it is about increasing the penalties so that there can be greater enforcement.

In that respect, then, there will be no impact to providers of services to homeschooling families. Is that the case?

Yes, because there is nothing to do with homeschooling in this bill.

Okay. Thank you for that clarification, because there is concern amongst the community around the impacts of how homeschooling tutors and services et cetera will be provided to those homeschoolers and whether the VRQA will have greater oversight of those individuals who are providing the services to parents who are homeschooling. I am just wondering: can you provide assurance to the house if that is not the case?

The bill will not enable the VRQA to regulate any providers that it does not already have power to regulate under the act. The bill will not amend the existing definition of ‘school’ in the act or the existing provisions relating to registration for and regulation of homeschooling in the act. I do not know what else I need to say to make that absolutely clear, because it is clear that some people have made up their minds that there are elements of what is before the house today that are directly connected to homeschooling, and there simply are not.

With all due respect, this is an opportunity for us to ask questions so we can get on the record and clarify some of the issues that are concerning Victorians around this element. I know that you have tried to explain it, but I am trying to be a little bit more specific. I know Mr Limbrick has got questions; I will leave those for him.

If I could go to another matter, then, the bill enables principals to nominate other persons to make work experience arrangements. Is this amendment based on feedback from principals?

I believe so. I know even in my own electorate this has been an issue that has been raised with me. The administrative burden is often spoken about by principals, and I was actually quite pleased to see this in the bill.

Thank you for that clarification. I have just got two more questions. The bill allows the VRQA to consider whether RTO applicants have ever failed to comply with the child safe standards, so it is a bit surprising that this is not already the case. Can you explain the current regulatory setting and how this bill would alter that?

Currently the act only enables the VRQA to consider whether an applicant for registration or re-registration as an RTO or a high managerial agent of the applicant has ever failed to comply with the child safe standards if the VRQA regulates the compliance of the applicant with the child safe standards. The amendment in the bill will enable the VRQA to consider historical noncompliance with the child safe standards when the applicant was regulated by a different regulator. The amendment in the bill will allow the VRQA to conduct a proper assessment of an application for registration or re-registration as an RTO and more thoroughly investigate the RTO’s operations, including its key management and educational leadership staff.

Finally, the bill makes some amendments around board members’ remuneration as well as appointments, resignations and the impacts to the boards et cetera. Which boards are specifically affected by this amendment?

The boards affected by the amendment to standardise the resignation of provisions for the –

Sorry, you could repeat that for me?

The amendment to standardise the resignation provisions for Governor in Council appointed members affect the following boards: the pools for the merit protection boards; the pools for the disciplinary appeals boards; the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority; the council of Victorian Institute of Teaching, the VIT council; the VIT hearing panel pool; the board of Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership; the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority, the VRQA itself; the Adult, Community and Further Education board, the ACFE board; and the board of AMES Australia.

Thank you, Minister.

My first question for the minister is: is it the case that these document production powers could be used by the VRQA to determine whether or not an entity that it is making a request of is or is not a school?

The answer is yes.

Despite statements earlier by the minister that this does not affect homeschooling, I am aware of a particular situation at the moment with a business which runs coaching programs one day a week. All the facilitators and the support members have working with children checks and appropriate industry skills to provide services to homeschoolers. They were contacted by VRQA and instead of asking questions about their business and how they operate and determining whether or not they are a school that way, they were hit with a demand for records containing confidential information which they believe cannot and should not be released. So my question is: is the regulator currently operating beyond the scope of the legislation as it exists prior to the passage of this bill?

That relates to the normal activities of the VRQA; that does not relate to this bill, Mr Limbrick.

But is it not the case that the VRQA, under these new production of documents powers, could demand a whole set of documents from organisations – and I have spoken to organisations that are currently going through this process that are being met with demands from the VRQA – that to my mind are clearly not schools? They do not cover all of the subject areas; they do not operate within school hours. In fact they offer tutoring services to homeschools, and yet they are being hit with these demands. Could it not be the case that they will be hit with these demands for documents?

My understanding, again, is that this is the normal activity of the VRQA. In terms of the sorts of things that you are talking about, they are not about school activities. You are making it very difficult for me, because there are obviously some investigations going on, and I cannot go into detail. But what I can assure you of is that there are things that the VRQA does that are not connected to the entity of a school as such. It is about checking and finding out more about activities of a business.

It would seem that some of the changes with regard to information requests could relate to individuals. Will the VRQA be potentially targeting individuals providing tutoring services rather than just organisations?

It will apply to individuals and/or organisations, and that is the way that the penalties have been structured as well – to individuals and organisations.

I thank the minister for clarifying that. Could the minister please outline what dispute mechanisms will exist for people who believe that the regulator may be acting inappropriately?

The Ombudsman.

With regard to the documents powers, we have heard about some limitations on these powers, such as that there must be a reasonable belief. I wonder if the minister could clarify: what are the actual limits on the powers around information requests that are being given to the regulator by this bill?

Currently, Mr Limbrick, the act generates an expectation that a request to the VRQA for documents must be in writing. However, this is burdensome and sometimes does not reflect how the specified persons and bodies actually communicate and work together. The existing provisions in the act enable the VRQA to share information with a specified person or body. The amendments in the bill do not change the meaning of the specified person or body.

The VRQA will still be able to share information with the Secretary of the Department of Education or the Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions; the secretary to another department in the Victorian public service; a public sector body in the Victorian public sector; a municipal council; a body equivalent to the VRQA in another jurisdiction that is responsible for the registration of training organisations for the purposes of vocational education and training or responsible for the registration of schools; a department of the Commonwealth or another state or territory; or an agency of the Commonwealth. The existing provision in the act that refers to sharing documents in writing also partially duplicates and arguably appears to be inconsistent with the broader information-sharing powers of the VRQA.

My final question is just around many of these organisations that may be subject to these documents orders. Understandably they are very concerned currently about their privacy obligations. Could the minister please outline how these documents requests might interact with, say, the Privacy Act 1988 and what sort of protections they are provided?

Small business operators with an annual turnover of $3 million or less are not subject to the Privacy Act; there is no applicable common law in place of the Privacy Act for these operators. These providers would be required to produce information under proposed notice powers of the bill. Larger providers that are subject to the Privacy Act would also be required to comply with any notices issued from the VRQA under the proposed powers. This would not be a breach of the Privacy Act as the Privacy Act permits disclosure where there is authorised under the Australian law such an act of a state.

There are existing powers in the current Education and Training Reform Act 2006 that enable the VRQA to obtain similar information from registered providers. Examples of other regulators with similar notice of powers in legislation are the Commission for Children and Young People, Social Services Regulator and Wage Inspectorate Victoria. There are also existing reasonable excuses in the ETR Act for refusing or failing to comply with a notice to provide or notice to comply, which will also apply to the proposed notice provisions in the bill. These include that the person took all actions reasonable to take in the circumstances and a person believed that they could not produce the document or information specified in the notice.

Minister, thank you for your time in answering these questions. Many of my fears are only more realised by your responses rather than being alleviated. I just want to go back to the first one. Given that principals no longer need to sign off on a work experience student with this bill, will the approving school employee teacher who signs off on them – and from my reading this is the case – be indemnified against any liability? Please show us in which section that is stipulated.

Can I take some other questions and we will come back to that one, if that is okay, Deputy President?

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Are there any other questions? The minister has indicated that she would like to take other questions and come back to the answer on that one. Are there other questions?

Section 4.9.4A states that the:

… Authority may request information to determine compliance with prescribed minimum standards.

You have mentioned privacy laws preventing that from occurring, but it could, of course, if there was a $3 million business, you said that there would be a difference in that. Can you tell me how we are going to resolve this situation in this instance?

Privacy laws currently can prevent this from happening in the case of what you mentioned was a $3 million business, of which I do not think there would be very many of those in this industry. How will this be resolved?

There is a bit of confusion in that you mentioned that the vast majority are under the $3 million. Is that right?

Ann-Marie Hermans: There are bound to be some that are, and there are going to be –

Gayle TIERNEY: But the vast majority, as you say, are basically –

Ann-Marie Hermans: My estimate and guess would be, and I have not done that research –

Gayle TIERNEY: So they would need to comply with the powers and the regulations of the regulator, essentially. And in terms of the answer that you are seeking, I think I executed that with the question from Mr Limbrick in relation to how it faces off with the Privacy Act.

You did, but you did mention that there was the exemption in the Privacy Act for larger businesses. I was just wanting a little bit more clarification on that.

We believe that you have just got it the wrong way around. That is why I am having difficulties in trying to give you an answer on this, Mrs Hermans.

I do not find that an actual substantial answer at all.

In terms of the bill’s impact on individuals and groups that provide material or services to homeschools in – let us say, for example, I have got a couple of things here – number one, online learning, how will this bill impact individuals or groups that provide online learning material or services to homeschools that can be accessed during school hours?

Well, they are not operating as a school, so they are not impacted or affected.

You are affirming that businesses that provide online learning and resources to homeschool families during school hours are not considered by the VRQA as a school? Is that correct?

Again, it is a determination of the VRQA, but that is not what this bill is about.

I beg to differ with you given the powers that we are now providing to the VRQA through this bill. This bill is actually allowing the VRQA to determine – without significant guidelines, through a very broad definition of ‘school’ – whether this will apply to online learning resource providers that can be accessed for homeschoolers during school hours. So I would like to ask again: how will this bill impact these providers that provide online learning to homeschool families during school hours?

Mrs Hermans, again, it is clear that you are not wanting to understand the basic proposition here, and that is that the provisions that currently exist in relation to this area are not changed as a result of this bill before the house today.

But we do confirm that we are giving these unlimited powers to the VRQA through this bill to be able to determine without set boundaries whether any of these organisations that provide online learning to homeschool families during school hours in any shape or form of that homeschoolingis actually considered to be a school or not regardless of whether it actually fits what we would all call a school at the moment. I say that because I know this. There are constituents in my area that I have only recently discovered, as I mentioned when I spoke, that actually are providers of this who are currently receiving information from the VRQA clearly wanting them to hand over – which they have done. They have always worked in collaboration with the VRQA – whatever it has asked. It says, ‘Do this and you’ll be fine. Do that and you’ll be fine.’ They have continued to do this, and yet now we are going to give these unlimited powers to the VRQA to be able to stop this. That is what I see in this bill.

Can you confirm whether this is going to impact these online learning resource providers that provide online learning, be it tutoring, be it recorded information to these homeschool families? Are they going to be now considered to be a school and required to register, or are they going to be by this bill left alone to be able to continue to provide resources to these families as required – as they have been – as long as they are abiding by what are currently the rules? Because what I see here is an unlimited power to actually determine without great boundaries what constitutes a school and then to actually stop these businesses from being able to operate. Can you please confirm that?

What I can confirm is that the existing provisions will apply. We can stay here until 1 o’clock in the morning – I am happy to do so, absolutely happy to do so – but it is not going to change my answer. I suspect it is not going to change your position either, Mrs Hermans, so we are going to have to agree to disagree. But the facts are the facts . The existing provisions are the provisions that will apply in the cases that you are speaking of.

But the facts are that this bill provides more provisions for the VRQA. It is not less and it is not the same; it is a lot more. That is why the question actually deserves an appropriate answer, I think.

Well, there are increased penalties in relation to set arrangements, but in terms of the provisions that apply to homeschooling and the provisions that apply to other associated businesses, they are the same provisions that apply and are exercised by the VRQA now.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I just remind both the minister and Mrs Hermans – I realise that it is getting a little bit heated – that if we can keep comments through the Chair rather than have comments across the chamber and wait for the call, that would be great.

Minister, my understanding is that 1 penalty unit in Victoria from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025 is $197.59, so the total fine through this Education and Training Reform Amendment Bill, which is taking it up to 600 penalty points, is $197.59 by 600, which would be $118,554 for each organisation that the VRQA determines, ‘Yes, we’re going to call that a school now and now make them unregistered.’ And is it true that a natural person could also face a penalty of 120 units, as it reads in the bill, and that that would be currently a $23,710.80 fine for a natural person and that this bill actually empowers the VRQA to be able to do that?

Again I restate: the provisions as they pertain to homeschooling and other associated services do not change as a result of this act. In terms of allegations of the unlimited powers of the VRQA, they are completely false; those powers are defined in the act. In response to Ms Crozier’s question about penalties I explained that those penalties, the penalties that are prescribed in the amendment before us today, are consistent with a range of other acts and provisions. I will find them again if you wish and take you through them.

What is being proposed is that the penalties are similar in other legislation, specifically section 103 of the Education and Care Services National Law Act 2010, which for the offence of providing an education and care service without provider approval or service approval provides for maximum penalties of $22,900 for an individual and $114,900 for all other cases. Section 99 of the Children’s Services Act 1996, for the offence of providing children’s services without service approval, provides for maximum penalties of 120 penalty units equivalent to $23,710.80 in 2024–25 for an individual and 600 penalty units equivalent to $118,554 in 2024–25 for all other cases. The amendments in the bill will increase the maximum penalties for carrying on or conducting an unregistered school or school boarding premises from 10 penalty units equivalent to $1975.90 in 2024–25 for a person to 120 penalty units equivalent to $23,710.80 in 2024–25 for an individual and 600 units equivalent to $118,554 in 2024–25 for a body corporate. So they are consistent with other things that are happening in jurisdictions that are similar.

Just a couple of more questions, please. Thank you for that; you have confirmed what I have said. Again, we looked at online learning; I did not feel that that was necessarily satisfactory. In terms of group and individual tutoring which may take place after school or during school hours, how is the bill seen to impact these individuals or groups that provide these materials or services of tutoring during school hours or after school?

Again, the bill will not amend the existing definition of a school in the act or the existing provisions relating to registration and regulation of homeschooling in the act. The bill will not enable the VRQA to regulate any providers that it does not already have power to regulate under the act. I have said that several times now.

Yes, but in each case you have not clarified, because this bill is not exactly the same as what it is, it is an amendment, so it adds additional powers to the VRQA. That is the whole purpose of the bill, and so to say that it is exactly the same, to me, is not an appropriate answer as I read it, because we are giving more power to the VRQA – actually quite unlimited power to some degree – to actually determine all sorts of things.

But I do want to go back to my first question –

Sorry, can I just correct you on that? As I have said when you have made those claims repeatedly, the fact of the matter is that the powers are not unlimited, of the VRQA. They are absolutely defined in the act.

I think we will have to agree to disagree about what the amendment actually says. Given that principals – remember I mentioned about the first one? I have not yet received an answer, so I will go back to the question. Given that principals will no longer need to sign off on a work experience student, will the approving school employee or teacher who signs off on them be indemnified against any liability? Please show me where that section is stipulated in the bill.

Again, there are no changes. It is in part 5.4 of the act. These are the existing provisions.

I am sorry, Minister, but it actually does say quite clearly – and we had that discussion when we met together with the ministerial team – that an individual, in this case it could be a teacher from a small to medium school, can be prosecuted.

Government schools are indemnified. Again, nothing changes here. In terms of private schools, well, it is up to them, as it is with many other things in the way that their school operates.

Just to clarify, you are saying that the non-government schools, if they have a teacher that signs off and there is some fault in the work experience documentation – and this would apply particularly to small to medium schools who are on a budget, a very tight budget in many cases – the individual teacher that actually oversees this area of compliance can and would be prosecuted in this.

The answer is no.

Clause 1 agreed to; clauses 2 to 68 agreed to.

Reported to house without amendment.

Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Skills and TAFE, Minister for Water) (17:59): I move:

That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Third reading

Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Skills and TAFE, Minister for Water) (17:59): I move:

That the bill be now read a third time.

Motion agreed to.

Read third time.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Pursuant to standing order 14.28, the bill will be returned to the Assembly with a message informing them that the Council have agreed to the bill.