The Hon. RACHEL MERTON (20:02): I move:

That this House recognises that parental choice is a pillar of the New South Wales education system, allowing parents to select schools that best suit their child's needs and their family's values.

The issue of parental choice in school education received considerable attention about a month ago when the Secretary of the Department of Education, Mr Murat Dizdar, openly questioned in an interview with the ABC whether private schools should exist in New South Wales. As members would recall, before walking back some of his remarks after a blaze of negative publicity, the secretary flagged a desire for a national debate on scrapping all non-government schools and enforcing a one-size-fits-all model of public-only education. That was despite such a system having no precedent either in New South Wales or nationwide.

Like many MPs and, indeed, many thousands of fellow parents across the State, I was and remain deeply concerned about remarks from the Minns Government's education department head that he had a desire to eliminate school choice and, essentially, abolish private school education in New South Wales. Thankfully, education policy development in this State is not the responsibility of the bureaucracy or the left-wing teachers unions. Given the considerable and understandable public concern that parental choice in New South Wales, an absolute core pillar of this State's education system for so long, was under attack, tonight I move this motion to reaffirm the bipartisan support of this place for parental choice in the New South Wales school education system.

As deputy chair of the education portfolio committee, I have a bit to do with the secretary, Mr Dizdar, during budget estimates. We have disagreed on some matters, but I hold him in respect. His life story, as told by Australian Story, was absorbing and is one that he and his family should rightly be proud of. He was, however, totally wrong about school choice in New South Wales. I certainly understand the concerns of the non‑government school sector with the secretary, who has responsibility for all schools and articulates the view that the non‑government sector should not exist. The fact is that school choice is a right, not a privilege, in New South Wales. Parents quite simply have the right to send their children to a school that best suits their values, beliefs and needs. Our faith-based schools actually predate the government sector. It is a system that has worked enormously well and benefited our community on so many levels.

Personally, I have been a big advocate for parental choice since my election two years ago. In fact, in my maiden speech I talked about its importance, noting choice is a driver of quality and equity. At the time, I expressed concern that that choice may be undermined by the election of a left-wing Labor Government. Here we are, with Labor's hand-picked department secretary making remarks that do just that. Of course, the parental choice model in New South Wales largely had bipartisan support until the secretary's remarks. I note that the Premier has distanced his Government from them. The reality is that under Labor, left-wing teachers unions play a key role in influencing debate in New South Wales, and public sector teacher unions, like the Teachers Federation and the divisive Australian Education Union, have an unhealthy and often nasty obsession with Catholic and independent schools.

It is a shame that some on the left of Australian politics wish to play favourites in the New South Wales school education system. On this side of the Chamber, we believe that the government school sector plays and has played a vital role in our education system. We also believe that parents and families are best placed to decide whether a faith-based school or an independent school is better for their particular circumstances. It is called choice, it is called responsibility, and it is called freedom. The secretary would be better off focusing on the ongoing decline in public school enrolments in New South Wales, rather than playing the man by having a crack at the non-government school sector.

Just as we are rightly proud of our government schools, we should also be proud of our non-government schools. In recent months, I have visited many Catholic independent schools in the south-west. What is driving so many thousands of parents and students to those fine schools is a belief in values and a belief that schools will provide a learning environment best suited to the future growth of the students. Parents are seeking, quite frankly, better education outcomes. They are seeking more discipline in the classroom. They are concerned about the politicisation of classrooms by left-wing ideologues. Those parents are from all demographics. Many sacrifice plenty to enrol their kids at the school they choose. That is their right and one that we should protect and uphold. Let us unite together, reaffirm a bipartisan commitment to ongoing genuine choice—Catholic, government and independent—in school education in New South Wales. I commend the motion.

The Hon. EMILY SUVAAL (20:07): I lead for the Government in debate on this motion. At the outset, I indicate that the Government will not oppose the motion. As the mover of the motion pointed out, it is a fundamental right for a parent to choose where their child receives an education in New South Wales. School choice is a right, not a privilege. That obviously includes the public sector, non-government, independent and homeschooling. It strikes me as particularly important to note in my contribution the many more options that are now available to people across New South Wales with the election of the Minns Labor Government. For example, for the first time, families in Box Hill have access to a public school. That school was not available to them under the previous Government. Many more families around the State will soon receive access to high schools in Medowie, Huntlee, Pottsville and Marsden Park. Those options were not able to them under the previous Government.

I acknowledge the work of the secretary, Murat Dizdar. I also acknowledge that he has clarified his comments and continues to work collaboratively with his cross-sectoral colleagues, as he always has during his time as secretary. The Government has been undertaking a strong program of reform in the Education portfolio. That has been led by the wonderful and capable Minister, and Deputy Premier, in the other place, with her secretary, Mr Dizdar. The reform has been reforming our curriculum and our consent education, dealing with the scourge of bullying, lifting the public sector wages cap, giving teachers a decent pay rise for the first time in over 12 years and signing a historic funding deal with the Albanese Labor Government ensuring schools are fully funded under the agreement, all while the teacher vacancy rate is down 40 per cent in one year. We have halved the number of merged and cancelled classes. We are ensuring that teachers are available to teach in classrooms. That was not done under the previous Government. We will continue to deliver for our kids and our teachers, whether they be in public schools, non‑government schools, independent schools or homeschools. School choice is a right, not a privilege. Again, I commend the secretary, who we know is a strong advocate for public education but who has also worked collegially with the non-government and private school sectors to embark on a series of reforms.

Ms ABIGAIL BOYD (20:10): I contribute to debate on behalf of The Greens to oppose the motion. The veneer of parental choice is one that is often layered over what is in essence an ideological assault on the provision of public education. What is asserted in this argument is a demand for taxpayer-subsidised religious education demanded by some parents regardless of the wishes of their child. Partisan actors try to wrap themselves in a cloak of fairness and respect for the idiosyncratic views of parents when, in fact, what they are doing is engaging in a dual-pronged assault of seeking to undermine the high-quality provision of universal public education while also enforcing continued cultural indoctrination.

In this debate about parental rights to school choice, some of the hypocrisy of the conservative political movement makes itself most glaringly apparent. Shock jocks and ideologues will drone and hoot and holler about culture wars in our schools and about cultural indoctrination, seemingly indifferent to the fact that it is they who are trying do exactly that. Compare the pair: on one hand, standardised and universal high-quality education that treats all students as equal and, on the other hand, mandated religious instruction, strict enforcement of religious doctrine and selective application of curriculums to suit religious perspectives.

Or consider the concept of choice. What these people are calling for is the choice for some, for those who can afford to pay for a segregated experience subsidised by the public. How does that offer more choice than universal high-quality public education which offers students the choice of whatever career or future they want because they have the requisite educational credentials and ability to forge their own path? Let us not forget the distasteful emphasis on the choice of the parent, not the child. This doctrine insists upon parental choice at the expense of a child's voice.

The motion calls for school selection that reflects a family's values. Is it not enough for these values to be imposed in the home? What if the values of the parent are not the same as the values of the child? I cannot tell how many stories I have heard of students discriminated against by a school because of their gender or sexual identity, or of children discriminated against in religious schools on the basis of their disability, all facilitated by antiquated exemptions to our anti-discrimination laws. That is the choice that these radical conservatives insist upon—the choice to inflict that experience upon children. The Greens oppose the motion.

The Hon. SARAH MITCHELL (20:12): I contribute to debate in support of the motion moved by my colleague the Hon. Rachel Merton. I was thinking about the issue in a few ways. During the Coalition's time in government, it was very clear to me, as the then education Minister, that we absolutely respected parents' choices about what they think is best for their kids' education. That has always, in my view, been a bipartisan position. It was concerning to hear the comments that were made by the secretary in relation to the role of the non-government school sector. It is important to reinforce the fact that we are so lucky to live in a country and a State where we can have fantastic education for our children. There are people around the world who would literally kill to have what we have when it comes to the education offerings in this State.

I do worry. In these debates that occur in the public sphere, pitting one sector against the other is not the answer. We should be providing opportunities for all schools to be fantastic. We have more than 3,000 schools across New South Wales. We have fantastic public schools, and we have fantastic non-government schools. It does not need to be a competition. It is about giving parents the opportunity to decide what they think is best for their child and their family in the circumstances they find themselves in.

I look at this motion through the lens of being a parent. We are very lucky. My girls go to the local public school; it is the same public primary school I went to. None of the teachers are the same. Some have recently retired who were there when I was there. It is an important part of our school community. We also have a great Catholic school and a great Christian school in Gunnedah and another public school. We make the choice to send our girls to the local public school. We love being part of that school community. How lucky are we that we can do that. I have family members who send their kids to the local Catholic school. It is a lovely school, and there are great opportunities for the kids there. There does not have to be a sense of pitting one school community or one school type against another. The reality is we should back in universally parents making decisions about what is best for their children and families.

In recent times there has absolutely been an increase in faith-based schools. We saw that during my time in government as well. Many of them are low-fee schools that are there because families want to send their children to schools that align with their faith and beliefs. We should accept and support that. It should not be an issue and the focus of media attention because of off-the-cuff comments made by a department secretary. It is important that we respect choice and acknowledge all of the different school types that educate our children in this State. As I said at the beginning, how lucky are we that we can live in New South Wales and get a world-class education at a school of our choice. We should be thankful and grateful for that, and we should be celebrating all of our schools across New South Wales and the families and the choices that they make.

The Hon. MARK BANASIAK (20:15): I make a brief contribution to debate to associate myself with and support the motion. Parents have the ultimate choice in where they send their kids to school. I say that as someone who went to a Catholic primary school and a Catholic high school. When it was my turn to make that parental choice, I chose to send my kids to public schools. At the time, I was a teacher at a public school, and I only ever taught in public schools in my 18 years of teaching. There are a lot of fantastic public schools in New South Wales, and there are a lot of fantastic independent and religion-based schools as well.

I am not one to gild the lily; I will cut to the chase. The reason we are having this debate is the secretary of education—and I make the point that he is the secretary of education and not the secretary of public education—decided to make an off-the-cuff comment in a fluff piece orchestrated by him because he was under pressure for some of the failings of his leadership. That is why we are having this debate. He made an off-the-cuff comment during something that he orchestrated with the media to make himself look good as the secretary of all education, not just public education. I echo the words of the Hon. Rachel Merton in saying that perhaps we should focus on why parents are making choices to move away from public education and on why the secretary felt the need to orchestrate a fluff piece with the media to distract from the statements he has been making.

This is not the first occasion that the secretary has made off-the-cuff comments. I will not prelude now some of the comments I might make in debate on my education motion relating to answers the secretary has given in budget estimates, but I draw members' attention to the evidence he has given before ICAC today and his comments about the culture of fear and persecution within the department that he now runs. That begs the question: If he knew about the culture of fear and persecution of staff when he took the job, why did he not change it and why did he go along with it? As we used to say in education, I think he should do a bit of a 360-degree reflection on his own performance and reflect on why 25,000 students are leaving public education.

The Hon. AILEEN MacDONALD (20:19): Choice matters. Whether it is in health, education or lifestyle, the ability to make decisions that align with your values and your family's needs is fundamental. That is why I support this motion from the Hon. Rachel Merton. In my own life the freedom to choose the right educational setting for my children was absolutely essential. That decision was guided not just by academic outcomes but also by the school environment, the values of the community, and how well the school understood and responded to each child's individual needs.

Across New South Wales families come from different backgrounds, hold different beliefs and have different priorities when it comes to raising and educating their children. A strong education system must reflect that diversity. We are incredibly fortunate in this State to have both a robust public education system and a vibrant non-government sector. Each plays a vital role in ensuring that families can access a quality education that suits their circumstances.

Public schools must always be available, well supported and properly resourced. They are a cornerstone of our community and provide incredible opportunities. But that should never mean they are the only option. Parents should not be made to feel guilty or judged for choosing a non-government school if that is what works best for their family. Supporting choice does not weaken the public system; it strengthens the broader education landscape by recognising that one model cannot suit all.

The essence of this motion is respect for families and students, and for the principle that those closest to the child are best placed to make decisions in their interest. It is not about privileging one system over another. It is about ensuring that all families, regardless of where they live or what their income is, have the opportunity to choose what is best for their children. This is about freedom, fairness and respect. I wholeheartedly support the motion.

The Hon. JOHN RUDDICK (20:21): The Libertarian Party supports the motion of the Hon. Rachel Merton. We congratulate Murat Dizdar on his honesty. The secretary of the Department of Education let the cat out of the bag a few weeks ago on the ABC when he casually said that he wants all schoolchildren in New South Wales to be educated by the State. Labor members are not supporting the motion for political reasons, but they want every kid to go through a curriculum that the State sets in place. This is the dream of the big State central planners. They lust to indoctrinate kids.

As usual, the Liberals are good but the Libertarian Party is best. The problem with private schools at the moment is that they still have to enforce the State curriculum. My kids go to a private school. Of course, they have had very good training from a very young age from their father and mother and they come home and report to me on the things they have to learn. At a very young age, at a nice North Shore private school, they are taught about radical rainbow ideology, climate change—their dad warned them about that one early on—and Invasion Day. The answer to this question is that New South Wales needs to introduce school vouchers.

The Hon. Damien Tudehope: In Texas they have those.

The Hon. JOHN RUDDICK: I am going to get to that, Leader of the Opposition. The great Nobel prize winner for economics Milton Friedman proposed as far back as the 1970s that the best way to educate kids is through a school voucher system. How would that work in practice? We would shut down the Department of Education entirely and then in January every parent would receive a voucher in the mail worth maybe $10,000, which they can only use at a school to pay for their kid's education for the year.

Parents love and know their kids more than anybody, so parents should select the school that is most suitable for their kid. Some kids will flourish in a big school, a specialist school, an arts school, a sports school or a commerce school. I would say that about 2 per cent of parents in a big city like Sydney will be bohemian parents who want their kids to learn about Invasion Day and climate change, and they will be free to do so. Maybe I am wrong, but free market forces will sort it out. During COVID a lot of parents in America saw what their kids were being taught through Zoom, and there is a revolution now going on in the United States. I thank Corey DeAngelis, who is known as the school choice evangelist. I put the House on notice that later this year the Libertarian Party will introduce a voucher bill to abolish the Department of Education to truly liberate our kids.

The Hon. SCOTT FARLOW (20:24): I speak in support of the motion of the Hon. Rachel Merton. School choice is important. I say this with the full disclosure that I was educated in public schools. My kids are also in public schools. I intend that they will probably go to a private school in the future, which is a choice that every parent should have. Looking across the landscape in New South Wales, parents have increasingly been making that choice. Since 2000, across both Liberal and Labor governments, two-thirds of students in New South Wales have been enrolled in independent schools.

The comment of the education secretary that every student should be educated in a public school is just not realistic at all. As a State we could not afford to educate every child in a public school. We see the challenges that schools throughout the State are having catering for growing populations. In many cases, independent and Catholic schools have done better at developing schools and identifying areas where there will be future population growth. Unfortunately, the reality under this Government is that it is becoming harder for independent and Catholic schools to provide those services to their students.

Some of the changes that have been made have been in the planning system. The Government has taken away the non-government school planning pathway. The changes it made to the State Environmental Planning Policy (Transport and Infrastructure) Amendment 2024 and the Environmental Planning and Assessment Amendment (Government and Non-Government Schools) Regulation 2024 have meant that it is putting more into the planning pathway for independent schools, taking them away from being developments that do not require consent. Development without consent rights for buildings up two storeys in height have been stripped from existing or approved non-government schools, including for libraries and administration buildings, portable and permanent classrooms, kiosks and shops, and cafeterias and canteens—all the essential things that are needed to run a school, particularly a growing school. Looking at the tale of the tape of the numbers, when two-thirds of new enrolments are going to independent schools, you start to see the problem when those schools cannot cater for their existing population.

The Minister has professed that the changes the Government has made are wonderful for non-government schools, but it comes down to a question of why they are not being applied. Instead, what has happened is that government schools have been given the right to develop without consent buildings of up to four storeys, including library and administration buildings, portable and permanent classrooms, kiosks and shops, cafeterias and canteens, and pre-school buildings. This Government discriminates against independent schools, so it is no surprise the education secretary made the comments he did.

The Hon. SUSAN CARTER (20:27): I support the motion. Mass education has been a wonderful thing. It has given us almost universal literacy and numeracy and an educated population. But we all know that mass education does not mean identical education. Our children are not automatons; they are not cookie cutter. Our children are unique individuals, and they deserve an education that will help that unique individual to flower and flourish. The State education system itself recognises this. We have sports high schools, creative arts high schools and selective schools—schools that cater to the broad range of the different types of children we have. We also have religious schools, which feed the soul as well as the brain of the child. We have language schools. We have a range of the different schools. That is a good thing because it recognises that our children are different and unique.

In a wealthy society such as ours—where we have moved beyond subsistence education and having 50 children in a classroom all reciting by rote the alphabet; where we look to help individual children flourish—there should be choice in education. The people who are best able to exercise that choice on behalf of the child are the parents. I contest entirely the idea that parents are not the ones best placed to decide for their children what education will help that child best, or that those decisions being made is other than in the best interests of the child.

At the barbeques that I have been to over the years, all parents talk about—in fact, they agonise about—is are they doing the best for the education of their child. They consider whether they can have children at different schools because their children are so different. Parents take this very seriously. At the moment, they are voting with their feet. They are voting largely for private and often for religious education, because they want values as well as the three Rs. In fact, they want four Rs: reading, writing, arithmetic, and right and wrong. To suggest that the answer to this issue is to contract choice, to take away choice, is just completely wrong. They are all our children, and the education system has a role in educating all of them to support their uniqueness individuality and in supporting parents to do the best they can for their children.

The Hon. RACHEL MERTON (20:31): In reply: I thank all members for their contributions tonight and appreciate the expressions of strong support for parental choice in school education. The motion has a simple role. It reaffirms our support for the three limbs of our school education system—Government, Catholic and independent—that have made up our education system for well over a century. In fact, religious schools pre‑date government schools. When this place last sat, I successfully moved a motion that celebrated the importance of special religious education and the choice of SRE in government schools. Choice has historically been a big part of our education system. Choice means recognising that it is about families and parents, not the dead hand of a socialist bureaucracy making fundamental decisions such as where a child will go to school.

Mark Speakman recently said that parents in New South Wales work hard, pay taxes and make sacrifices to send their children to the school that best suits their values, beliefs and needs. To foreshadow the taking away of such a fundamental and longstanding right is deeply disappointing, and one I intend to raise with the Education secretary at the next budget estimates hearing. The successful passage of the motion will demonstrate that this place stands proudly alongside parents who wish to have genuine free choice of education for their children. It will demonstrate that values matter and that parents and families—not bureaucrats—are the people best placed to decide the educational future of their children. I commend the motion.

The ASSISTANT PRESIDENT (The Hon. Peter Primrose): The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Motion agreed to.