Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bass for his question. I can confirm for him that recently an Australia-wide test on civics and citizenships was conducted of 20,000 Australian school students across 567 schools. I can also confirm to the member for Bass that only 23 per cent of year 10 students were able to identify a historical event that gives rise to Australia Day; in other words, 77 per cent of year 10 students were not able to state why we have a public holiday on Australia Day. They were not even able to hazard a guess. This is yet another example of the failure of state and territory governments in the running of their education systems.

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