Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

You have done nothing. When Labor says education investment is the hallmark of our future prosperity, you turn up to the Press Club and you waft out three ideas. What you will not do is what Labor has done: in very short order, developed positive, concrete policy proposals funded to show an investment in early childhood education. The universal right to early learning for all four-year-olds will be enshrined under a new Commonwealth early childhood education act. They will be entitled to receive 15 hours of learning per week, for a minimum of 40 weeks per year. There will be 1,500 new, fully funded university places for early childhood education, 50 per cent HECS remission for 10,000 early childhood graduates working in areas of need and no TAFE fees for childcare trainees.

Why do we say that? It is because we know: all the modern evidence and research tell us that, particularly for those kids who come from disadvantaged families, an early intervention is the most important thing that you can do for their chances to get a decent education.

The crisis in our maths and science—in the core disciplines that give us a productive capacity in physics, engineering, other science and research—was underlined by a seminar we saw yesterday at the ANU, with mathematicians, scientists and academics again drawing attention to this. And when Labor comes out with a positive policy proposal to encourage young Australians to study and teach maths and science with a HECS reduction upfront and a HECS remission later on if you work in a relevant occupation, particularly teaching, the minister says: ‘That won’t have any impact. That won’t have any effect.’

If that will not have any effect or impact and if that will not encourage young Australians to teach and study maths and science, I wonder why her predecessor said in August 2004, when he said that HECS increases would not apply to teaching and nursing:

... part of the Higher Education reform package is a measure which quarantines teaching from any HECS increases, but [allows] HECS to be lowered. The deliberate aim of this measure is to make teaching more attractive relative to other courses.

We send a signal to Australians: teaching, learning and studying maths and science is important to the productive capacity of our nation; it should be done, and we encourage you to do it.

Labor is absolutely committed to it at every level: investment in education for the future of our productive capacity and for the future of our prosperity. After 10 years of neglect, arrogance, complacency and squandering of opportunities, there is only one way that our future prosperity will be ensured: the election of a Labor government to invest in education, to uplift the lives of Australian families, to lift our productive capacity and to lift the spirit of our nation. (Time expired)

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