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

Nothing could better sum up the attitude of this government than when they say, ‘If there is a problem in education, it is nothing to do with us.’ The government are saying: ‘It is someone else’s fault. We just happen to have been the government of the Commonwealth of Australia for over a decade. All of these appalling statistics have nothing to do with us.’

What was Labor’s positive policy proposal? Labor’s positive policy proposal was to say to young Australians: ‘We encourage you to study maths and to teach maths. We will give you a reduction in your up-front HECS contribution when you are a student, and when you emerge as a graduate in maths and science if you teach maths or science then we will give you a 50 per cent remission.’ The minister at the table said this was a bandaid. Unlike the minister at the table—who normally so warmly embraces the remarks, policies and views of her predecessor, Dr Nelson—this is not what Minister Nelson then had to say about a similar approach that the government made in 2003-04 to encourage people to teach. When the government jacked up the HECS contribution by 25 per cent, it kept nursing and teaching, teaching in particular, at the bottom rung. That is where Labor proposed to put maths and science. What did Minister Nelson say on 26 August 2004? He said:

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

On 13 November 2003 he said:

Our goal as a society should be that the best and brightest school-leavers seek a career in teaching. Initiatives from the first agenda item, as well as the quarantining of teaching courses from rises in HECS fees will assist this.

So that was not the view of the previous minister, and it is not our view. We want to encourage young Australians to both study and teach maths. The state of those statistics that I have referred to the House is appalling.

The third measure we came up with was announced today: a national plan through a national curriculum board to ensure that in our core disciplines of maths, science, English and history we actually—after 20 years of talk generally and 10 years of talk by this government, whether it was Minister Kemp, Minister Nelson or this minister echoing Minister Nelson—make real progress. You can only make that real progress by being collaborative with the states and the territories and independent and religious education authorities. That will not be done by engaging in the blame game or by saying it is all someone else’s fault but rather by having an absolute commitment to act and to invest in ways which will ensure that the educational outcomes for our primary and secondary school students, for our TAFE students and for our university students are higher. Unless we raise all those things to better states on international comparators, our future prosperity is at risk. That is due to the appalling neglect of this government. After 16 years of continuous economic growth, and now with the benefit of a resources boom to China, it just does not get it. The single most important thing we can now do is to invest in the education, skills and training of our people and our workforce.

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