Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to rise today and speak about this bill. As well, I want to pick up some of the points that the member for Werriwa raised. As a father of two young children who attend the local state primary school in my electorate, I would like to try and raise my children guided by the example that my parents set me. Trying to be the best possible person I can be, I consider the example provided by my parents and try to improve on it. I think this is the way of the world. As a father, I know that if I lie, if I swear or if I cheat, those are exactly the sorts of examples that my children are going to take forward in their dealings with everyday life as they grow up. I also know that, if I live my life by the highest personal standards and provide good examples to my children, the chances are going to be far better that they will grow up to be good and productive members of society. There are of course no guarantees that they will always make the right decisions, but the odds are greatly improved when they are shown a good example.

So, when I see parents providing bad examples to their children, I really do fear for the future of those children. For example, I have witnessed children being verbally abused by their parents, with the f-word used loudly. It is little wonder that those children grow up to think that it is common and even appropriate to use foul and offensive language in dealing with their peers or with other persons they come into contact with. I recently intervened in a fight in a park in my electorate. It was a fight between a number of females from two different racial groups. It always surprises me when I hear graphic and foul swearing from children. In particular, there was a girl of around 10 years old who was using not only the f-word but another extremely offensive word that is even beyond that one.

It is my view that parents have a fundamental job to do. It is their priority to look after and raise their children. It comes before all other priorities and, while there may be a debate as to the methods used or the actions taken along the way, providing a safe and healthy home physically and morally is beyond question. A child will have a great chance of reaching their potential if they grow up in this sort of positive and nurturing world. No child should grow up in a home where they witness illicit drug use, drug abuse, pornography, sexual activity or crime, because these are examples of where parents or carers are failing their children.

It was with this philosophy in mind that I made some comments at the doors of the House of Representatives back in February. I said that there are places right now in this country, in the suburbs, towns and communities, where children should be taken away from their parents because these children are at risk. I have just given some examples of such risks. It is my view that infertility is now such a problem for so many couples in this country that there are many homes where children would be loved and nurtured and where they would be far more secure. I stand by this position and oppose the view that there is something desirable about a child remaining with biological parents when those people place the child at risk by having illicit or illegal activities as priorities above their children.

I would now like to come back to the substance of the bill—that is, education, which is really, in my mind, about opportunity and the chance for a person to reach their potential. When I go to schools in my electorate I like to say to the children, particularly the primary school children, that one day any one of them could grow up to be Prime Minister, to be a pilot with Qantas or another airline, to be a brain surgeon or a doctor or anything. I like to say that and I enjoy saying it in the schools in the lower socioeconomic areas of my electorate because I genuinely believe it. I believe it because I have faith in this country and the opportunities of education, training and employment that this great democracy holds out to each and every one of us. Regardless of the colour of the person’s skin or their religion, if an Australian wants to work hard to achieve their goals the means are there to achieve success.

Australians, of course, respect hard workers, but I also say to these children that they should not just wait for success to be handed to them; they must work hard to achieve their goals. Again, I say these things to children because they are true. I have no time for those who want to talk about the past and seek excuses for young people not trying or accepting failure or defeat. I have no time for those who stake their future on the big Lotto win. I believe that it was Gary Player, the golfer, who said:

The more I practice, the luckier I get.

I believe that it is accurate to say that destiny is in the palm of our hands. The principle, therefore, is that if you work you can achieve your goals.

For a young person the main work is education, which begins with the building blocks of literacy and numeracy that set up the acquisition of higher knowledge across the arts and sciences, leading to applied skills able to be used to produce work. Education, therefore, is the basis for achievement in life and a route to a life of effective working rather than welfare dependence. This is an opportunity to achieve goals, to acquire assets, to live a life you want to live. But children need to grow up seeing their parents or carers demonstrating a commitment to and encouragement of education. Parents are failing their children if they do not encourage them to go to school, learn and achieve to their potential. This has to happen from birth, when parents play with their children, teach them to make sandcastles, build with blocks—in many ways children just learn from their parents. This has to happen when they first start at school. The child has to be encouraged to learn, and a positive attitude towards education is needed firstly by the parents so that the child grows up knowing that this is a normal and integral part of life. Homework must be done and ambition must be encouraged. Parents should not only talk about the obstacles but also concentrate on the opportunities. This is the duty and responsibility of parents.

I was recently in the pharmacy at Koondoola, a suburb in my electorate. I was speaking to the pharmacist, and he told me that one day a mother had come in with a number of children. The pharmacist asked why the children were not at school, to which the mother replied, ‘They didn’t want to go; I gave them the day off,’ as she laughed it away. The 12-year-old girl wanted to enter a competition in the shop to guess the number of jelly beans. The pharmacist said, ‘Just guess the number and write your name down.’ She was 12 years old and she could not do it.

I really wonder about such parents. What do they think is going to happen in the future? Who are they going to blame for an illiterate child? Are they going to blame society, the education system or the principal of the school for not telling them that education is important? It would be great if we had a society where parents did not let down their children with neglectful attitudes. It would be good if parents first looked to remedy their own faults before trying to blame others or creating excuses of some or other disadvantage. Sadly, sometimes they just do not know any better.

Ultimately it brings us back to what can be done to save children from the negative influence of parents who have the wrong attitude towards education. This bill offers an option that may be proceeded with only in the case of those on welfare payments in some circumstances. Suspension or cancellation may occur. It would appear that the schools would have to be told, or know, of which family was on welfare payments and then make the decision to inform the department. The department could then issue a notice requiring improvement in the attendance of the child. In the past, when the coalition government tried to get these sorts of figures from Western Australia, I heard that the Australian Education Union refused, saying that such information was bound by privacy restrictions. It will be interesting to see if the AEU still feel the same way now that their team mates are in government.

I do not oppose this bill, but I do wonder whether it will be effective. I expect, of course, that the minister will regularly publish the improvement in attendance figures so that the parliament can judge the success of the measure. What does concern me is the truancy of other children: what is being done to address the truancy problems of children whose parents are not on welfare payments? Is the minister saying that, with regard to their children’s education, the only bad parents are those on welfare payments? This is a big leap to saying that truancy is confined to welfare recipient families. I am not sure if it was the minister’s intention to scapegoat just one element of our society. I do believe we need to think about the risk of truancy to any child and what can be done.

The trouble for this federal government is that, by addressing the whole problem, it then clearly becomes a state responsibility. It is pretty hard for the minister to blame John Howard or the former coalition government for this problem. Yet we have already heard from the Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Childcare, who has laid the blame at the feet of the Howard government. Clearly, she claims and believes—falsely—that if a young person does not turn up to Logan High School, the Queensland state run school, that is the fault of the former coalition government. How can that be? The Howard government was there for national testing and standards. The Howard government was there for $700 vouchers to help children attain standards. But how is it that a child not showing up to Logan High School is somehow John Howard’s fault?

Consistent with the ‘no blame’ attitude to any Labor government, there is of course no responsibility or accountability for those whose task it is to address this problem. I sometimes wonder whether state ministers for education are even needed in this country with the way this federal government is acting by not holding them to account for their jobs. In Western Australia, the schools only seem important to the Carpenter government for photo opportunities and to make announcements for the coming election. Morley Senior High School has been in desperate need of a complete renovation of a student toilet block that is old and decrepit. Over the last 7½ years something could have been done by the Labor state government in response to my letters, the P&C’s letters, the school’s letters and letters from my state colleague, the Hon. Donna Faragher MLC; yet it takes this election campaign, just three days away now, to see the state Labor government actually making an announcement. I think that the people of the state electorate of Morley would be very cynical that the Labor Party interest in their high school exists only at election time.

It is a bit like the announcement of the new policy of cooling systems for schools made at Landsdale Primary School this week. Over recent years, the Carpenter Labor government was happy for P&Cs to save up and fundraise for air conditioning or to use the Howard government’s Investing in Our Schools program to help pay for that air conditioning, but yet again in the last few weeks before the election it suddenly makes an announcement about cooling for schools. Surprise, surprise! It is election time. It is probably no surprise that these easy announcements, these glossy brochure photo opportunities, are the priority for the Carpenter Labor government in Western Australia, while it ignores fundamental problems such as truancy and school maintenance.

The neglect of key issues, such as truancy, by the state government is not going to be fixed up by this narrowly focused bill—this tough on welfare recipients illusion. We already know that the Minister for Employment Participation has ordered Centrelink and job agencies to back off on negligent job seekers. The minister said:

We are not going to allow children to be affected adversely because of a breach by the parent.

I am all for accountability; I am all for responsibility. Parents have a duty that must be fulfilled. They must be held accountable for their actions and for their omissions. If this bill helps reduce truancy, then great—let it roll on. But when are the states going to take action? This federal government, in the name of stopping the ‘blame game’, does not hold the states responsible for doing their core business. If these state education ministers do not want to do their jobs, then they should get out of the way. In Western Australia let people like Colin Barnett and Peter Collier, as Premier and education minister, get on with the real jobs and get education back on track.

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