Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I assure you that I am speaking on the bill, as one of the pieces of legislation before the House actually deals with our contribution to Indigenous education and, in that manner, closing the gap of disadvantage. This commitment was not about furthering a political agenda but rather about doing what, in my opinion, was right and decent.

Labor also made it clear that Australia needs nothing less than an education revolution: a substantial and sustained increase in the quantity of our investment and the quality of education for all Australian youth. This is required at every level of education, from early childhood education through to the education of mature age students. Our commitment to education does not have timeline. This is about putting Australia in the forefront of the education revolution. Education is the platform of our economic future. Our prosperity rests on what we commit to education now.

Some time ago, I had the opportunity to visit Taiwan. You have also been there, Acting Deputy Speaker Slipper. One of the things that struck me was that here was this country of 24 million people, the same population of Australia and New Zealand put together, living on half the landmass of Tasmania. Their economy was going very well when I was there—I have not checked their balance sheet of late. One of the things that struck me was that they offer degrees at 160 institutions, they value technical and further education and they conduct their business on the basis of producing manufactured goods in various countries around the globe. What they maintain is ingenuity, intellectual property and the development—the advanced side of manufacturing. The vast majority of their economy is now based on that.

When I met with their minister for economic development, it was explained to me that a lot of this could be put down to what happened some 15 years ago when that country made a disproportionate commitment to the education of its people. Education is not something that you do just do to win an election; education is not something that you do just as you front up for the next budget. Education is the commitment that we lay down for the society that we want to become. That is why it is our education revolution. This is where the community that we wish to develop for the future will come from.

My kids are thankfully through the school system now. That means that I do not have to participate in their homework any longer. But I have grandchildren growing up and I want the best for them and this country, not simply in the next year, not simply for their 10th or 12th birthdays, but as they mature into their working lives and have their own families. That is why our commitment to the education revolution is so critical.

I am sure that it has not escaped many that the opposition, when they had the opportunity in respect to education over the past 12 years, squibbed it. They stripped $1 billion out of the education system. Obviously, they did not share our vision that education is integral to the future of our community. The Labor government is committed to lifting the quantity of education investment and the quality of education outcomes. We have a high standard of living in this country. That can only be sustained through further productivity increases. Underpinning that is our education system.

Turning to the specifics of the bills, I would like to make a few comments to the House in relation to the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. The government is committed to providing quality education that is relevant and accessible to all Indigenous students and leads to further opportunities in the education, training and employment systems. We all know that there is still a large disparity between the educational achievement of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. This was highlighted in the minister’s second reading speech.

The bill will appropriate more than $500 million for another four years from 2009 to allow the government to continue working with relevant stakeholders on a range of targeted programs and projects to support improvements in Indigenous educational outcomes and to assist in closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. An additional $109 million is estimated to be spent over the next four years to augment Abstudy entitlements to assist Indigenous students access tertiary education around the country. We also aim to see that every Indigenous four-year-old throughout our remote communities has access to early learning programs, as is the case with non-Indigenous children.

When we talk about education, it is not simply for the non-Indigenous population of the country. If we are serious about closing the gap, this is something that must be very much targeted at those with disadvantage. That is what we are seeking to do. We are establishing national collaborative arrangements through the Council of Australian Governments which will assist all of us working collectively towards these targets. Closing the gap can only be achieved by working together. This bill will make an important contribution to closing the gaps between the education outcomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

The other bill before us today is the Schools Assistance Bill 2008. This bill will provide funding for non-government schools for the years 2009 through to 2012. It will appropriate $28 billion of Commonwealth funding for all non-government schools, including specific funding for schools and students in rural and regional areas under remote loading and recurrent grants and through the provision of Indigenous supplementary assistance, a way to provide additional support for schools and campuses in remote areas of the country.

Since we came to office less than a year ago with a promise to bring an education revolution to Australia, I do not think many people out there could conclude that we have not been striving to do just that. We have provided $2.5 billion over 10 years to enable secondary schools across the nation to apply for funding of between $500,000 and $1.5 million for trade training in schools. Trade training in schools is being established to help increase the population of students achieving year 12 or equivalent qualifications. It is also trying to bridge the gap that we currently have in our skills shortage across the nation. This is a direct response to dealing with the productivity issues into the future of this country by being able to have trade training delivered directly throughout our high schools.

Recently I had the opportunity to go through some figures for my electorate. With respect to the digital education revolution, which was packaged under two roll-outs so far, just in Werriwa we have had 1,481 new computers in 10 of our schools. These computers are being delivered so that students between year 9 and year 12 will all have access to computers. This is not, as some have put to me, about understanding the importance of knowledge of computers. This is not about teaching kids to be able to use computers; this is a move to actually incorporate computers into the general educational environment of children as they are progressing through the senior years of school. It is good news for all our local schools and for the students in those schools. To get an education in today’s world—I think the facts speak for themselves—you need to be learning with today’s technology. We need to be able to keep up to date and up to speed with technology in order to achieve the best results—producing not only kids who will be our leaders in research and other things through tertiary education but those who will take up and avail themselves of the opportunities to be involved in industry throughout their lives. To that extent, the education revolution is about giving local students, in my case in the south-west of Sydney, every opportunity to meet these challenges for the future.

We are doing, quite frankly, what we said we would do before the last election. We have remained focused on that and we are delivering on those outcomes. For many decades, the focus in the schooling debate has unfortunately been on the competitive relationship between government and non-government schools, but the education system cannot be broken down into two groups because, if it were, we would have a disadvantaged public sector on one side and a highly resourced non-government sector on the other. That would be an oversimplistic view which would be counter to any of the reforms that we on this side of politics would ever subscribe to. To thrive in the future, we need a schooling system which delivers high-quality education for all students regardless of their address and regardless of their schools. Funding is important, and we need a framework for funding, for accountability and for improvements that are consistent across the school sector, transparent about the needs and focused on the quality and effectiveness of education in every school. Not to do so would leave us in a position where our government schools may simply be the cheap alternative. This would, quite frankly, mitigate our school system right across the board. Quality public education must always remain the hallmark of our communities; hence the need for the Commonwealth to work closely and in collaboration with our state and territory colleagues. That is occurring through COAG to ensure that there is an equally weighted focus on the value of education not only now but into the future.

I have in my electorate of Werriwa 41 government schools, including both primary schools and secondary colleges, as well as nine Catholic systemic colleges and eight other non-government schools, all of which I know to have committed staff—because one of the staff there is my daughter Elizabeth. I get to see schools firsthand because I, as I would expect every member of this place to do, go out and visit schools. Schools are not a place for politicking. With respect, schools are where we should go and talk to those who will follow us as the community leaders of the future and where we should engage people with a view to talking not simply to kids but to people whose ideas will shape our country into the future. So schools are very important. To this end, I take the opportunity to thank the staff of all those schools across my electorate for the unselfish contributions that they make. As I say, I know, through my own daughter Elizabeth, who teaches at the Good Samaritan Catholic College at Hoxton Park, how much work she does out of hours. I know how much of a thrill she gets every time she sees positive results for her students. I also know the number of kids who have graduated from the school who stay in contact with her and talk about their selection choices at university or TAFE or about what job opportunities they are going through. It is all part of community building.

Education is not a job but a profession, and we should all regard it as such. In my daughter’s case, she chose to be a teacher in kindergarten. I think that was possibly because of the fact that her kindergarten teacher had long hair. She never sought to be anything else but a teacher, and I have to say that she gets great satisfaction out of it. With all her colleagues I get to meet and all the schools I get to visit, I see the same faces. These people are not there just to do a job. I am sure they would like to make a little bit more money, but they are there to fulfil their commitment, and they are very passionate about what they do. Invariably, when I speak at end-of-year prize-giving nights and talk to schools and their students, I ask them how many kids leaving year 12 would like to make a difference to our society. I know when I stare down onto the faces of all those young children down there that they will be doctors, electricians, builders and engineers and I ask them, ‘How many of you would genuinely like to make a real difference to the community that we represent?’

What I say to them is that if you want to make a real difference within your community, when you leave school consider education. Without the educators, the professional and dedicated teachers of all our schools, we would not have the doctors, we would not have the electricians, we would not have the builders, the carpenters or the engineers. One consistent thing that we have in developing these people to advance our community into the future and to advance our economy and our productivity, quite frankly, is our teaching profession. So to that extent I think that we need to ensure that those who participate and educate our children are accorded the respect of being the professionals that they are. I always defer to the achievements of those in the teaching profession because I realise what they are producing. They are producing the nation’s future.

All the schools in my electorate do a fine job. Sule College, for example, which is one of the local Islamic schools, does a fundamental job in terms of working with each of our other schools: our Catholic systemic schools and our other independent schools and government schools. Their principal, Mr Ahmet Yamakoglu, and the principal of Mount Carmel High School, John Barrington, who has led the charge on computers for some time, are people of absolute quality in our community. (Time expired)

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