Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the member for Mitchell. It is many a year since I last heard an argument along the lines of the Marxist conspiracy taking over our education system. It almost makes one nostalgic for the old ideological debates of the Cold War. It is heart-warming to follow the member for Mitchell and take that trip down memory lane.

The Rudd government was elected last November with a clear mandate for change. Australians had had enough of political posturing, empty rhetoric and cowardly buck-passing that only resulted in squandered opportunities and neglect. The nation voted overwhelmingly for a government that would provide long-term reform—a government that would focus that reform on building a stronger, fairer Australia. I am proud to be part of that government. The strength of this country will always lie in its people. Education is the most effective route to empowerment, and the better the quality of the education that this nation can provide its people, the stronger this nation will be. Our long-term prosperity is dependent on our productivity. A skilled workforce is vital to boost and to maintain productivity. Investing in the education of our children is investing in the skill base of the future and our economic growth. It is an investment for us all.

The Rudd government is committed to creating an education revolution. We are shunning the divisive policies of the past that saw private institutions pitted against public, state governments pitted against the Commonwealth and parents pitted against teachers. We are committed to revolutionising our education system through collaborative effort. It is a revolution that sees the community, parents, institutions and both tiers of government working together to ensure that high quality education is accessible to all Australian children and a revolution that focuses on individual student outcomes, not on where they happen to be studying.

Disadvantage tends to be cyclical in nature, and education is the best method of breaking that cycle. Education brings opportunities. Education leads to better jobs, larger pay packets and higher standards of living. A telling statistic is that each additional year of schooling is associated with a 10 per cent increase in earnings. Poverty is directly linked to criminal activity, health problems, family breakdown and social division. This drains our community’s resources, security and pride, which in turn fuels the cycle. Education is the surest solution to breaking the cycle of poverty by giving the next generation the opportunity to reach their full potential and achieve the fulfilment, social engagement and living standards they deserve.

In this government’s first budget, we allocated $19.3 billion to education initiatives. We have mobilised to set this revolution in motion, with millions already flowing through programs such as the digital education revolution and the trades training centres. The Rudd government’s education revolution aims to create not just a stronger Australia that will have the skills and knowledge to compete in the global economy but also a fairer society. We are working to improve the transparency and accountability of all schools at all levels. Unless we know what is working we cannot hope to improve the quality of our system. This government is not interested in cheap political point-scoring. We need to collect performance data to ensure that resources go where they are needed, to ensure that parents can make informed choices and to ensure the proper evaluation of program effectiveness. Resources need to be targeted. The 2006 National report on schooling in Australia highlighted the appalling disparity in educational outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. Literacy and numeracy achievement rates showed a difference ranging from 13 per cent to 32 per cent in years 3 to 7. Thirty per cent fewer Indigenous students obtained year 12 qualifications than non-Indigenous students. In remote Australia, the figures are even more disturbing. English literacy and numeracy are the foundation for educational achievement in Australia. Without these skills, our children face an uncertain future with social exclusion, low socioeconomic status and personal frustration. Students who score badly in literacy and numeracy tests at year 9 level are more likely to be unemployed and, if they are employed, more likely to earn a low wage.

These problems are compounded for Indigenous students who have English as a second language. Attainment of a year 12 qualification or equivalent is another significant indicator of better employment prospects. It opens the doorway to further education that can provide not just the skills needed for workforce participation but also the confidence to rise to the challenge of a competitive environment. This government recognises the enormous contributions made by the Indigenous community to our nation. It also recognises the potential wasted by the inertia and complacency of our predecessors’ policies. We are committed to ensuring that our Indigenous community has the necessary tools to forge ahead. We want to assist those communities in achieving economic independence and ensure that entrepreneurial ventures are not hampered by a lack of skills and knowledge. As recent submissions to the House of Representatives Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs Committee have made clear, the most valuable contribution we can make to promote the success and longevity of Indigenous enterprise is an investment in education.

The Prime Minister opened this parliament with an apology to Australia’s Indigenous people. That apology was about us maturing as a nation, acknowledging the wrongs of the past and embracing a future of respect, dignity and equal opportunity for all Australians. As the Prime Minister stated, to achieve that future we need to forge a new partnership between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians and to have at the core of that partnership a commitment to closing the gap in life expectancy, educational achievement and employment opportunities. These gaps are inextricably linked. This government is working hard with state governments and education providers to achieve the concrete goals of halving the gap in literacy and numeracy achievement rates within a decade and halving the gap in year 12 or equivalent attainment by 2020. My electorate of Port Adelaide has one of the highest population proportions of urban Indigenous people in South Australia. As their federal representative, as a member of this government and as an Australian citizen, I want to ensure that we as a nation do all that we can to achieve these long-overdue goals. The bill before this House will assist us in this important work.

The Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 is complementary to the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 and is part of the legislative upheaval that must form part of the education revolution. The Commonwealth and the states are working together to create the national education agreement. Until new arrangements are finalised, it is vital that we maintain our support of and show our leadership for the continuation and development of programs that improve educational outcomes for Indigenous communities. This bill allocates more than $500 million between 2009-12 for a range of targeted projects funded under the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000. It will maintain commitments to successful programs such as Sporting Chance and the Indigenous Youth Mobility Program. It will enable the expansion of effective projects in the targeted areas of intensive literacy and numeracy programs for Indigenous students. In addition, it will provide professional development for teachers to construct quality individual learning plans for Indigenous students in need.

The bill allocates over $100 million for the continuation of the away-from-base aspect of Abstudy from January 2009 to June 2013. This will ensure that education providers can continue to offer intensive residential courses to Indigenous students as part of distance learning. More than $160 million has been appropriated for supplementary assistance to preschool and vocational education and training providers as a transitional arrangement until January 2009. This will ensure funding certainty and the continuation of services to Indigenous families while we implement further reform. This bill will reinforce our new framework of transparency and accountability. It will strengthen reporting structures to ensure that we have a greater understanding of where the gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous education outcomes arise and, even more importantly, why. Good government means practising what you preach. As part of our pursuit of transparency and accountability, the Prime Minister has undertaken to provide a report to parliament on the first sitting day of each year about closing the gap for Indigenous Australians. This underlines our commitment to achieving this vital goal after the years of callous neglect shown by the previous government. This bill assists the arrangements for that report.

The marginalisation of our Indigenous community has no place in modern Australia. This bill is part of a wider legislative upheaval that will see Indigenous education recognised as a mainstream education issue. This will give education providers more freedom to develop and use the programs that provide the best outcomes for their students and their individual circumstances. It will reduce red tape, increase flexibility and allow teachers to get on with the important job of improving participation, literacy and numeracy rates. It will also ensure equity of funding indexation arrangements.

It is not a revolutionary concept that education is the key to building a stronger society. What is revolutionary after the Howard era is implementing a strategy that actually provides meaningful reform and tangible results. The Labor Party have promised an education revolution and we intend to deliver it. This bill is a vital cog in the workings of that revolution. I commend the bill to the House.

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