Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I think we have just seen an indication that not only did the Liberal Party fail to deliver on excellence and equity in education in government but in opposition it could not care less about anything other than cheap political point-scoring. I actually thought that members opposite showed interest in Joel Klein and his reform message, but I was wrong. They care nothing for the future of Australian students and Australian children—and the fact that that member serves as their shadow minister for education says it all. They care nothing about this reform agenda. Despite the active disinterest of those opposite in education excellence and equity for Australian children, the Rudd Labor government will pursue its education revolution.

Amongst the things they are completely disinterested in is our plans for a new era of transparency in Australian schooling. We believe that parents and members of the public should have available to them full information about what is happening in Australian schools—information about academic results, information about who is teaching in schools and information about the resources in schools. Who is opposed to these measures? Of course the Liberal Party is demonstrating its opposition through the way in which it is treating the Schools Assistance Bill 2008.

We are determined that across this nation a new era of transparency, coupled with new investments in teacher quality, will make a difference for children in every school. Our aim is excellence in every school across the country, irrespective of which school sector it is in. Our aim is to make a difference, particularly to disadvantaged students. And should the members opposite ever choose to think about education policy—and I think that that is unlikely—and about the prospects for reform in education, they might like to reflect on why at the end of 12 years of the Liberal Party in government this nation on international testing still had a long tail of disadvantaged students from poor families not achieving minimum benchmarks and students who were high achievers being let down by the system. This is a track record of failure at the top of the achievement band and a track record of failure for children at the lower end of the achievement band. We will make a difference on quality. We believe that every child, whether from a poor family or from a rich family, deserves a good education. It is a pity that the Liberal Party cares absolutely nothing about it.

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