Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the shadow minister, the member for Sturt, and to support amendment (4) passed by the Senate last evening. What we saw before was typical of the Deputy Prime Minister where she puts words into people’s mouths—she verbals people. She made the claim that we do not support education. That was the claim she made when she stood up and spoke. That is completely untrue. I spoke very clearly in this House on this bill because I do support education. I support education because I understand the importance of educating our young people. As a father with two young children, I understand how important education is. I have a conflict of interest: I intend to send my children to an independent school. I know that might be offensive to those on the other side, but I do. In fact, my eldest will be in her primary year of school in 2012 when this national curriculum starts—three years away. So why is the Deputy Prime Minister threatening the independent schools sector in December 2008 with something that will not begin until 2012, and we have not even seen it yet? We in this place are expected to sign a blank cheque for the Deputy Prime Minister on a national curriculum that my children will learn under.

You sit there and tell us we do not care about education. Let me tell you, Deputy Prime Minister, that we do care about education—we care deeply about education—and we will not be told by a bullying Deputy Prime Minister that we do not. We know that is your tactic. We know the arrogant tactic to come in here and be virtuous on everything. We dare speak out. Can you imagine an opposition speaking out? Can you imagine an opposition actually standing in this place, in a democracy, and raising issues with the government of the day, particularly when we might be right? I know it hurts to make mistakes. We have all made mistakes. The previous government made mistakes, this government has made mistakes; and you have made a mistake. So you should change your mind on this bill and accept the amendment.

Yet again the Deputy Prime Minister refuses to identify the shadow minister’s and the opposition’s role in this. That is part of the political tactic—the opposition is irrelevant. We have seen it with the global financial crisis where a big mistake was made on the bank deposits guarantee, a mistake they would not have made had they listened to the Leader of the Opposition. We have seen it with this bill—she has backed down on two provisions, the schools hit list being the main one—and we have seen it with this mistake. There is no need for the national curriculum to be moved until 2012. It has not been written yet. We know who is going to be writing it—close friends and people from backgrounds not dissimilar to that of the Deputy Prime Minister.

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