Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Herbert feigns concern about the interests of teachers. I stand here as somebody who spent a good deal of his adult life working in education and for education and, indeed,  spent 13 years working as an official for the Queensland Teachers Union—and proud of it. I remember what the situation was like when the Liberal and National parties controlled education in Queensland and were in state government. I am going to make a few comments about that.

Before I do, let me say that at any point in time it is more than possible to refer to the needs of schools. We never put enough resources into education and, as I have said many times in this parliament, as a government you cannot put too much money into the training and education of your population. There is no such thing as people who are too well educated or too highly skilled. The simple fact of life is that it is only under the Labor government that that serious injection of funds occurs, as we have seen here in the Commonwealth through the Building the Education Revolution.

Let me go back to Queensland and the sorts of environments that existed when those whom the member for Herbert would have in state parliament running the show were actually in government running the show. It was a regular occurrence for schools to open without buildings completed. It was a regular occurrence for schools to open without any safe playing areas. I can remember going to Dakabin State High School when it opened without a blade of grass or a level area—nothing but rocks that had not even been levelled. I can remember schools endeavouring to get Army units to get their engineers out there to excavate the land so they could have something that was flat for the children to run on.

That was the provision of new school facilities under the Liberal and National parties in Queensland. But it was not just the facilities that were left wanting. When it came to the curriculum, they were every bit as ignorant and arrogant about the interests of teachers. A classic example of that was a curriculum developed for secondary schools called Social Education Material Projects—SEMP. It was developed by Australian educators for Australian educators, a collaborative effort between all of the states and the Commonwealth. It was used in every government school throughout Australia except in Queensland. In Queensland the Liberal and National parties then in government banned its use in Queensland schools. The irony was that if you went to a private school in Queensland then you would learn from that curriculum; if you went to any school in any other state in Australia you would learn from that curriculum; but if you went to a school governed by the National Party—

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