Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I move, as an amendment to the motion of the Leader of the House:

That the following words be added to the motion:“And (2) that the private Members’ business item No. 3, national curriculum motion standing in the name of the member for Sturt on the Notice Paper be returned from the Main Committee and considered immediately.”

The reason I move this amendment to the motion put by Leader of the House is that the issue of the national curriculum is a matter that is quite time specific. The motion, as some members may recall, seeks to delay the start date for the national curriculum from January 2011 to January 2012. I will go into the reasons for that a little bit later, although I do not intend to keep the House at great length. But I do believe that some of the reasons why the national curriculum needs to be delayed for 12 months need to be explained to the House. In moving this amendment, can I explain, particularly to the crossbenchers, the reasons why this motion is necessary. This amendment is necessary because the Selection Committee has gone through its process of asking the government to list motions and bills for voting. The Leader of the House has indicated today that there are four items that will be voted upon this morning. One is the joint select committee on broadband as proposed by the member for Wentworth, the special disability trusts as proposed by the member for Pearce, the member for Reid’s motion on climate change, and the member for Dickson’s motion on mental health.

There are a number of other motions and bills that the opposition would like to have had voted upon and the government has indicated that votes will not be scheduled in government business today. There are reasons that the government has made that decision and the opposition has some issues with that, but I will not reprise all of those as we went through them last week. But I would particularly point the crossbenches to the Hansard from last Thursday’s sitting, where the Leader of the House, in asking members not to support a motion from the opposition to list matters for voting last Thursday, said to the House:

This morning I spoke to the Manager of Opposition Business and we agreed that this amendment he is moving was not necessary and that these votes would occur next Wednesday—

which was yesterday; they were the votes on mental health and the National Broadband Network committee—

I agreed with him this morning that we would split the votes so that the two items he wanted this morning would be voted on next Wednesday and the other items would be voted on next Thursday.

The other items that were discussed and are in the Hansard record of that day were: the flying foxes bill of the member for Cowper; the PPL or pay clerk bill of the member for Dunkley; the national curriculum motion that I have moved; the asylum seekers and Inverbrackie motion, which the member for Mayo has moved; and the insulation data motion, which the member for Flinders moved. So in that debate last Thursday it was very clear that the other items that the opposition wanted to have voted upon today were a motion on insulation data, a motion on the national curriculum, a motion on Inverbrackie and the new detention facility there, the flying foxes bill of the member for Cowper and the bill to do with the pay clerk system, as proposed by the member for Dunkley. That is quite clear in black and white in Hansard and, I repeat, the Leader of the House said:

I agreed with him this morning that we would split the votes so that the two items he wanted this morning would be voted on next Wednesday and the other items would be voted on next Thursday.

So he has said that those two items, mental health and the National Broadband Network, would be voted on yesterday—it did not happen—and that the other five items that the opposition wanted to be voted upon would be voted upon today, and that has not happened. Instead, the government has pushed the votes from yesterday into today and is saying that the votes that were to be held today will be held next February.

The government has the power to list items on the agenda in government business time and, obviously, when the Leader of the House makes a statement in black and white in Hansard, the opposition is entitled to believe that that is a commitment that he will keep. It has not been kept on this occasion, because those five items we discussed last Thursday are not listed for voting this morning. I accept that the government has the numbers to decide what the agenda will be, but I do on this occasion ask the crossbenches to consider this very important point: if the national curriculum motion is not voted upon today—it is supposed to have effect in January 2011, so voting on it in February 2011 will be something of a pointless exercise—it will be something of a dead letter. And I see that the Leader of the House laughs and smiles and thinks it is terribly funny.

The point is that there are very good reasons why the government should not be let off the hook on the national curriculum. And do not take just my word for it. People should listen perhaps to this extraordinary group of people: 13 representatives of educationalists around Australia who would not normally line up together, groups like the Australian Association for Research in Education, the Australian College of Educators, the Australian Council for Educational Leaders, the Australian Curriculum Studies Association and the Australian Education Union—Angelo Gavrielatos and the Australian Education Union have lined up with the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia.

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