Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Education is the best anti-poverty vaccine we have yet invented. It provides the foundations from which Australians can build a life of their choosing. Education lights a spark which can see a child from Cape York not just go on to university and become a leader in her community but also become Young Australian of the Year, as Tania Major did a couple of years ago. A great education means that a child from Ilfracombe can become the first female member of the Queensland bar and our first female Governor-General. This great building, this national parliament, is a showcase of the opportunities which education provides to children from all corners of the nation. So many members of the House acknowledged in their first speeches that they would not be here today were it not for a great education. I remember hearing time after time those stories of where a particular teacher or a certain educational opportunity had made the difference in someone’s life.

Providing a great education is not just good social policy; it is good economic policy as well. Raising the human capital of our workforce is the most promising way of increasing Australia’s productivity, which has been sluggish over the last decade or so. By boosting the quantity of education we will help our labour force deal with future changes in the economic structure. A great education means that children will be more resilient when, as workers, they face changes in the kinds of jobs they are expected to do. Improving the quality of education ensures that Australian children learn more from each given year at school, at VET or at university. The importance of education means that we in this place have a responsibility to ensure that our schools get the resources that they need to do the job that we know it is important for them to do.

The Gillard government, having recognised this, has invested a record amount in school building infrastructure. The great school modernisation program, Building the Education Revolution, has given schools great buildings which allow them to do extraordinary things in the educational space. I have to confess that I was a sceptic about the BER program. When it was introduced, I was not in parliament and did not have children at school, so I had not visited any of these schools. But one of the great things you get to do as a local member is to go out to your local schools to talk with the parents, the teachers, the children and the principal about how these new school buildings have made a difference to the work they have done. I have seen with my own eyes so many examples of how the BER program has transformed the quality of education in Australia. Yesterday morning that I was out with the Prime Minister and the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, Mr Garrett, at Turner School. It was my second visit to the school, because I had been there to open their new school library. Principal Ms Jan Day, the teachers, the children and the parents are as excited by their new school library now as they were last year when the library was opened.

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