Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to also commend the member for Fowler for this motion. It is most important that the spotlight be shone on those disadvantaged areas where retention rates at high schools are well below the national average. In the northern part of my electorate, we have high schools that have retention rates of just under 40 per cent, so there are significant problems there. As some of the other speakers have said, this then is reflected in the youth unemployment rates. We have youth unemployment rates hovering between 30 and 40 per cent and they have done so for a considerable amount of time. The two are inextricably linked.

One of the great things about being part of this Labor government, though, is that we are looking at doing something about that and making sure that we put resources into schools and into universities. Just this week I was with the member for Robertson at the Central Coast campus of the University of Newcastle, where we celebrated the $20 million of construction that is just starting there, which came from a funding grant from this government. It highlights the different approach this government takes to education from that of the previous government. To start with, the university campus would not even be in my electorate except for Labor. The former member for Dobell, Mr Michael Lee, fought very hard to make sure that kids on the Central Coast had a university in my electorate so that they could aspire to go there.

In the Central Coast not only do we have trouble retaining kids at high school but we also have one of the lowest rates of university entrance in Australia. That is starting to change since the campus has been there, particularly in the last three years with the injection of real money from this government into that campus. We have seen it grow by 10 per cent a year over the last four years under this government.

In higher education we have turned around what was a deficit in spending from the previous government into a net positive. We are starting to see the benefits. Ninety-five per cent of the kids who go to the Central Coast campus of the University of Newcastle come from the Central Coast. These kids would not often be able to make the trip down to Sydney or up to Newcastle to complete their higher education if it were not for this campus.

We can also look at the work we are doing in schools such as providing computers and trade training programs, which have links with business to provide alternate paths for those who are not going to go to university and never want to contemplate that, to make sure that they get the best chance in life.

One just has to look at the efforts, the direction and the resources that this government has put into education generally and compare them to what happened previously. In higher education, we were coming last in the OECD. We saw a 15 per cent reduction in investment in higher education. As the member for Parramatta said, we were ranked third last for schools in the OECD. The crowning glory of the previous government’s education program was putting flagpoles in schools. Flagpoles in schools may make you feel okay but they do not get you jobs, they do not make sure that kids stay at school and they do not make sure that disadvantaged areas like mine and the member for Fowler’s are looked after properly and given the same chances that richer electorates get and have had for a long time.

What makes the difference is making sure that we have proper training, that we are able to put the investment there and that we give kids the tools that are necessary in the 21st century to get a first-class education and give them the opportunities and the pathways to go right through school to university. Without this government’s investment, none of that would have happened. We were going backwards in education. Areas like mine were being condemned to having generations of young people who were not going to get a job because they did not have the skills and because they did not have the investment in their schools or in their universities.

The opposition’s policy in education was a bit like an episode of F Troop. They were all over the place with no idea of exactly what was happening, saying that putting up a flag in a school was going to resolve every issue. What we have at the moment is a government that has a real response to the issues of school retention rates, and that is having a marked and profound effect in disadvantaged electorates like mine. The member for Fowler should be commended for this resolution. (Time expired)

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