Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

You are married to one? I did not know that, Ewen. What the Prime Minister did not know was this: school improvement plans in Victoria have been in place for—what?—a decade and a half. We have had school improvement plans, which the Prime Minister talked about. These are tied to principal and teacher performance plans, which is what the Prime Minister was talking about, and to the whole school and individual professional development programs. Those are what the Prime Minister is talking about in her crusade. For teacher registration with the Victorian Institute of Teaching, it is compulsory. This body mandates professional development of teachers as a condition of registration.

As for delivering a common curriculum attached to standards, providing individual learning plans, reporting to parents, and adhering to standardised testing in literacy and numeracy in years 3, 5 and 7, we are already doing it. Student teachers are already spending 15 weeks in training in schools. We are already doing it. So a lot of the Prime Minister's discussions were pure rhetoric.

What we forget—and every member of parliament knows this because they come across it every time they go to a school—is that our teachers and principals spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with behavioural, social and parenting issues, which detract from teaching time, of course. And why? Why do schools provide breakfast programs? Have you heard of breakfast programs? Why do schools provide breakfast programs? Because they have to, because the kids have come to school without any food. Teachers plead for more assistance from psychologists and speech therapists, and more assistance for disability programs and to deal with attendance issues, because if you are not at school you cannot learn. So the headwinds facing Labor in its response to Gonski are considerable.

I know the member for Gippsland would like to get on. I will get off and let him come forth, but first I just want to say one thing: we are all passionate about teachers and education. We run a crusade every day in our electorates for the betterment of our children and the betterment of our schools and the opportunities that we want to give the next generation. But you cannot have rhetoric and talk and not back it up with some money on the table for students to make a success of their lives.

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