Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moreton for the question. He has had over $90 million approved in 150 projects in schools in his electorate for libraries and multipurpose halls, and I know how important education is to him. It has been an important week for education. We started with the announcement by Minister Bowen and me of new special measures to make sure that graduates have the skills that they need when they get into schools and into classrooms. We had, with the Prime Minister, the launch of My School 2013, an important website that provides more information than ever before for families and school communities around Australia about how students and schools are going. This morning we read of some of those success stories. I have a bit of pride, if I can indulge, in Maroubra Bay Primary School in my electorate. It is doing very well under the National Partnership on Literacy and Numeracy.

But I am asked about bullying. It is an important issue, I know, for everyone in the House. Some of the statistics are challenging, with around one in six kids bullied weekly. Sometimes it is even more. Certainly in terms of online bullying we are seeing increasing incidences around Australia. It is troubling. It is troubling for parents and schools. We all know that it can have really terrible consequences.

We have the National Safe Schools Framework. It is the first of its kind in the world, developed with advice from experts, and we are providing extra resources for the National Safe Schools Framework so that there are good resources available for each school. We have a cybersafety help button for kids if they get into strife online. There is a 'Bullying. No Way!' website which contains particularly important information.

Tomorrow is the third National Day of Action Against Bullying. I have been very pleased to launch the national day and to endorse it. More than half a million students will be out there saying, 'We will take a stand together because there is no place for bullying or violence in our schools.' It is an important national event. I certainly appreciate the support we have had from media outlets, particularly in Queensland, around it.

This year we ran the first Safe Schools are Smart Schools competition for schools to highlight what they have been doing to address bullying. The member for Moreton will be pleased to know that one of the outstanding entries in the competition came from a school in his own electorate, the Warrigal Road State School. They have got a good program, the Playground Buddies Program. It is a peer mentoring program that is focused on safety, where buddies show that they are a good role model and help those students who need support. What have we seen? A safer school environment, less incidence of bullying reported in school and fewer kids saying that they did not have anyone to play with. This is a really important day for schools around Australia and for the community. We ask everybody to take a stand against bullying.

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