Zoe McKenzie (Flinders, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise with enthusiasm tonight to talk to the motion put by the member for Reid to recognise the extraordinary contribution made to our past, present and future by teachers, principals and school support staff. I come to this place, indeed, with a long-standing interest in education. I hold education policy wholeheartedly to blame for me being here today, having had the remarkable opportunity to work in education at both the national and state level, with Dr Brendan Nelson and Julie Bishop federally and in Victoria with then premier Ted Baillieu and former education minister—my dear friend; the former member for Nepean—Martin Dixon. Education stands at the centre of my inspiration for this place, knowing full well that if we get education right we stand to solve so many of the problems which plague Australian families. Education is how we assure our nation's aspirations and prosperity.

I take the opportunity to briefly thank the many mentors and collaborators with whom I have worked in education over the last 2½ decades in this place, in particular professors and vice chancellors Glyn Davies, John Dewar, Peter Coaldrake and Margaret Gardner; and in the domain of schooling Field Rickards, Ben Jensen, Melodie Potts and Donna Hutchinson. Indeed, I thank my dear friend Mathias Cormann for tolerating my 4 am texts, which after all fall at dinner time in Paris, ruminating about the impact of COVID lockdowns and ChatGPT; on the OECD's PISA outcomes, the results of which I look forward to as most people look forward to Christmas.

Teachers are vital to this country's prosperity. They are vital to our culture and our impact as a nation. They are vital to our wellbeing, our curiosity, our capability in life. Teachers not only change lives but they build lives. Today we need to teachers, thousands of teachers, thousands of young people, to come into this profession across so many different settings, not just the classroom.

Last week I officially opened the Abacus Learning Centre in Hastings, a building which seemingly miraculously appeared within 12 months and now provides one on one education and assistance to ASD children and their families. Specialist teachers work with children from across the peninsula in this wonderful fit-for-purpose space, which resulted from a $1.2 million investment from the former coalition government.

Last week I also visited the Oakwood School in Hastings where teachers and teaching assistants work with young people who have stopped attending school. They quietly and determinedly bring them back to education with respect and empowerment. There are campuses in Rosebud and Mornington doing great work there too. Like Abacus, the program at Oakwood is carefully designed to meet the needs of each individual student. Students work with their class teachers and the tailored program focuses on developing each child's literacy and numeracy skills, as well as working on positive behaviours.

Then on Friday afternoon I met the joyful little people at Little Gum Early Learning centre in Dromana, with their loving educators who provide a combination of occasional care within an educational setting. After that I headed to the dynamic, vibrant and positively exuberant assembly at Eastbourne Primary School, located in Capel Sound, to present young environmental leaders with their responsibility and service badges.

These four different education settings demonstrate a greatness both in teaching and in school leadership through managing complex needs and preparing students for a transition to mainstream schooling, vocational or other tertiary education and employment; by managing school disengagement, often resulting from family trauma; by providing early childhood education, as well as educative play; and by providing the celebration of community, curiosity and adventure, which so many of our school communities embody.

School leadership is vital to encourage, nurture and inspire the future generation of teachers. I feel blessed to have met so many of our remarkable school leaders this year—people like Nick Schneider and Assistant Principal Michelle Bremner, reinventing literacy and phonics training at Baxter Primary School; Amadeo Ferra, currently leading the peninsula special school in Dromana; Ross Patterson at Balcombe Grammar in Mount Martha; and the gorgeous, a word I use intentionally for its technical meaning, principal of Eastbourne Primary School, Stephen Wilkinson.

But it would be remiss of me to finish this intervention without reference to the teachers who changed my life and without an expression of my lifelong gratitude to them: firstly, to the poor woman in kinder, whose name I do not recall but whose often-worn outfit of blue jeans and orange T-shirt I recreated in miniscule detail on 'come as your hero day' in kinder; to Anoush Boulhomme and Madame Margaret Rodgers, who took me from a francophone neophyte to a fluent French speaker and year 11 Alliance Francaise competition nationwide winner; to my Australian history, economics and politics teacher, Andrew Barnett, whom I blame for almost everything in terms of my interest in and pursuit of public life; and finally to Professor Greg Craven, who at university taught me to think, to argue and, above all else, to write and has put up with me and my well-argued strident views ever since.

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