Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of this motion, and I thank the honourable member for Nicholls for bringing this motion. And I also commend the honourable member for spending a day at a school within his electorate. It's something that, I must admit, I've not done yet. I am going to do it, now that I've heard from the honourable member.

I think that the confected outrage from the member for Lalor is really quite extraordinary. I don't know how it can be suggested by the member for Lalor that the member for Nicholls, an elected representative, cannot get up and speak about education within his electorate and, indeed, within his state and nation. I remind the honourable member for Lalor that the honourable member for Nicholls has been elected to represent his constituency and has just as much right to stand and talk about education—or about any other topic that he would like to talk about—as the member for Lalor. Simply because the member for Lalor was a teacher and a principal for many years does not mean that she is the only person in this place that has any right to speak on education. That is complete and other nonsense.

The bad weekend down in Victoria that my friend the member for Nicholls has just referred to could well be part of it!

The member for Nicholls has brought a very important matter to this place, and that is that the government is yet again sitting on an inquiry that had many, many recommendations. The inquiry included a recommendation that the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority strengthen the focus on behaviour within the Australian curriculum by specifically introducing a behaviour curriculum.

Just as an aside, I'd be very interested in a count being made of how many reports that have been done in this place and in the other place during the term of this government and that have been presented to the government and have not been acted upon. I note that many, including me, have spoken in this place about the failure of the Albanese Labor government to act on the Murphy report into gambling. I cannot count the number of times that I have spoken on it. And I know that many others have as well. This is yet another inquiry where the government has the report, has the recommendations, but has gone, 'Oh, no, that's all too hard,' or, 'We'll look at that on another occasion,' because it was proposed by the side of the House.

This report goes to empowering teachers so that they can actually teach without things like chairs being thrown at them, without the disruption of students running around the classroom. I've been into classrooms. Thankfully, in my state of New South Wales, the government has banned the use of mobile phones in the classroom. When my children first started high school in 2019, I went to a local high school. I'm not going to say its name. It was showcasing the school for parents who were supposed to be impressed by the school. We went into a food tech room, and there were three students at the front cooking and 10 at the back all on mobile phones. And that was supposed to be acceptable: 'Oh, mobile phones aren't interrupting the education of our student.' Thankfully, that has been reversed in New South Wales.

While I'm here talking about teachers, I want to talk about some fabulous teachers that are working in some great schools in my electorate, and I know that because I've been out to see them. I saw them at the end of the year and also throughout last year. They are Como West Public School, Illawong Public School, Hammondville Public School, Ingleburn High School, Macquarie Fields High School, Sackville Street Public School, Macarthur Adventist College, Menai Public School, Bangor Public School, Waterfall Public School, St Pat's Catholic Primary School and the beautiful Minerva School, which does so much to educate and support children with significant disabilities within our community.

So I commend this motion and thank the honourable member for bringing it.

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