Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer to the Prime Minister’s answer to the last question on his government’s performance on education. Does the Prime Minister believe it is good enough for our economic future when we are ranked 29th in the world on the teaching of maths and science; our national investment in vocational education and training has been virtually flat; our national investment in higher education has been reduced by seven per cent, when the rest of the OECD’s has increased by 48 per cent; and, when it comes to national outlays on early childhood education, they are one-fifth of the average of the OECD? Prime Minister, don’t you think we can do better than that for our kids’ future?

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In calling the Prime Minister, I again remind the Leader of the Opposition to direct his questions through the chair.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We could do much better for our kids’ future if we had a restoration of standards of literacy and numeracy, and in the teaching of English.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Gillard interjecting

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Macklin interjecting

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We could do a lot better for our children’s future—

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Macklin interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Jagajaga is warned!

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

if we had some state governments in this country that did not allow the education curriculum to be dictated by the teachers unions.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We could do a lot better for our children if we did not equate analysing an SMS text message with Shakespeare. We could do a lot better for our children if we restored—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The member for Melbourne will remove himself from the chamber under standing order 94(a).

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Where was the warning? You haven’t given me a warning.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Melbourne will remove himself under standing order 94(a).

The member for Melbourne then left the chamber.

I call the Prime Minister.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, we would do a lot better for our kids, to adopt the phraseology—

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Owens interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Parramatta is warned!

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

of the Leader of the Opposition, if we had, as I said, a proper narrative teaching of Australian history instead of it occasionally being slipped in under some amorphous title such as ‘Time, experience and mood’ or something like that. Having set the framework, let me just remind the House of a couple of facts and a couple of statistics about my government’s investment in education. I do so against the background, when it comes to university education, of a statement made in the education supplement of the Australian in January by Professor Gerard Sutton, who is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wollongong and the President of the Vice-Chancellors Committee. He said, in substance, that the number of HECS places now available in Australia was adequate to the demand. That is not me and it is not the Minister for Education, Science and Training. It happens to be the President of the Vice-Chancellors Committee who is saying that.

Let me remind those who sit opposite that, under our Backing Australia’s Future policy, we will create an additional 50,000 places in universities by 2011. In 2006, 90 per cent of year 12 applicants who applied for a university place in their own state received an offer. That happens to be the best result for 20 years—90 per cent who applied received an offer and that is the best for the last 20 years.

Between 1996 and 2006, the period of office of the Howard government, funding for both government and non-government schools has increased by 158 per cent to $9.3 billion in the current school year. It includes—listen to this, Mr Speaker, and I hope the teacher unions of Australia will listen to this—a funding increase for government schools, public schools as we call them in New South Wales, of 118 per cent while enrolments in government schools over the same period have gone up by only 1.1 per cent. Yet people like Pat Byrne of the Education Union still write articles dishonestly asserting that this government has cut funding to government schools. It is a slur on the commitment that my government has made to the future of young men and women who go to government schools in this country. We are proudly supportive of both the government and the private sectors in education. We are the true believers in choice in education. We are the true believers in excellence and we are the true supporters of returning to a period in Australia when a high-grade technical qualification is as prized an asset as a university degree.