Kerry Bartlett (Macquarie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Education, Science and Training. Would the minister update the House on how the Australian government is supporting teachers in our schools? Are there any alternative approaches and what is the government’s response?

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macquarie for his question and acknowledge his deep interest in and commitment to education in his electorate. This government believes that quality education is directly linked to quality teaching. That is why we have invested over $100 million to establish Australian government summer schools for teachers. Over the four years 4,000 teachers will have the opportunity to undertake a high-quality professional learning experience in five summer schools that will be established across Australia. They will be in maths, science, English, literacy and numeracy, and Australian history. Today I announced the successful university consortia that will hold these summer schools, the first beginning in January next year.

What is the Labor Party’s response to this initiative that is so welcomed by the education sector and by individual teachers? The Labor Party will close down these summer schools. They will deny 4,000 teachers the opportunity to be leaders for greater educational standards in their schools. You have to ask yourself: why would the Labor Party do that? It is because the Australian Education Union told them to. The Labor Party is in lockstep with the unions, and these unions are out of control. The Australian Education Union and the New South Wales Teachers Federation have been running a dishonest and misleading campaign against this government. There is nothing new in that—that is their stock-in-trade.

But the unions are now using children as young as six years old to carry their propaganda. Over the last two days unions in New South Wales have been forcing young children to carry home this pamphlet, which contains lies, to their parents—and parents are outraged. And what was the response of the Labor government in New South Wales? The Labor Minister for Education and Training, a former union official, did not have the courage to stand up for the parents against the union, so he sent his Director-General of Education out to tell them to stop. The unions defied the instruction—they ignored him—and they continued their tactics. Talkback radio and members of parliament have been swamped with calls from outraged parents complaining about their children being exploited by union members. One parent complained that a six-year-old girl in year 1 at Cherrybrook Public School was given a leaflet by the acting deputy principal and told that she had to take it home to give to her parents. Children in a class at Normanhurst Public School were instructed to boo at any mention of our Prime Minister, John Howard, or the coalition government.

These sorts of tactics are taking place at Oakhill Drive primary school. Similar tactics are taking place across New South Wales—Oakhill Drive primary school, Cobbitty primary school, Macksville primary school, Braddock Public Primary School; primary schools across New South Wales—and parents are outraged. And what has been the response of federal Labor? What has been the response of the ex-union officials sitting on the front bench? The deafening silence that we have come to expect from people who owe their very existence in this place to the patronage of the unions. The Labor Party does not have the courage to stand up for parents. The Labor Party does not have the courage to stand up against the unions. The unions own every single one of them lock, stock and barrel.