Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in the House tonight to bring to the House’s attention a matter of great importance to the people of Aston. John F Kennedy once said:

All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talents.

In my view, that equal opportunity can be realised through education. For Australia’s youth, education can provide every child of every background, from every community, a window into a world of limitless potential. Any parent can tell you that children are emboldened and excited when they are nurtured and challenged. Our fantastic teachers in both public and independent schools across the country continue to nurture and challenge our youth on every school day of the year.

In my electorate of Aston, I have 36 schools that provide primary education, which serve as bastions of knowledge and learning for Aston’s bright and inquisitive children. However, providing these halls of learning for our nation’s children comes at a significant cost. In my electorate, the former coalition government spent close to $150,000 on a much-needed library and IT equipment for Livingstone Primary School. The former coalition government also allocated $75,000 to St Simons Primary School, in Rowville; that money was spent on providing children with much-needed playground equipment in order to help build healthy minds and healthy bodies. In addition, at Knox Park Primary School, $65,000 was committed by the former coalition government to an essential upgrade of classrooms so that pupils and teachers could inhabit a safe and clean learning environment. Again, the coalition government contributed some $130,000 to the Yawarra Primary School, in my electorate, for a music room upgrade. I am a passionate advocate for an education that further develops a child’s appreciation and understanding of music, and the children at Yawarra now have access to a wonderful music program.

I am sure that all members in this place—perhaps bar those on the Treasury benches, unfortunately—would agree that these projects represent money well spent. The tragedy is that these and hundreds of other worthy projects around the nation would not have been realised if the former coalition government’s Investing in Our Schools Program had not provided these essential funds. Under Prime Minister Rudd, this Commonwealth initiative will be abolished. At no time during last year’s election campaign did Prime Minister Rudd suggest that his intent was to rip the heart out of primary school education. However, the Prime Minister is doing just that. The Investing in Our Schools Program was provided by the former coalition government to make up for the shortfall in state Labor government funding to schools.

As has become the norm under Labor, the state governments talk about exercising responsible governance but would much rather someone else foot the bill. Under the Investing in Our Schools Program, primary schools received around $800 million. With this program being dismantled under the Rudd government, they will receive absolutely nothing. One may ask how the Rudd government can do this. The sad answer appears to be that the Rudd government does not believe that the nation’s wonderful primary schools have earned the privilege of libraries, music rooms or playgrounds. Prime Minister Rudd has often proclaimed that there is to be an ‘education revolution’, but apparently that revolution stops at providing sufficient funding for the education of our nation’s children. The children in my electorate are at risk of having substandard facilities as they attempt to master their elementary education, which is one of the building blocks of a successful and, indeed, prosperous life.

Tonight I make an impassioned plea to the Prime Minister and his government to continue the funding of primary schools—and not just of my electorate of Aston but of the nation—to enable our fantastic teachers to educate our nation’s children in well-resourced halls of learning, not in dilapidated corridors. We have first-class teachers, but the Rudd government intends to arm them with second-rate teaching resources. The Rudd government’s failure to adequately provide for the education of our nation’s youth will be the most ignoble legacy that any Australian government has ever left. Author SJ Perelman once said:

Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century.

It is my hope that the Rudd government will not rob the Australian children of the 21st century of one of those fundamental building blocks that set them on the path to lifelong education. (Time expired)