Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion. Will the minister update the House on the visit to Australia by New York’s Chancellor of Schools, Joel Klein? How has this visit contributed to the education reform debate? Will the minister update the House on the government’s delivery of an education revolution?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moreton for his question and his interest in education. As members of the House are aware—and a number of members of the House actually availed themselves of the opportunity of meeting with him—Joel Klein, New York’s Chancellor of Schools, was in Australia this week, and in Canberra, speaking on education reform. He addressed a major event on the transformation of school education in Melbourne on Monday. He spoke at the National Press Club on Tuesday, and it was my pleasure to join him in Sydney last night at a dinner hosted by UBS with a number of leading business identities and education leaders to talk further about education reform. I take this opportunity to thank UBS for sponsoring not only last night’s event but also Joel Klein’s visit to this country.

I was able to speak last night at the event with Joel Klein and whilst there I announced that the Australian government will introduce a national program recruiting and training high-achieving graduates to teach in challenging schools around Australia. I called on business at that dinner to support this initiative and I am pleased to be able to say that our business community has already responded. Organisations like UBS, Microsoft and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation have already said that they would be involved. BCA, the Business Council of Australia, have already confirmed that they will play a coordinating role. I would like to thank them for their interest and these early indications of support.

This is also a scheme where the Victorian government has shown leadership and enthusiasm. It is already moving to implement a program, and the Rudd Labor government is committed to working with Victoria and states and territories around the nation to deliver this program. This scheme will work to recruit committed graduates, provide them with intensive training and mentoring, and then have them teach in some of the most challenging school environments in this country. This is a program about bringing the best and the brightest to the schools where they will make the most difference.

Beyond this initiative on teacher quality, which forms part of the government’s half a billion dollar plan for teacher quality—a plan that will be discussed and pursued by the Prime Minister at COAG this Saturday—the government is also determined to deliver a new era of transparency in school information. Joel Klein’s principal message to this nation is: if you are going to deliver excellence and equity—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order going to relevance. The question asked about the delivery of the education revolution and the minister appears to be avoiding answering the part of the question dealing with the collapse of the computers in schools program. When is she going to get to the collapse of the computers in schools program so that she can be relevant to the question?

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Sturt knows that that was not the way in which he should approach a point of order and, as he has already been warned, I would ask him to leave the chamber for one hour under standing order 94(a).

The member for Sturt then left the chamber.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think we have just seen an indication that not only did the Liberal Party fail to deliver on excellence and equity in education in government but in opposition it could not care less about anything other than cheap political point-scoring. I actually thought that members opposite showed interest in Joel Klein and his reform message, but I was wrong. They care nothing for the future of Australian students and Australian children—and the fact that that member serves as their shadow minister for education says it all. They care nothing about this reform agenda. Despite the active disinterest of those opposite in education excellence and equity for Australian children, the Rudd Labor government will pursue its education revolution.

Amongst the things they are completely disinterested in is our plans for a new era of transparency in Australian schooling. We believe that parents and members of the public should have available to them full information about what is happening in Australian schools—information about academic results, information about who is teaching in schools and information about the resources in schools. Who is opposed to these measures? Of course the Liberal Party is demonstrating its opposition through the way in which it is treating the Schools Assistance Bill 2008.

We are determined that across this nation a new era of transparency, coupled with new investments in teacher quality, will make a difference for children in every school. Our aim is excellence in every school across the country, irrespective of which school sector it is in. Our aim is to make a difference, particularly to disadvantaged students. And should the members opposite ever choose to think about education policy—and I think that that is unlikely—and about the prospects for reform in education, they might like to reflect on why at the end of 12 years of the Liberal Party in government this nation on international testing still had a long tail of disadvantaged students from poor families not achieving minimum benchmarks and students who were high achievers being let down by the system. This is a track record of failure at the top of the achievement band and a track record of failure for children at the lower end of the achievement band. We will make a difference on quality. We believe that every child, whether from a poor family or from a rich family, deserves a good education. It is a pity that the Liberal Party cares absolutely nothing about it.