Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I was interrupted, I was outlining some of the concerns that we on this side of the House still have with the proposed national curriculum. In the first instance I was referring to our concern about the lack of an overall framework, which governs the national curriculum, and the lack of clear direction, which underpins it. I was then moving on to talk about the fact that the curriculum has a very heavy emphasis on Asian and Indigenous culture but does not give a similar weight to our British heritage or our Judeo-Christian traditions. I advise the House that they should read the IPA's monograph on the national curriculum. It is called The national curriculuma critique. It noted that Western culture and civilisation are:

… virtually absent from the national curriculum as it is currently conceived.

I think that is an area which needs to be re-examined, relooked at and incorporated into the national curriculum in terms of our overall British and Western heritage and our Judeo-Christian heritage, which we inherited, as well as Asian and Indigenous culture.

Some of the other concerns that we have raised are over the lack of appropriate resources which will be attached to the implementation of the national curriculum. There many other issues which Christopher Pyne, the shadow minister for education, has raised.

We are moving two amendments to enhance the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill. The first is to ensure that schools are provided with appropriate support to implement the national curriculum. One of our criticisms has been that there has not been that support in the form of professional development training for teachers to implement the curriculum.

The second is to ensure that there is a clear representation of the non-government school sector with respect to decision-making processes for future time lines of the national curriculum. Again, one of the problems I was referring to beforehand was that the non-government school sector was out of sync with the government school sector. I think part of that has come about due to the fact that the non-government school sector has not been at the decision-making table. These amendments would ensure that they are always at the decision-making table on issues which affect their schools. Given that they make up a third of all school students in the country, it seems to be a very sensible thing to do.

Let me conclude by saying that, like many things the government has touched, the national curriculum has involved delays, bungles and underdelivery against the government's rhetoric. This national curriculum was supposed to be finished and implemented by January 2011. Of course it has not been and now probably will not be implemented until 2013 or 2014. It was supposed to be a smooth process but it has not been anything of the sort. In fact, every single stakeholder group has in some respect complained about the drafts that have been presented and asked for significant changes.

Finally, it was supposed to have been delivered already according to the Prime Minister's own words of July 2010 when she said:

This nation's talked about national curriculum for 30 years. I delivered it.

She has not delivered it. It is nowhere near being delivered. It will be several years late from when she claimed she delivered it, but I suggest she takes that time and gets the national curriculum right because it will have a significant impact across all schools in our community. It needs to be properly thought through and properly considered and the government needs to get the content right. As I have mentioned before in this House, we ideally should have bipartisan support, at least in relation to the broad framework of the national curriculum, so that schools in the future can have confidence that it will not be chopped and changed but, rather, there will be a consistent framework governing the curriculum going forward.

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I take the opportunity to speak on the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill, which deals with the national curriculum in Australian schools. I think it is extremely important that we have a consistent and uniform curriculum across all schools in this nation.

Australian education has changed enormously over the decades. I particularly want to draw to the House's attention the fact that families are more transient than ever before. Long gone are the days when kids would remain in the same school to receive their education. The reality is that families these days have to move from town to town or state to state, and it is important that those children are not disadvantaged as a consequence of the work pattern that their parents have to undertake. That is why it is important that we have a standard uniform curriculum that provides young people with the opportunity to move from school to school, state to state and to be able to pick up almost where they left off at their previous school.

It is also important that that curriculum remains modern and contemporary for the needs of our nation and the needs of those families and students. Long gone are the days when we studied history, particularly in the context of colonialisation and British history. We have a much more diverse history than that, and our curriculum needs to recognise that. It needs to build on that and reflect the great tradition and diversity we have in Australia. It also needs to instil in students creative thinking and an understanding of ethical behaviour. Personal and social consequences and intercultural understanding are an important part and are important Australian values, and our curriculum needs to very clearly recognise that and instil in our young people the necessary skills to be able to respond to what is now a very multicultural society. The details of these bills are important and I would like to take some time to go through them. The regulation will prescribe as the national curriculum any new version of the Australian Curriculum authorised by the Council of Australian Governments Standing Council for School Education and Early Childhood. The amendment will provide a more certain legal framework for the non-government sector in which to implement the national curriculum and provide greater administrative efficiency for prescribing the phased introduction of the curriculum.

Australia has a world-class curriculum that recognises the 21st century. We have a world-class curriculum in the development of skills and knowledge in all of the important areas—English, mathematics, science and history, with development in geography, languages and arts well underway to be implemented at a later time. For the first time, students all over Australia will be studying the same curriculum in the four key areas. As I mentioned earlier, families move around much more than they have historically. State boundaries have become a problem for students and families, particularly when it comes to slotting kids into new schools in different areas. They find that subjects that they have already learnt are now being taught and that they miss out on other subjects through the course of their studies. It is important that we provide uniformity in our curriculum so that young students are not disadvantaged in that regard.

It is also important that we recognise that we have two forms of school education in Australia: one provided by the states and territories and the other provided by independent providers. As students move between government schools, students also move between private and independent schools and government schools and vice versa. Again, it is important that we recognise that fact and have uniformity of education wherever possible, particularly in the key fundamental areas of education such as English, languages, science, mathematics, the arts and the like. That is extremely important.

I would like to report that I have 70-odd schools that service my electorate. It is a diverse bunch of schools teaching a very diverse bunch of students. My electorate covers some 7,000 square kilometres and many of my students have to travel some distance to access education. All of those families require quality education for their children. I would also like to point out that not only have we in the government been busy with respect to establishing decent curriculum standards across this nation but also we have invested substantially in the infrastructure that is required to help support modern education, whether through the provision of language labs in secondary schools or libraries and multipurpose classrooms and the like in primary schools—again, providing flexible learning spaces that give students every opportunity to access that curriculum in a modern way.

I would like to take this opportunity to point to a number of primary schools particularly in my electorate that, whilst they have received special funds under the Building the Education Revolution program, are in desperate need of a boost to help support a modern curriculum. (Quorum formed)

Obviously the tactics committee and the Liberal Party has been flat out this afternoon. Before the quorum was called, I was talking about a number of primary schools in my electorate that require a substantial amount of funding to help them rebuild themselves. I draw the attention of the House to Portarlington Primary School and Birregurra Primary School, both of which have a substantial number of buildings which have been there a very long time and should be bulldozed and replaced with new, modern facilities to provide modern infrastructure so that the curriculum can be—

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order: understanding standing order 76, I put it to you that what the member is speaking about is not relevant to the matter before us—that is, the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011, not a listing of BER grants in his electorate, which is what we are hearing.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I counsel the honourable member for Corangamite to observe the standing orders; however I do draw to the attention of the honourable member for Bradfield the long title of the bill, which is 'a bill for an act to amend the law relating to education and for related purposes'. The addition of the words 'and for related purposes' does tend to widen somewhat the ambit of the discussion. The member for Corangamite has the call.

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those are very wise words, Mr Deputy Speaker. To deliver curriculum in schools in a modern way, you need modern facilities, and the BER program provided modern facilities for schools. Having said that, there are some schools that still require further assistance with the building of infrastructure so that they can deliver a modern, flexible curriculum that responds to national need, and Portarlington Primary School and Birregurra Primary School are two examples of schools that are old and need investment. Whilst those school communities have very much appreciated the BER investment in those schools, it is incumbent upon the state government to come to the table and help support those school communities in their time of need.

Within my electorate I have many communities that are rapidly growing. The people in those communities come from diverse backgrounds, and they appreciate and recognise the importance of having strong education for their kids. This government has done more to reform education in all sectors than any other government has done since Federation. Our side, the Labor Party, is very proud of that. We recognise that the best way to give a student a decent life is to give them a decent education, and the cornerstone of that is having a strong curriculum that is flexible and creative and enables our students to grow in a way that we all can be extremely proud of.

I am very pleased that a number of schools have come together and made a very strong application for a trades training centre. Indeed, they have picked up a grant to build a new trades training facility that will look after the Coolac, Apollo Bay and Lavers Hill communities. If we want to have a curriculum that delivers strongly for students in our electorates we need to make sure that we provide the facilities that are appropriate to the curriculum, and trades training will provide opportunities to young people. We also need to make sure that we have in our schools appropriate access to computers, because for anyone— (Time expired)

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011. The Schools Assistance Act 2008 currently provides for the funding arrangements for non-government schools to be continued upon implementation of the national curriculum by 31 January 2012. With the legislation as it now stands, if the curriculum is not implemented by the stated date the Australian government could require reimbursement of these funds. The amendment proposed in the bill repeals the implementation date of 31 January 2012 and replaces it with a standing regulation that takes into account the staged development and implementation of the national curriculum. Also, the proposed amendment provides that the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood and Youth Affairs will determine new timelines.

When the initial legislation on the national curriculum was drafted in 2008, it was anticipated that the national curriculum would be finalised and ready to be rolled out by the beginning of 2011. However, the government underestimated the complexities of the task at hand, and the national curriculum is far from finalised. Like most programs developed by this Labor government, the development of the national curriculum has been poorly managed. The coalition is supportive of the principle of an Australian curriculum; however, the final version has not been approved and most jurisdictions will not begin its implementation until 2013. The legislation before us therefore needs amendment. It should be noted that the coalition attempted to make the necessary amendments in March this year; but at that point the minister seemed unaware that there would be a problem.

In 2008, education ministers adopted the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians. The declaration affirmed:

As a nation Australia values the central role of education in building a democratic, equitable and just society—a society that is prosperous, cohesive and culturally diverse, and that values Australia's Indigenous cultures as a key part of the nation's history, present and future.

It further affirmed:

Schools play a vital role in promoting the intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development and wellbeing of young Australians, and in ensuring the nation's ongoing economic prosperity and social cohesion.

These are the guiding principles that have informed the development of the national curriculum, and, as guiding principles, they are admirable in their intent. However the requirement to amend this legislation highlights delays in the rollout of the curriculum and concerns associated with its development that have not been addressed. The fact that this parliament needs to consider this bill is evidence that the Labor government has not delivered on its commitment. In April 2008, the Labor Prime Minister promised 'A national curriculum publicly available and which can start to be delivered in all jurisdictions from January 2011'. One year ago during the election campaign the Labor Prime Minister said: 'This nation's talked about national curriculum for 30 years. I delivered it.' The documents are still far from ready and there continue to be significant concerns with the process.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority is continuing to develop the national curriculum. The initial consultation on the K to year 10 documents for English, maths, science and history occurred between March and May of last year. Comments were incorporated and further consultation with expert educators was undertaken. The Labor government is planning to present a final draft to education ministers in October of this year for approval at the ministerial council. A similar process is being followed for the senior curriculum and its development is continuing.

However, as mentioned, there have been a number of issues associated with the development of the national curriculum. The first of these is that there was inadequate representation of the non-government sector on the relevant subcommittee reporting to the ministerial council. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2010, 71 per cent of schools in Australia were public schools, with the remaining 29 per cent Catholic or independent schools. In the same year, the total number of students in Australian schools increased by 26,071 with 63 per cent of that figure comprising private school students. Since 2000, the number of students in private schools has increased by 21 per cent, whereas the number of students in public schools has increased only by one per cent. Given these figures, is it not unreasonable to expect that a sector that is currently servicing a third of our children and is growing should have a voice on the subcommittee?

Parents are voting with their feet and exercising their right to choose where and how their children are educated. In the coalition we support the right of parents to choose which school their children attend. We believe the independent sector should be maintained as a viable choice for as many parents as possible. We also recognise that every child that is in the private system is a child that is not placing a burden on taxpayer funded public education. Freedom of choice is a key Liberal value and is one that many members of my community have exercised when choosing schools for their children. In this context, we believe that the independent school sector should also have a strong voice on the subcommittee reporting to the ministerial council and the sector should also have a say in the decisions regarding implementation time frames.

The nature of the curriculum documents themselves has also been questioned. The Labor government's curriculum documents lack clarity of direction and an overarching framework. We are concerned that there is too much ideology driving the content of the curriculum. For example, there is a predominant focus in Indigenous and Asian culture without similar weight being given to British heritage or our Judeo-Christian traditions. This raises serious concerns about the balance and the content that is going to be taught in our schools.

In addition, there are concerns that the national curriculum is overcrowded, meaning that many schools will be left without the flexibility to deliver programs that correspond with their particular philosophy—for example, in the area of the arts. There is also an excessive focus on content rather than the development of essential critical and creative thinking skills in students. Furthermore, the documents appear not to have enough flexibility to cater for children who require additional support or those who are particularly talented. Issues have been raised regarding, for example, the science curriculum documents which are purported to be so difficult that students may actually be discouraged from studying the sciences. This would be a terrible outcome.

The other concern with the national curriculum, separate from the documents themselves, lies in how it is to be implemented. Teachers have expressed serious concerns with regard to the support they receive as the curriculum is rolled out. The Federal President of the Australian Education Union said recently 'We're seriously worried by the absence of any funding to support the implementation'. The unions should be concerned. This government's track record at delivering programs is absolutely abysmal—think pink batts, think school halls. The national curriculum is far too important to go the same way as these failed programs. A rollout without the necessary training and support for our teachers who will have to deliver the content is a recipe for the disasters that have become the hallmark of this Labor government.

In order to go some way towards dealing with a couple of these issues, we urge members opposite to support the amendments the coalition is moving. The first of these will underscore the importance of ensuring that schools and teachers receive the support and professional training they require in order to effectively implement the curriculum. The second amendment will ensure that the independent school sector receives representation and is consulted on the time lines associated with the implementation of the curriculum. The coalition supports the legislative amendment proposed by this bill in recognition that implementation of the national curriculum is going to take much longer than originally anticipated and is yet another failed Labor promise. A three-year implementation for phase 1 of the Australian curriculum commencing this year with implementation by 2013 is likely. However, a time frame for phase 1 of the senior secondary curriculum is yet to be agreed. Furthermore, updates to the curriculum will be required from time to time. The amendment is designed to provide a mechanism whereby the staged introduction and any amendments can be accommodated. However, there are worrying deficiencies in the process. There is no non-government sector representation on the Australian Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs Senior Officials Committee, which reports to the ministerial council, and there is no plan to support teachers and schools in the implementation of the curriculum. They are areas of significant concern. The coalition's amendments address these issues.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In December 2010, the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs endorsed the foundation to year 10 Australian curriculum in the initial four learning areas of English, mathematics, science and history. Ministers agreed that from 2011 states and territories will commence staged implementation of the agreed Australian curriculum, with substantial implementation to be completed by the end of 2013.

It is time for change and to re-evaluate how education is provided and how it can best be delivered. Over time the need for a national curriculum has become clear. In the past people did not move as much and often one completed one's education in the same town or region. Now people are much more footloose and have to move more from state to state to find work. Having a national curriculum allows children to be able to be assessed against their peers, because they will not have the disadvantage of trying to get used to different systems.

I would like to use this opportunity to talk about education generally and how we should look further at change. We need more flexibility in where one undertakes schooling. Recently we had a situation in Tasmania where many of our country schools had come under threat of closure because of budget cuts. Suddenly there was a list of 20 schools that were earmarked for closure without any consultation with their communities or their families. (Quorum formed) It may have passed without comment in the past, but the way it was thrust onto these communities had them up in arms. Twenty school communities went out and manned barricades. They used modern tools such as Facebook for communications, and they had families from the schools together raising funds and awareness. In 18 days they achieved a ministerial backdown. The decision makers were surprised and shocked at the reaction. But the state government, although chastened, put out a message that it was not over yet. A teacher friend of mine, Ivan Webb, offered this analysis of the situation:

… 20 Tasmanian school communities are already better prepared for what is to come. These communities still have Facebook and a whole new set of knowledge, skills, experiences, networks and relationships and a clearer sense of their own identities. They have transformed their initial sense of being at the edge of chaos into something that could be very useful to all concerned—

and which needs to be sustained and developed. He went on:

Managed well, there is a close potential link between innovation and being at the edge of chaos, but it does require a change of mindset.

I cannot think of anything that the policy decision makers—government and government departments—have to enable them to match what the school communities have done in 18 days.

Admittedly the nature of the schemes has changed, particularly since the arrival of the internet and systems that are now networks, often to larger anonymous agents. Systems, including school systems, can no longer be treated as production lines with an overlay of organisational trees that describe the relative status, power and authority of those involved. Closing a school is not something that can be done on the basis of numbers; it is a complex and uncertain task with broad ramifications. Parents and communities place a very high value on the current wellbeing and long-term success of their children. When it comes to success and wellbeing, parents and communities are confident about their local schools. Their confidence in the minister, government and the department has been severely undermined.

School closures failed this time for two reasons: they were based on a very narrow discourse and they were set up as win-lose and would have resulted in a net loss. The losses to the students, their families and community would have been far greater than the modest financial gains to the government. The next step is for the lessons to be learned. This means taking advantage of the current situation to learn as much as possible and develop a new sustainable dialogue around all schools—what they are for and how to manage their futures. The important conversation we need to have is not just between some schools and the government. The fundamental fight is about how we as a state understand, talk about, utilise and value our schools and their futures: what they are, what they do and how they make things possible. And this involves all schools, communities, governments and departments. The conversation really counts, and it needs to be ongoing, not just happening when there is an urgent need for the government to reduce spending. The conversation should include the full range of direct and indirect costs, benefits, values, relationships and possibilities associated with schools. These are best captured as stories of real people in real contexts, as schools have demonstrated. This is what schools have all been gathering to share in recent weeks, and it has worked well for them.

Schools should look after their stories well. There will come a time when they will be needed again—not only for the sake of the school but also to help the decision makers make better decisions next time. Hopefully the proposed reference group will be wise enough to tap into this goldmine before it dissipates. Governments worldwide are reducing spending, and this will continue.

To be successful, the conversation needs to be open, rich and interactive—not constrained by a narrow set of terms of reference with a particular outcome in mind. It needs to lead to innovation and overall win-win outcomes, which may or may not result in some actual closures. The schools have demonstrated that this can be done. Facebook has played a key role. There are tools for enabling even more focused and productive outcomes. It is now time for ministers, governments and departments to catch up. I think we should be aware of this in the federal sphere too. There was some criticism of this government providing funds under the Building the Education Revolution—yet schools in my electorate were able to renew their education spaces for the first time in some 50 or more years.

The renewals included new technology as well as buildings. This means students are able to use interactive whiteboards as a learning tool, which not only puts a bit of fun into their learning but also means they can be in touch with other children around the state, the country and even the world to undertake learning programs as well as maths games and games with numbers.

By unwittingly providing the tools to galvanise their communities against school closures, they have also prepared their schools to go out into the community and help be part of the local economy, the driving force behind future directions. Isn't that what education is all about—preparing our children to help Tasmania thrive and develop new jobs and new directions and to build a viable future for themselves?

With the latest in digital technology, computers, laptops and videophones, children can communicate with the rest of world very easily. They do not have to move further than their classroom to catch up with the latest trends at the next big school or an equivalent school in, say, Ireland or any other country in the world. It is all there at their fingertips. Smaller schools allow greater participation in this style of reality learning. And students do not have to miss out on sporting or other extracurricular activities either— (Time expired)

(Quorum formed)

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

I rise to speak on the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011. The bill will amend the act to repeal the current implementation date of 31 January 2012 and substitute a new provision enabling a standing regulation to prescribe a national curriculum and associated implementation time frames. This means that, subject to the passage of this bill, there will no longer be a deadline or due date in legislation from when the national curriculum is required to commence. Instead, to allow for future additions and revisions to the nation curriculum, the government is proposing that any version will need approval by the Council of Australian Governments' Standing Council on School Education and Early Childhood, formerly known as the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs. The implementation time frames will be prescribed as those agreed by the standing council.

This bill before us today is clear evidence that the Labor Party have failed to deliver on their commitment to a nation curriculum. If they had delivered on the national curriculum I would not need to stand here today before the parliament to talk to this bill. The explanatory memorandum of the bill states:

At the time of the Act's drafting in 2008, an implementation deadline of 31 January 2012 was anticipated for the development and rollout of the national curriculum across the school sector. Given the phased approach to developing the national curriculum, the extent of consultations undertaken in its development, and the need for flexibility in implementation, a legislative amendment is necessary to better accommodate this phased curriculum development and implementation process.

The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, originally said in 2008, when she was the Minister for Education, that the curriculum would take three years to develop and be ready to implement by January 2011. The Prime Minister also claimed, before the last federal election, that one of her biggest achievements was delivering a national curriculum. She made statements prior to the federal election such as: 'This nation's talked about national curriculum for 30 years. I delivered it.' The truth is that after nearly four years of Labor the curriculum documents for the first stage of a national curriculum, years K to 10, in the areas of English, maths, science and history still remain in draft and have not been given final approval by each of the states and territories.

Due to the well-documented bungling of a national curriculum the final version has not been approved by the ministerial council to date and most states will not even begin implementation until 2013 or 2014, so the original legislation needed changing. I also helpfully pointed out to the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth earlier this year, when a one-year extension for the current funding arrangements for non-government schools was being considered by this parliament, that he would need to remove the requirement for non-government schools across Australia to implement the curriculum by January 2012. Much to my surprise he appeared to have missed that the 31 January deadline might have been a problem, or perhaps he was, as usual, asleep at the wheel. In an attempt to assist the minister for school education, the coalition sought to fix this for him and remove the 2012 start date, but he did not, inexplicably, support the coalition's amendment.

Obviously the coalition recognises that this needs changing. Schools cannot implement a curriculum that is simply not ready or is still in draft. For this reason we will not oppose the bill. Instead, the government has had to introduce a entire new bill to fix the curriculum oversight rather than simply addressing it earlier in the year by eating humble pie and supporting the coalition's amendment. We find ourselves debating this bill because the Labor government, one of the worst in our nation's history, is incapable of delivering anything on time or on budget.

Schools need funding certainty, and for this reason we will not oppose the bill. Nevertheless, this bill has provided a further opportunity for considering how the government might be able to improve on existing arrangements related to the curriculum process.

The coalition supports a national curriculum in principle. Our concerns are not with the concept but, rather, the direction the curriculum is heading under Labor. I can assure you, Deputy Speaker Slipper, that these concerns are shared across the entire education sector. The Australian Curriculum Coalition recently wrote to me, the minister for school education and all state and territory education ministers outlining a number of concerns about the government's progress, or lack of progress. The government cannot possibly stand here today and suggest that the curriculum is going well. Please do not make us laugh with the claim that it is on schedule.

The Australian Curriculum Coalition comprises 10 peak bodies from both the government and non-government sectors. It includes the Australian Association for Research in Education, the Australian College of Educators, the Australian Council for Educational Leaders, the Australian Curriculum Studies Association, the Australian Education Union, Lutheran Education Australia, the Australian Special Education Principals Association, the Australian Professional Teachers Association, the Australian Secondary Principals Association and the Independent Education Union of Australia—not a group that you would normally see gathering together to oppose a government measure. The statement opened by saying:

The Australian Curriculum Coalition (ACC) believes that it is imperative at this midpoint in the development of the Australian Curriculum that thoughtful and considered deliberation be given to implementation of critical elements of the proposed curriculum.

It has become evident to members of the ACC that underpinning principles of the national curriculum have not been given adequate regard or sufficient resources committed to their development and that federal, state and territory governments are on the verge of endorsing a curriculum that does not meet the objective of the Australian government of: delivering a world class education system to ensure Australians are armed with the knowledge and skills to meet the demands of the 21st Century.

The letter then goes on in detail to describe each of the activities that the ministerial council promised to address last year, when the draft curriculum was being considered.

Final approval was not given to the national curriculum, as was originally planned by the government last year, due to a number of deficiencies with it. But do not just take my word for it. I will read an extract of the council's communique from December last year to make my point here, because I have noticed that the minister for school education in recent interviews on this subject has been very misleading. The council wrote:

So far from the curriculum being historically endorsed, as the minister for education would try to lead you to believe, what actually happened last year was that all ministers agreed that a whole lot more work needs to be done before the curriculum can even think of being approved.

Have any of these issues been addressed nearly nine months later? Apparently not, according to the Australian Curriculum Coalition, and it will come as a shock to members of the House to discover that nine months later virtually nothing has been achieved. The Australian Curriculum Coalition made the observation:

Disappointingly neither time, resources nor political will has seen these matters seriously addressed.

They called on the federal, state and territory education ministers to immediately commit to the priority work needed to develop a genuinely 21st century curriculum by addressing the matters of concern raised by the sector and fulfil the intent on the resolution of that important MCEECDYA meeting last year. They noted:

Without this resolve, Australia is in danger of producing and adopting a national curriculum that is little more than a 'content revamp' of mid-twentieth century curricula.

There is, however, an example of at least one minister who has acted since the Australian Curriculum Coalition's scathing letter and does have the resolve to see these issues addressed. Just last week the Hon. Adrian Piccoli, the Minister for Education in New South Wales, announced the New South Wales state government's decision to delay the introduction of the new Australian curriculum by at least a year until 2014. He acted upon the expert advice provided by the New South Wales Board of Studies that the curriculum is not yet of a high enough standard to be introduced into New South Wales. He has also suggested that federal resources for teacher professional development are needed before the curriculum can be adequately rolled out in New South Wales.

His decision has been met with widespread support from education stakeholders in New South Wales, including the NSW Teachers Federation—not know to be a friend of the coalition—and non-government school sector bodies in that state. Even the NSW Teachers Federation President, Bob Lipscombe, who has had much to say about the perceived inadequacies of the coalition over the years, has said:

The Australian curriculum's not ready to be implemented in NSW. We must be careful to ensure that when we do implement it we don't do it in a way that undermines the already high curriculum standards in this state. There are issues around the overarching framework it fits in and importantly there are also issues around the resourcing that will be put in place to support its implementation. Until these questions are addressed by the Federal Government, then a delay is quite appropriate.

The Federal President of the Australian Education Union, Angelo Gavrielatos, while charming, is not known to be a supporter of the coalition's policies in education. Even he said:

We still have a series of concerns with respect to the development of the national curriculum … we're also seriously worried by the absence of any funding to support the implementation.

So the coalition and the Australian Education Union are on a unity ticket opposing the implementation of a national curriculum that is neither ready for nor married with the required resources to ensure that it can be introduced successfully. The Independent Education Union President, Chris Watt, said:

We've been saying for a long time that getting the content right is important and it looks like we might be getting towards an end point, although teachers still have not seen the final documents …

It appears the only person who does not have any concern about the national curriculum process is the hapless Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth.

If a national curriculum is to serve the learning needs of our children, the implementation process must not be hurried in the manner of the minister for school education's Home Insulation Program, or the Prime Minister's bungled schools hall program. This is just too important to get wrong. I would have thought the member for Kingston would have thought that it was time for the minister for school education to get a policy right rather than to get it in. The minister for school education was so determined to implement his pink batts program that he was prepared to do so without the necessary protections being in place for householders to ensure that they did not face burning ceilings or even the tragic deaths that eventuated out of the implementation of the minister for school's disastrous pink batts program. That program will live in infamy as one of the most unsuccessful programs in the history of this place since Federation, and yet again the minister for school education is doing the same thing with the national curriculum.

Experts agree that the content will overwhelm teachers with no funding or support for the necessary training for the rollout to succeed. And doesn't that sound familiar? They are the criticisms that the national electrical organisations made back when the minister for school education was the minister responsible for the pink batts program. They warned the minister that there was not sufficient implementation funding and that there was not sufficient training and of course we saw the tragic results that the minister for schools presided over. While he did not lose his scalp over his disastrous performance as a minister, it certainly contributed to the axing of the former Prime Minister, the member for Griffith, on that infamous day last year.

For these reasons, and because we want to try to help the government in spite of its hopeless approach, the coalition will move two amendments. The first relates to the importance of ensuring that schools are provided with appropriate support and assistance to implement the Australian curriculum. That amendment states:

(1) Schedule 1, item 1, page 3 (lines 8 to 11), omit all the words from and including "require" to the end of subsection 22(1), substitute:

(a) require the relevant authority for the school or system to ensure that the school, or each school in the system, implements the national curriculum prescribed by the regulations in accordance with the regulations; and

(b) provide such funding as is necessary to ensure that each teacher in the school or system has received professional development in the implementation of the national curriculum in accordance with a nationally consistent professional development program.

Currently there is no nationally agreed or consistent approach across jurisdictions to ensure that all schools are receiving the support in the area of teacher professional learning to be able to implement the Australian Curriculum. This point was made by the Independent Schools Council of Australia's submission to the inquiry into this bill. They said:

ISCA would like to highlight the importance of ensuring that schools are provided with appropriate support and assistance to implement the Australian Curriculum. Currently there is no agreed or consistent approach across or within jurisdictions to ensure that all schools are receiving the support required to implement the Australian Curriculum, particularly in the area of teacher professional learning.

Again, Deputy Speaker D'Ath, you do not need to take my word for it that this issue is only relevant to non-government schools. Unions representing teachers in government schools in Queensland and South Australia, from where the member for Kingston comes—and, in fact, from where the member for Brisbane comes—have now added their voices to the concerns of New South Wales that the necessary training and support required to implement the curriculum are not in place. Perhaps the member for Kingston, having observed the redistributed boundaries for South Australia, now believes that she is so untouchable in her seat of Kingston that she no longer has to listen to government school teachers or government school principals or the parents of children in government schools.

Ms Rishworth interjecting—

Maybe she, like the Prime Minister, has adopted the Marie Antoinette approach to politics—which is to say, 'Let them eat cake!'—when they cannot ensure that their teachers have the adequate training and professional development. Perhaps she has adopted the approach of wondering why these people are unable to—

Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order. Madam Acting Deputy Speaker D'Ath, I draw your attention to the noise across the chamber and I ask that you bring the member for Kingston to order.

Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Member for Brisbane. There has been some interjection from both sides. I ask that both sides of the chamber remind themselves that the member for Sturt has the right to be heard in silence.

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

I very much appreciate the support and protection of the member for Brisbane. The member for Kingston is becoming ever more brutish as her margin increases and she believes that she does not need to pay any attention to the voters in her electorate of Kingston.

Last week it was reported that Education Union members in South Australia have asked the state government for a 12-month delay until 2014. I have been advocating for a long time that there needs to be a clear national plan for teacher professional development and specific resources allocated by the government for this. The government's National Partnership for Teacher Quality, which provides funding for teacher support, is not explicit that funding is set aside for the purpose of supporting teachers with respect to the national curriculum.

The coalition's second amendment seeks to include clear representation of the non-government school sector with respect to decision-making processes for future time lines for the national curriculum. That would read:

(2) Schedule 1, item 1, page 3 (after line 11), after subsection 22(1), insert:

(1A) The national curriculum must not be prescribed unless the non-government school sector has had input into its development through membership and/or observer status on the Australian Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs Senior Officials Committee.

[national curriculum—non-government school sector Input]

I have written to the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth previously asking that he give consideration to representation on the standing council or on its advisory officials committee, the Australian Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs Senior Officials Committee. I believe that having representation at this level would be beneficial to add an extra layer of consultation on a range of issues affecting the sector and this representation would be a valuable source of strategic advice for any government in the future. This would provide a formal mechanism by which the non-government schools sector could be adequately and appropriately consulted in the lead-up to decisions regarding implementation time frames for the national curriculum.

You will note that in its submission to the House standing committee inquiry into this bill, the National Catholic Education Commission's submission notes:

…that a significant number—one in three—students in Australia attend non-government schools, and that neither national non-government school peak body has any representation on the Ministerial Council of Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs, the body that governs the work of ACARA and thus the work on the Australian Curriculum.

Having improved representation on the standing council's senior officials committee would add a safeguard that non-government schools would be adequately and appropriately consulted in the lead-up to decisions regarding implementation time frames.

It seems unthinkable to me that with the number of parents who have chosen to send their children to non-government schools—namely, one in three—they are not represented on the appropriate bodies that make the decisions in relation to education in Australia. The member for Bass comes from the state where there has recently been a crisis of confidence in the education minister. The Greens leader tried to close dozens of schools until I made a trip through Tasmania highlighting the issue and drawing attention to the failures of the state education minister. He then, within days of my leaving Tasmania, reversed his position. I am glad to see that it is still possible to put political pressure on any kind of government to ensure that they reverse a bad decision. I am glad that the minister there, Nick McKim, listened to the concerns I highlighted during my trip through Tasmania by holding public rallies and backed down from a very bad decision. I went to the member for Bass's electorate in Launceston and spoke to non-government schools there. You would think it was an important enough issue for him to lobby the minister for school education in relation to the representation of non-government schools on a national body such as this.

I do realise that 'improved representation' could also mean something as straightforward as receiving agenda papers and draft minutes from either the standing council or the Australian Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs Senior Officials Committee. Nevertheless, my amendment, if adopted, would enable improved representation of non-government sector authorities on this body. If I were minister for school education, I would certainly take up the opportunity and be grateful to have representation by the non-government sector at this level. These two modest amendments would go a long way in alleviating some of the reoccurring concerns about the curriculum process and have been endorsed by non-government sector authorities, both the NCEC and the ISCA. The government need to act to address the concerns being raised over the curriculum processes. They need to act now and take action to prevent further delays to the curriculum.

Defence families across Australia are frustrated that there is still no national consistency of curriculum between the states after four years of Labor. And I know the member for Fadden has a particular interest in the defence families in his electorate and, as a former of the defence services, he knows full well the pressures that defence families are already under because of the strenuous lifestyle that they lead and the pressures and stresses under which they are placed. As the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth has pointed out there are 80,000 students that cross state borders through the period of a year. These students are depending on the minister for schools to start addressing some of the practical issues that are leading to the delay of a national curriculum in schools.

I also read the House standing committee's report on the inquiry into this bill. I noted the committee's comment that this bill is uncontroversial. While I agree with this statement in part, in that non-government schools cannot possibly be expected to implement a curriculum in a mere six months time, the events that have led to this are most certainly not uncontroversial. Unless the minister for school education starts taking some serious remedial action to save the national curriculum, many people in the sector are beginning to doubt whether it is ever going to eventuate.

I hope the crossbenchers take some time to deliberate on the coalition's suggestions for improvement and consult with the non-government sectors, who have indicated to me that they support these simple and modest improvements. I have written to the crossbenchers on two occasions outlining my amendments and seeking their support. I would remind the crossbenchers that my previous amendment on the earlier bill, which did not receive majority support, would have removed the deadline from the legislation, alleviating the need for this new change.

My amendments today are necessary as well and I hope they will receive support. I would remind the crossbenchers that, if I had been listened to previously by the government and by the crossbenchers, we would not be here listening to my speech today. Some members of the chamber might regard that as a silver lining. However, unfortunately, because of the ineptness of the minister for school education, we are here and I am needing to once again point out the inadequacies of a very weak minister, a minister who is like a pane of glass at cabinet meetings—you could look straight through him and nobody would even know he was there. Education is far too important to be in the hands of a minister who is a pane of glass and who has no influence at all on the decision-making process.

I would also point out that even though in July he was putting out press releases attacking me as the shadow minister and claiming that the Computers in Schools program was on track for delivery this year—even though we had pointed out that the government would deliver 45 per cent of the program in six months, having delivered 55 per cent in three years—the decision had already been made by the government in June that they would not be able to meet the deadline. But nobody told the minister for school education. In June the government had already decided—as shown in leaked documents that were in the Australian Financial Review last Thursday—that they would not meet the deadline for Computers in Schools this year and yet a month later the poor, old minister for school education was putting out a press release saying that it was on track and on schedule.

The problem is that nobody tells him what is going on. That was his defence when he was the minister for pink batts program. He always used to have excuses—the tram got a flat tyre or 'The dog ate my homework'. The reality is that he is not up to being the minister for school education, and it is far too important. There are 3.6 million students in schools across Australia. They are relying on the minister for school education to get it right. God help them!

Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak on the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011 and to associate myself with the comments made by the member for Sturt. I am pleased to support the amendments to the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill. They are a very important step in rectifying the failings that we have seen in the proposed implementation time line of the national curriculum over the last three years, and I wholeheartedly support these amendments.

I believe in a system of education that is outcomes focused and a system that enables students to achieve their full potential as functioning members of our society. In the electorate of Brisbane we have over 40 schools and we are fortunate to have a plethora of choice in government, Catholic and independent education options for our children. For many years the non-government education providers, from All Hallows—my old school—to Gregory Terrace, St Margaret's, St James, St Rita's, Clayfield College and Brisbane boys and girls grammar schools, have provided a quality education and quality service to the children of the Brisbane electorate. I am very grateful for their contribution to this great state of Queensland through their combined years of dedicated service to the community. It was good to spend some time with the school community at St Finbarrs at the Marist hall yesterday for their annual fundraiser, which saw some 500 parents, supporters and sponsors attend. It was a great event.

I have been watching the national curriculum with great interest, because every time I visit a school usually a teacher will pull me aside and wring their hands with horror and ask me what is going on. It can be as simple a question as to what is happening with the citizenship program that a number of schools participate in—and many of us see schools come to Canberra to visit us. They are quite horrified by what they are seeing in the curriculum. They ask me if the citizenship program will stay in the primary school sector, as they hear rumours going around that it will be moved to the high school level. They really do not know what is going on and they are very confused and frustrated. They have been watching this process with great frustration. That is why we are all looking with very keen interest at the national curriculum debate and why these particular amendments are very, very important, particularly for non-government schools in the Brisbane electorate and other parts of Australia. These non-government schools serve as an important avenue to provide choice and flexibility for parents on how their children are educated. If we are to accept a nationally prescribed curriculum, it is centrally important that the sector is allowed clear representation, particularly in decision-making processes for the future of the national curriculum. The curriculum is for everyone; the curriculum is for government and non-government schools. In the seat of Brisbane alone, the non-government sector and the other sectors have many hundreds of years of combined experience in teaching, learning and adjusting the way in which they instruct Australian children.

It is wrong of the government to think that they can design a national curriculum for the millions of Australian schoolchildren in a mere three years without the representation of non-government schools. This sector really deserves an opportunity to make a direct contribution to the national debate. I was a member of the previous Howard government, which had many proud educational reforms which led to the development of the national curriculum. It has been clear, however, that since 2007 the Rudd and Gillard governments have failed to listen to the key stakeholders, the stakeholders who are involved every single day in the important education of our children. A Labor government would happily take any opportunity to undermine the viability of non-government and independent school sectors in Australia, and it is just not acceptable.

However, with regard to the national curriculum, they must not ignore this important voice in the sector. The current curriculum itself stands as an ideologically-driven document that ignores the inescapable contribution of Australia's British heritage and Judeo-Christian traditions. It is important to recognise the contribution of Aboriginal history and our engagement with Asia as integral to the multicultural success of Australia's development. However, with reference to the religious institutions that I have mentioned today and their important history in religious instruction, we must also place a greater importance than we currently see regarding the influence of Judeo-Christian values in Australia, both directly and indirectly. As I mentioned earlier, choice and flexibility is absolutely important; however, they are lacking in the current curriculum.

During my time as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence—and I notice we have the shadow minister sitting at the table today—a number of defence families, particularly of the Defence Families Association, constantly highlighted to me the inadequacy of the system that saw schoolchildren unable to continue a uniform education across state boundaries and, as the member for Sturt mentioned earlier, there are some 80,000 students that cross state boundaries every year, whether they are children of defence families or doing so through interstate relocations of their families. Labor has managed to create an overly prescriptive and overloaded mess, rather than providing a clear national program that serves as a framework for the success of Australia's next generations. It burdens our schools with mandatory hours in the areas of English, mathematics, science and history. I understand the importance of these four areas, as they are absolutely fundamental in life, but the curriculum does not strike a proper balance and does not recognise the diversity of students or the diversity of interest. This lack of balance reduces the amount of time allowed to teach other areas of interest, thereby reducing the ability of schools to differentiate themselves and to provide that really important choice and flexibility in the eyes of the parents.

The current government has failed to listen to key stakeholders, including the NSW Teachers Federation President, Bob Lipscombe, who has made it quite clear that there are significant concerns in the community with regard to support that will be provided to teachers when the curriculum is finally implemented. The coalition has been listening and has listened to three stakeholders, the Independent Schools Council of Australia, the National Catholic Education Commission and the Independent Education Union, which have endorsed the coalition's amendments. Schools across different state jurisdictions will not be able to adapt to the new curriculum overnight, and while I understand members on the opposite side of the House have had difficulty in recent years—particularly in rolling out any programs, including national programs—it is nevertheless difficult to understand how the government has not been able to recognise the support required to implement the national curriculum in our schools.

In order to have an efficient but timely implementation that is of benefit to all students in Australia, the government must dedicate resources to provide professional development for teachers in both government and non-government schools. We need a high-quality core curriculum for all schools which is relevant, realistic, achievable and measurable, and where competency in numeracy and literacy are basic requirements. That is why I support the amendments proposed by the member for Sturt.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011. As we know, education is the greatest opportunity for people of all ages. However, fundamentally, it provides the basic groundwork for a productive, challenging but happy future for our young people. One of the major changes to school education is the move towards a national curriculum. We on our side reflect the concerns of stakeholders at the direction that the curriculum is heading in under the Labor government, a government that is noted for its serial incompetence in delivering policies and projects in a well managed, cost-effective and efficient process.

In education alone, we have seen repeated mismanagement, be it Computers in Schools or the wasted millions of taxpayers' funds in the BER program. Then there was the discrimination we saw with youth allowance and the uncertainty around school chaplaincy. This legislation gives us even more reason to be concerned. For instance, the Prime Minister originally said back in 2008 that the curriculum would take three years to develop and would therefore be ready to implement by January 2011. Well, that has come and gone. In 2010, the Prime Minister claimed:

… the nation has been talking about having a National Curriculum for … 30 years …

and claimed she had delivered it. But the national curriculum has not been delivered. For example, the bill before the House states that non-government schools are required to implement the national curriculum by 31 January 2012—certainly a long way from the Prime Minister's claim that she delivered a national curriculum in 2010. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister has made an art form of saying one thing and doing another.

One of the most serious issues with this legislation is the failure of the government to consult and respond to key stakeholders, though you would have thought that would have been integral to managing a national curriculum—for example, the Australian Curriculum Coalition, an organisation that represents teachers, principals, school leaders, academics and education researchers. This group believes that Australian schools, their teachers and their students deserve the highest quality national curriculum, and that is what they are asking for from this government. That is a very noble and worthy intent, and I support them in that. Matters raised by the ACC mostly remain unresolved, and the ACC believes there is a lot of work that still needs to be done in relation to a national, common approach to achievement standards. There is the additional material that is needed by states and territories to support effective implementation of the curriculum to accommodate different curriculum development approval and implementation requirements; the need for a clear overarching framework; the development of curriculum content and achievement standards as required to meet the needs of special-needs students; and engagement with teachers in the implementation process.

These are basic, core requirements that the ACC has asked of the government in rolling out a national curriculum. It is this group that knows how it needs to work on the ground—how it has to work with administrators, teachers and students in the actual schools. This is just another demonstration of how the Labor government is bungling yet another program. This final version of the national curriculum has not engaged key stakeholders—and, according to its current form, most states are not estimated to begin implementation until 2013-14.

The coalition are moving two further sensible amendments, noting that Labor ignored our amendments to the previous bill back in March. I should also highlight the endorsement of these amendments by the Independent Schools Council of Australia, the National Catholic Education Commission and the Independent Education Union—important bodies in any discussion about education in this nation. The first amendment moved by the coalition will ensure that schools are equipped with the support and assistance they required to implement the national curriculum. This is a sensible amendment and something that is badly needed by the schools. This amendment arose from the coalition's concerns about the current lack of a nationally agreed or consistent approach across jurisdictions to ensure that all schools are receiving support in the area of teacher professional learning to enable them to implement the Australian curriculum. The second amendment we will be moving seeks to include a clear representation of the non-government school sector with regard to the decision-making process for future time lines of the national curriculum.

The coalition have a number of specific concerns with this legislation, including the insufficient representation of the non-government school sector on the relevant subcommittee reporting to the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs. We also have concerns that the curriculum is overcrowded and does not provide enough scope to recognise the diversity of students, including gifted and talented students. There are a wide range of students out there, with varying levels of need, and we need a curriculum that encompasses those needs. Our concerns extend to the manner in which the national curriculum documents are being produced and the content of these documents, not to mention the lack of stakeholder consultation and the lack of clarity around whether the material is meant to be mandatory or is designed to be a code around which jurisdictions and schools may add a local flavour. I would question whether those who will be producing this material, those in the printing and content sector, have even been consulted.

The coalition support a national curriculum in principle, but we do have major concerns about the direction in which the current curriculum is heading under the Labor government. The bill is evidence of the Labor government's routine of rushing policy through before thinking about the details and the practicalities—how it will be delivered, how it will work on the ground. None of those issues have been addressed in this legislation. As I said, there is a pattern of not being able to deliver these policies on the ground, where they matter.

As I said earlier, I believe that school education is of the utmost importance as it provides the grounds for a great future for our young people, but it does not appear that the Labor government is focused on delivering that through this legislation. I have previously raised in this House a number of the inequities the government created with youth allowance. We have seen a whole raft of different proposals by this government in relation to a range of education legislation, and it certainly has not delivered. I am hoping the inquiry by Professor Kwong Lee Dow will deliver some equity for students who were defined as living in inner regional areas. There are 10 sitting days left in which to table the report in each house of parliament. Given that sittings have resumed, I urge the minister to table the report immediately, to give students in inner regional areas who have been left in limbo some indication of what their future may hold.

This is all part of the education package that this government is failing to deliver in a way that is practical and sensible and that delivers on the ground, where it needs to, particularly in rural and regional Australia. We are determined to ensure that students in these areas are given the financial support they need and deserve, in the same way that we are determined to ensure that, through a national curriculum, students, teachers and all those who are engaged in the delivery of the curriculum have the resources they need. That is why we are making these particular amendments to this bill. They need and deserve the level of support that we are recommending through our amendments. In conclusion, I believe that people in Australia should have access to lifetime learning regardless of where they live. I support the amendments by the member for Sturt, but there are a number of concerns. I look around my electorate and see that any number of schools are affected by the national curriculum. Every school will be affected by it. I walk into their classrooms, I walk into their environments and each one of them has special needs in a different sense because they cater for a different cross-section of students. Some of them might have anything from 10 to 15 different languages spoken in their school and they have particular needs to deliver a national curriculum for students in that environment. But the teachers also have needs, and there is the need for resources. That is the basis for the amendments that we are proposing for this bill. I support the amendments by the member for Sturt and the coalition as very sensible. I encourage the government to take up these amendments. It is important that, in rolling out a national curriculum, all of the supports that are necessary to enable this to work in the schools where it is intended actually have the effect that is intended.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise to speak on the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011, a bill which amends the Schools Assistance Act. The substance of this bill is quite straightforward: it amends the requirement, which presently exists under law, that non-government schools must implement the national curriculum by 2012.

Why is such an amendment necessary? Sadly, it is because we have once again seen from this government a demonstration that there is a vast gulf between its lofty ideals and frequently stated ambitions and what it actually manages to implement by stated deadlines. Let's be clear: this bill is not about whether the national curriculum is a good idea in principle. The coalition supports a national curriculum in principle. We do not have concerns with the broad concept but we have significant concerns with the direction in which the national curriculum is heading under the Gillard Labor government, and amongst our concerns are the consequences of the national curriculum—and the way it is being amended—for the independent schools sector.

In the brief time available to me, I want to make three key points. Firstly, the national curriculum process is a mess. The date, which is supposed to be met, keeps failing to be met, and overall the government is having great difficulty in achieving its targets. The second point I want to make is that the process which is being carried on and, indeed, the legislative framework are incidentally quite revealing of the underlying hostility of the Labor Party to the independent school sector. The third point is that the amendments which we have proposed seek to redress the balance and give independent schools a fair go and fair representation in the national curriculum process.

Let me turn to the first proposition which I wish to advance, which is that the national curriculum process is in a mess. It is, you may think, a surprising proposition that a process being managed by a national government should be disorganised and failing to meet the stated time lines. Sadly, as with so many other aspects of the Rudd-Gillard government's poor track record of administration and implementation, when it comes to the national curriculum, we are seeing the very same level of poor performance, poor implementation and a yawning gulf between what is promised, what is claimed and what is actually delivered.

Let me join my coalition colleagues in once again reminding the chamber of the commitment of the claim made on 15 April 2008 by the then minister for education—before she achieved her glittering and sudden ascent—when she said:

A national curriculum publicly available and which can start to be delivered in all jurisdictions from January 2011—

which, if you are following the calendar closely, you would note is in fact some seven months in the past as we speak.

As Prime Minister, the member for Lalor had this to say:

This nation's talked about national curriculum for 30 years. I delivered it.

Let me again join with my coalition colleagues in making the point: it has not yet been delivered. It is a statement of aspiration. The performance does not match the rhetoric, and we see this so often from this government. Who could forget the tearful farewell from the former Prime Minister listing a series of accomplishments, which so many times fell short of the claims that he made? Or I could note the recent claim by the Prime Minister in another field, telecommunications, where she is now claiming to have delivered the structural separation of Telstra. Let me assure the Prime Minister: Telstra is not structurally separated; it remains a dominant and vertically integrated company. In field after field of which, tragically, the national curriculum is one, we see this yawning gulf between the stated aspirations of this government and the sad track record of underachievement.

The current legislation, the act as it presently stands, the Schools Assistance Act, provides that non-government schools were to implement the national curriculum by January 31 2012. Against this target, it is timely to ask: what progress has been achieved to date? Phase 1, the draft kindergarten to year 10 curriculum for English, maths, science and history has been drafted by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority and a final draft will be presented to education ministers in October this year. Phase 2, covering the learning areas of languages, geography and the arts, is still under development; and a phase 3 will be required to cover the remaining learning areas identified in the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians. The curriculum for senior secondary years is one where work is only just beginning. It is quite likely that the development of a national curriculum for these years will require a very significant period.

The clear reality is that the national curriculum is nowhere near ready for implementation by 31 January 2012. What did the New South Wales Teachers Federation President, Bob Lipscombe, have to say about this? He said:

The Australian curriculum's not ready to be implemented in New South Wales. We must be careful to ensure that when we do implement it we don't do it in a way that undermines the already high curriculum standards in this state.

I might add that that is a sentiment which I have had put to me by teachers in both non-government and government schools in my electorate of Bradfield, including, for example, senior maths teachers at Normanhurst Boys High School, amongst many others.

As the House was advised earlier today, in an attempt to assist the government in dealing with this looming administrative problem, the shadow minister for education, apprenticeships and training proposed an amendment in March this year, but at that time the government minister seemed unaware of the problem and failed to support the coalition's amendment.

Mr Briggs interjecting—

It has been put to me that this is a minister who does not have a tremendous track record of implementation himself, as the owners of a number of houses which now lie in smouldering ruins could ruefully testify. So it is perhaps no great surprise that the notion of preparing and being ready to implement a program by the stated date of 31 January 2012 was not something that the minister and member for Kingsford Smith, for the moment, was able to do. I am shocked at the implication that a familiarity with project management and even Gantt charts were possibly not within his previous experience as a leading Australian pop music star, but that is another matter.

Let me turn to the next proposition I want to put to the House, which is that this process and this legislation reveal the underlying hostility of the Labor Party to the independent school sector. The financial impact of this bill, stated in the explanatory memorandum, makes this point very clear. It highlights that the amount of funding provided to non-government schools under the Schools Assistance Act is $8.1 billion for 2012-13, $8.8 billion for the next year and $9.5 billion for the third year. These are substantial figures and the Labor government is clearly proposing to apply a very blunt instrument whereby, if non-government schools are not able to meet the prescribed time frames, their funding is at risk.

Let me be absolutely clear: the coalition are very strong supporters of both independent schools and government schools. In my own electorate of Bradfield, we are privileged to have an outstanding group of independent schools, an outstanding group of Catholic schools and an outstanding group of government schools. I am enormously and repeatedly impressed by the work and commitment of the teachers, parents and other stakeholders in these fine institutions. I make this point: on this side of the House we recognise the synergy in education policy between having a strong independent school sector and having a strong government school sector, because we recognise, as some seem not to, that independent schools take pressure off the government school system.

We also, therefore, are very concerned that the Labor government has not made adequate provision for non-government schools to have their say regarding the national curriculum on matters such as implementation and timing, because non-government schools have not been provided with any representation on the appropriate government bodies. There is no specific non-government school representation on the standing council, nor is there any such representation on the committee of its advisory officials, the Australian Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs Senior Officials Committee.

As the National Catholic Education Committee noted in its submission to the House Standing Committee on Education and Employment:

NCEC notes that a significant number—one in three—students in Australia attend nongovernment schools, and that neither national nongovernment school peak body has any representation on MCEECDYA—

the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs—

the body that governs the work of ACARA—

the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority—

and thus the work on the Australian Curriculum.

The Independent Schools Council of Australia represents a sector with 1,090 schools and around 550,000 students, accounting for almost 16 per cent of Australian school enrolments. Its executive director, Mr Bill Daniels, said in that body's submission to the House standing committee:

The non-government school sector, including at the state and territory level, should be extensively consulted on all aspects of the implementation of the Australian Curriculum including implementation timeframes.

The third point I want to make is that the amendments which the coalition have put before the House seek to give independent schools a fair voice in the national curriculum process. That is why we have moved our amendments. We note that the claims which have been made by the Labor government concerning the breadth and depth of the consultation process to date in fact tend to use that as an excuse for the fact that the national curriculum process is running late. The explanatory memorandum to the bill has this to say:

At the time of the Act's drafting in 2008, an implementation deadline of 31 January 2012 was anticipated for the development and rollout of the national curriculum across the school sector. Given the phased approach to developing the national curriculum, the extent of consultations undertaken in its development …

Et cetera, et cetera—you can see the excuses forming here. But we make the point that a consultation process must adequately take account of the views of all stakeholders, and the governance processes must adequately make representation for all stakeholders. We also note that non-government school sector representatives told the House Standing Committee on Education and Employment's inquiry into the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011 that they believe that the issue of appropriate representation on the Senior Officials Committee is becoming ever more significant given the expanding and developing role of the committee. Therefore, if adopted, the coalition's amendment would provide the government with an option to provide non-government school sector authorities with observer status on the Senior Officials Committee, either instead of or in addition to membership, and this could in practical terms allow non-government school sector authorities to receive agenda and briefing papers for both the ministerial standing council and the Senior Officials Committee in advance as well as draft minutes in retrospect.

Some may say that this is a modest amendment; we do not agree. We think it is an important improvement to the process which would give adequate representation to the interests of the independent school sector in what is a very important reform process which applies to every school across Australia—government schools, Catholic schools and independent schools. I have argued today that the process has not achieved administrative excellence; instead it would undoubtedly be said of the government, if it were being given a report card by one of the many excellent teachers in any one of the many excellent schools around Australia, 'must try harder—has good intentions but does not always finish his or her work', because that is the position that the government is in at the moment with the national curriculum.

It is a matter for regret that the poor administration of the national curriculum by this government makes the bill necessary. On this side of the House we have made it clear that we support the substance of the bill, but we certainly do not support not giving independent schools an appropriate voice in the curriculum process.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the amendments moved by the Manager of Opposition Business, the Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training, the member for Sturt. In doing so I follow a very high-quality contribution from the member for Bradfield, who is keeping up the usual standard of his contributions in this place. He spoke thoughtfully about some very important concerns—the standard of education in our country and the direction that it is taking and the way the government is plans to implement the national curriculum through the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011—that are close to the hearts of many of us in this place. The member for Bradfield summed up our concerns very well in his contribution, so I do not intend to go through them in the same detail as he did. They were also placed on the record very well by the shadow minister earlier today. But I do want to touch on a couple of the issues raised and how they relate to my electorate of Mayo.

Many of us in this place understand the importance of a high-quality education. The Liberal Party has pursued policies which are about achieving standards in education for some time now. We take the view that government should try to encourage the education sector, whether it be the government sector, the Catholic sector or the independent sector, to produce students with the highest possible education standards so that they can meet the demands of industry for jobs and go off to university, if it suits them, and get a higher level of education so that they have an opportunity to create their own prosperity and improve their standard of living and the national well-being at the same time.

Obviously, standards in schools are very important in what a national curriculum sets out, and I am supporter of a standardised approach across the country so that there is some consistency. I think, though, that we have to be very careful that we do not take away from a competitive approach across the different streams and get to the point where people are being dictated to about what they can and cannot teach in their schools—there needs to be some flexibility in government's approach to the matter. The argument that the voices of non-government schools in this debate need to be heard more loudly is a very important part of the second amendment that the member for Sturt is pursuing, because there is a concern amongst parents' groups at non-government schools in my electorate that there is a pursuit by some of a political agenda through education.

Geoff Lyons (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Bass over there seems to be having some entertainment at his own expense. There is a concern that, during the early stages of its drafting, the standard national curriculum has been turned into a way to indoctrinate kids in certain philosophies rather than used to give them an opportunity to get the broader education that we on this side of the House believe will ensure that they are best prepared for future opportunities within our society.

The amendment that the member for Sturt proposes will be an important step in ensuring not only that the process is kept on track—because, as the member for Bradfield observed, the minister in charge of this process has not been labelled particularly confident in his career thus far as a minister, and keeping him under watch in the implementation of the curriculum is quite an important thing to do—but also that what comes out of the drafting of the curriculum is of good quality. That is very important to those of us in this room who are going through the education journey with our own children. Parents take a great deal of interest in how their children are being taught and what they are being taught, so parents are actively engaged in and raise issues about the quality of education and the restrictions that some would like to place on it.

We know that there are members of the Labor-Green coalition government who are against the independent sector. They do not believe that the independent sector should be funded to the extent that it is, and by stealth they would like to have both the Catholic independent sectors defunded to a significant degree. There are also concerns about where the national curriculum is going, and we should be very conscious of that, because independent schools and Catholic schools provide choice for parents who want to have a values based education as well as an educational standard for their children. I know there are some in this chamber who have benefited greatly from that independent stream in their upbringing. They might have been misguided in some of the ways they went about their education and future careers from that opportunity, but they still benefited enormously from the opportunities the independent stream gave. In that respect I think people will recognise that the independent and Catholic sectors do provide those choices for parents that they should be able to provide. There are some concerns about using this national curriculum to constrain the direction that some schools would like to take in their teaching.

The amendments that the member for Sturt, the shadow minister for education, has proposed are good amendments, and I am sure they are amendments that the government will support because they bring a couple of issues to bear which have not been thought out by the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth. I know there will be some concern on the government side that the minister in charge has probably missed a couple of these points on the way through.

The first amendment as drafted gives additional support to the rollout of the national curriculum. It is an issue which has been raised extensively by members of the opposition, and the shadow minister has articulated a need for that change quite well. I think this is an amendment that makes much sense. We have had all sorts of claim of credit for the national curriculum being rolled out successfully: so far we have had the Prime Minister say during the election campaign:

This nation's talked about national curriculum for 30 years. I delivered it.

Of course, so far we have not seen it delivered. As the member for Bradfield outlined it will not meet the 31 January 2012 deadline, so there need to be some changes made to the time lines that the government has set for itself. It is another failed delivery of a promise that it has built up. Ultimately, more than anything else, the detail of this national curriculum needs to be right; it needs to ensure it has heard all the voices and that it is not written in a prescriptive manner that is about pursuing a politically ideological agenda. It needs to be about ensuring that children come out with the best standard of education that they possibly can.

As I said earlier, the Liberal Party has for some time had a strong commitment to standards in education. Back in the 2004 election campaign we famously had the simple, plain English report card that Brendan Nelson, who was the minister for education at that point, pursued quite heavily. It was good policy and it was good politics because parents wanted information about how their children were performing and they wanted it in a simple fashion. They wanted to be told how their children were achieving and how their children were going at school in a way the parents understood so that they were part of the education journey with their children. It is ultimately a very important aspect of education that the parents are engaged and are part of the education journey along with the school.

Again, this gets back to a concern that some have that the curriculum being pursued is to be very specific and focused on a political perspective rather than on a broader education. In that respect, I note that the IPA, the Institute of Public Affairs, has raised some concerns about the direction of some of the early drafting of the curriculum regarding a very heavy focus on Indigenous and Asian culture, without similar weight being given to our British heritage, our Western values or our Judeo-Christian traditions, which are so important to the fabric of our society and the fundamentals of where we have come from and where we will continue to go. This is an important aspect which has been forgotten. In their contribution the IPA has raised some very important points, which should be considered as a reason for increasing the size of the committee to have that non-government voice as part of this consideration in the first place. So there is a broader consideration that the voices of the 30 or 40 per cent of parents who choose to go through the non-government Catholic education sector are heard in these deliberations.

Ultimately, we want a national standard across the education field. We want to ensure that the differences in the standards of education between states are reduced as much as possible. But I do not think we want to standardise completely the opportunities for schools to exercise their ability to teach, and to achieve the standards they wish to achieve, in their own special way and through their own special contribution. In that respect we support the objects of the bill, but we think there are a couple of points where we can improve it. We hope that the government will see the wisdom in following our two proposed amendments. They are good amendments which will improve this bill and ensure that this minister, who we know so far has not had a glittering career of delivering policy, does not do the same to our education system as he did to pink batts.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition supports the national curriculum in principle. It is a good idea. It is necessary. Many people in my Riverina electorate have told me how confusing and frustrating it is when they move from or to another state and there is inconsistency with what is being taught and at what year level. This is particularly prevalent for children of transient workers such as those who work in some agricultural pursuits, who follow the picking seasons, and also those in military families who frequently move from base to base. As a tri-service defence city, Wagga Wagga has many people who fall into the latter category. For them, a national curriculum would be welcome.

The coalition's concerns regarding the national curriculum are not with the concept but rather its direction under Labor. When the Prime Minister was Minister for Education in 2008 she said a national curriculum would take three years to develop and be ready to implement by January 2011. Under the current legislation, non-government schools are required to put the national curriculum into place by 31 January 2012. As with anything Labor touches, the whole thing has been mucked up. Just like the rapscallion schoolboy who tells the teacher a dog ate his homework, the current Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth also gets an F for failing to deliver on Labor's commitment. The final version of the national curriculum is yet to be approved, and most states will not introduce it until 2013 or 2014. The original legislation therefore needed adjusting. The coalition sought to make the necessary amendments back in March, but the minister was apparently unaware that this presented a problem and did not support our amendment. Schools cannot put in place a curriculum which is not ready—not anywhere near ready. This bill is proof positive that Labor has not delivered on its commitment. During last year's election campaign the Prime Minister claimed, obviously falsely, that the national curriculum was finished. She made statements such as:

This nation's talked about national curriculum for 30 years. I delivered it.

When, Prime Minister?

The coalition's amendments have now been endorsed by the Independent Schools Council of Australia, the National Catholic Education Commission and the Independent Education Union. The coalition noted advice from non-government school sector authorities to the House inquiry into the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011 that the issue of appropriate representation on the Australian Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs Senior Officials Committee is becoming increasingly important given the emerging task of the committee. This is especially so relating to the national curriculum. If adopted, the coalition's amendment would provide the government with an opportunity to provide non-government sector authorities with 'observer status' on the AEEYSOC instead of or in addition to membership. This could permit, for instance, non-government sector authorities to receive agenda and briefing papers for both the standing council and AEEYSOC in advance, as well as draft minutes in retrospect. We hope the government will adopt this necessary and reasonable amendment to enable non-government sector authorities to make much more informed and better targeted contributions to the national debate. Further, it would ensure that they would be appropriately consulted regarding time lines for introduction of the national curriculum. This is wholly appropriate. This amendment is significant given that the number of parents who have chosen to send their children to non-government schools are not represented on the appropriate bodies which make the decisions in relation to education in this nation. This is unfair and needs to be altered. The coalition amendment also provides for a broad, appropriate teacher development strategy for the national curriculum. Although this bill relates only to non-government schools, we also advocate that professional development to teachers should be available across the whole schools sector.

The draft K-10 curriculum for the subject areas of English, mathematics, science and history has been prepared by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, and Labor intends to present a final draft to education ministers this October for approval at ministerial council. The coalition is deeply concerned about some of the ideological undertones which are pervading the curriculum. The coalition is deeply concerned about the overly prescriptive nature of the draft document. Experts in education agree the content will swamp teachers, with no funding or backup for the required training for the rollout to succeed. These fears are shared by key stakeholder groups, including teacher representatives and professional associations.

As a result, the coalition has moved two vital amendments. Firstly, schools will need to be provided with the appropriate level of assistance and support to introduce an Australian curriculum. Secondly, we seek to include clear representation of the non-government school sector in the decision-making processes for future time lines of a national curriculum. Presently there is no national or consistent approach to making sure all schools are getting the support they so desperately need in teacher professional learning to be able to implement an Australian curriculum. Having adequate representation adds a safeguard that non-government schools would be properly consulted in the lead-up to decisions regarding implementation time lines. These two modest amendments will certainly help smooth this challenging reform process and bring some level of fairness to the debate.

For the Prime Minister to say that she has already delivered a national curriculum is a case of her getting ahead of herself—way ahead of herself. New South Wales Teachers Federation President Bob Lipscombe said only recently, on 10 August:

"The Australian curriculum's not ready to be implemented in NSW. We must be careful to ensure that when we do implement it we don't do it in a way that undermines the already high curriculum standards in this state … There are issues around the overarching framework it fits in and importantly there are also issues around the resourcing that will be put in place to support its implementation.

"Until these questions are addressed by the Federal Government, then a delay is quite appropriate."

Now we know that the decision to delay the new curriculum has irked the education minister. He accused New South Wales of 'letting students down' and walking away from its commitment. 'There is no justifiable reason for this 11th-hour backdown,' the minister said.

At the heart of this issue is the cost of getting teachers ready for the new curriculum. The New South Wales Minister for Education, Adrian Piccoli, said it would cost about $80 million over four years to implement the curriculum and to provide professional development of teachers. If Mr Piccoli said New South Wales is unwilling to run with the national curriculum agenda because federal Labor has not done due diligence on funding and support then that would be correct. The New South Wales education minister is the member for Murrumbidgee, much of which is in the federal seat of Riverina. He was a competent shadow education, skills and youth affairs spokesman from 28 December 2008 right through the dying days—excuse me—

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who's dying? Sorry.

Geoff Lyons (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who's dying?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The state Labor government—that's who was dying! He held that position right through the dying days of the inept state Labor government and held a poor party to account for its mismanagement. He is doing a fine job as minister, and I commend him for that and for his genuine care and concern for the education of today's children—surely our greatest resource.

The state government said on 9 August it would postpone implementation of the national curriculum for 12 months because of the federal Labor government's failure to provide teacher development funding and questions about its quality. That quality is gravely concerning. One hopes a national curriculum is not used as a vehicle for Labor to push its propaganda. Disturbingly, according to a 13 March report in the Daily Telegraph:

PRIMARY school children are being terrified by lessons claiming climate change will bring "death, injury and destruction" to the world unless they take action.

On the eve of Prime Minister Julia Gillard's carbon tax package announcement, psychologists and scientists said the lessons were alarmist, created unneeded anxiety among school children and endangered their mental health.

Climate change as a "Doomsday scenario" is being taught in classrooms across Australia. Resource material produced by the Gillard government for primary school teachers and students states climate change will cause "devastating disasters".

…   …   …

Australian National University's Centre for the Public Awareness of Science director Dr Sue Stocklmayer said climate change had been portrayed as "Doomsday scenarios with no way out".

Dr Stocklmayer said she was not a climate-change sceptic but worried that "too much time was spent presenting scary scenarios, especially to young people".

"(Children) feel incredibly despondent and helpless in the face of all this negative information," she said. "To put all of this before our children … is one of the most appalling things we can do …

Geoff Lyons (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like listening to the Liberal Party.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take the member's interjection, but what I say even includes Tasmania. The article continues:

Child psychologist Kimberley O'Brien also said the language of climate change should be "toned down".

Of course, the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth refuses to stop the teaching of Labor's climate science, despite moves in Britain for the subject to be withdrawn. But, then, this government also refused to stop the wasteful spending on school halls when it was plainly obvious to all and sundry it was a fiasco, a taxpayer rip-off in the order of a disgraceful $6 billion. At least the coalition's Investing in Our Schools program injected real and meaningful money into grateful schools—

Mr Lyons interjecting—

including in Tasmania. Funding is an important issue as far as education is concerned. Recently, the Director of Schools in the Catholic Education Office, Wagga Wagga, Mr Alan Bowyer, was moved to respond in a media statement to concerns that funding would be cut and media reports that funding would be cut by this Labor-Greens alliance. The statement reads:

In responding to enquiries from a number of media representatives, Mr Bowyer declared, "We believe that a fair, equitable and certain funding scheme for all schools is vital for the continued growth and expansion of quality learning and teaching for all Australian students and teachers".

That is something I am sure all people in this place would agree with. It continues:

"Our belief is that education is a basic entitlement and all students, whether they attend a Catholic, an independent or a state school, have the right to be funded by government at a level that provides a balanced, rigorous and properly resourced education", Mr Bowyer said. "No parent should be financially penalised as a result of choosing to send their children to Catholic schools in accordance with their religious beliefs and commitment to the Church".

I say: hear, hear!

Mr Bowyer stated that figures taken from the National Report on Schooling in Australia (2008) clearly indicate that Catholic schools and non-government schools in general, are under-funded when compared with state schools. "While a student in a state school, on average, in 2007-08 received $12,639 in funding from state and federal governments for the year, the figure for a Catholic school student was only $7,685. Productivity Commission figures in 2009 show that the amount for public school students was a little less – $11,874 per student while the amount per child in the independent sector remained steady", he said.

"School funding is a complex issue. State governments are the primary source of recurrent funding for schools and provide approximately 93% of public school costs but only about 17% of non-government schools costs. The Federal government provides top up assistance of approximately 7% to public schools and about 53% to non-government schools resulting in the need for non-government schools to charge school fees to address the gap. Catholic systemic schools endeavour to keep school fees as low as possible to ensure Catholic education is affordable for families, but school fees as such, only partly contribute to the funding gap between what is received from government sources and the true costs of schooling …

Mr Bowyer went on to reveal that 704,000 (20%) students attend Catholic schools across Australia, and stated that these schools employ 78,000 staff. He said that in 2010 in NSW, 66 per cent of students attended public schools, 22 per cent of students went to Catholic schools and 12 per cent attended independent schools.

"It should be remembered that many Catholic schools, which dominate the non-government school sector in terms of enrolments, serve disadvantaged communities made up of migrant and working-class families and those living in remote and rural Australia", Mr Bowyer said. "In some areas, the Catholic school is the only school serving the local community".

Mr Bowyer welcomed the opportunity that organisations had to make submissions to the Gonski Review and said he was reassured by the Prime Minister's promise that, "this is not about taking money away from schools" and that "no school will lose a dollar of funding, in the sense that their school budget per student will not reduce in dollar terms".

I certainly do hope that the Prime Minister lives up to those words; I certainly do hope that Labor does not listen to the Greens and cut or freeze Catholic school funding, because it is all about choice, and in Australia we should have that choice. If a parent wants to send their child to a Catholic school they should be able to do so, with the knowledge that that schoolchild will be funded properly and sufficiently so that they receive a good and fair education. There should be fair and equitable funding right across the school education system.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to speak on the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill, I am reminded of the purpose behind our education system. Regardless of how we build the system and how we operate the system, the desired outcome remains the same—to help future generations to learn. Following the member for Riverina's comments, I want to endorse some of the remarks he made at the end of his contribution with regard to Catholic and private schools. I have always been of the belief that taxpayer funds are for the children, for the students, and it really should not matter which school they attend.

Every bill that comes before this parliament should, in some way, enhance education and learning outcomes for future generations—and I am talking about all students here. I believe the coalition's amendments to this bill will do that. But we cannot expect our children to learn if the system's builders and operators demonstrate a fundamental inability to learn, if they are unable to learn the easiest lessons of all—and that is learning from one's own mistakes. Such a flaw would undermine the system. It would undermine the outcomes. It would deliver for future generations a standard lower than they deserve.

What we have in the bill before us is a warning that the current government is simply not capable of learning from its own mistakes. It is not for the want of opportunity. They have created more than their fair share of learning opportunities—or mistakes. Amongst an extensive back catalogue of these learning opportunities, we find familiar themes. There are common threads. These threads suggest that, if only a small number of lessons could be learnt by the government, a large number of future stuff-ups could be avoided.

The troubling thing is this. We can see the problems coming. We can see that the national curriculum and how it is going to be implemented have not been properly thought through. We know what happens as a result, because we have seen it happen one too many times during this current government. It is troubling because we can see it coming but the government cannot. It is like being a passenger in a car doing 200 kilometres an hour who can see the approaching cliff when the driver is too busy looking in the vanity mirror.

It is troubling because we can see yet another knee-jerk reaction in the pipeline. We can see a government going off half-cocked because they are so desperate to make it look as if they have actually done something. They are so desperate, in fact, that they do not even wait until the job is half done before claiming that it is finished. With this Schools Assistance Amendment Bill in mind I might remind the House that the Prime Minister said on 2 July last year:

This nation's talked about national curriculum for 30 years. I delivered it.

That was more than a year ago. There has still been nothing delivered, and that is why we are here debating this bill almost 14 months later, and implementation is still a speck on the future horizon.

In addition to its concerns about delayed delivery the coalition also has serious concerns about exactly what is being delivered and how it is going to be delivered. That is why we have moved important amendments—amendments that we hope can stop this runaway car before it reaches the cliff.

We need the government not only to allow input from the appropriate sources but to listen to that input—to take in advice and admit to themselves that people and organisations outside the Labor Party and the Greens, people working in the education system and with the education system, might actually know what they are talking about. Because what this government thinks it is going to deliver as a national curriculum is nothing to skite about; it is something that should be cause for deep embarrassment.

The coalition believes that a delay in implementation is necessary. That is why we have sought previously to pass a similar bill. A delay in implementation of the national curriculum is necessary because it could be a very, very long time before this government could get the national curriculum right. The implementation of this national curriculum has all the loose threads—all the warning signs, all the hallmarks—of the multitude of miserable failures this government should have learned from. This government should have learned that what happens when you make promises you are not capable of delivering is something like the failed computers in schools program. There is a strong parallel between the Prime Minister claiming a year ago that she had delivered a national curriculum and the promise that computers would be delivered to every high school student by the end of 2011. In June this year, only 55 per cent of the computers had been rolled out, and that has taken three years to do.

Mr McCormack interjecting—

That leaves the government another six months to roll out the remaining 45 per cent which, the member for Riverina reminds me, is missing. But that was never going to happen. Even the education department knew that was not going to happen. The only problem is, they never told the minister for education that it was not going to happen, because a month later the minister was still telling us the program was on track and on schedule.

The government has a proven track record of inability to deliver. But here they are, bragging about having delivered a national curriculum that is still miles away from completion. The government should have learned that what happens when you do not fully think things through is that you end up with a debacle like the overpriced school halls that picked the pockets of Australian taxpayers and ripped off state government schools. Did anyone ever sit down and think about how these school halls would be delivered, who would build them, how they would build them, how they would price them and how fair value would be measured? The result was a disastrous waste of money—money that should have created much greater benefit for our education system.

But here they are, skiting about having delivered a national curriculum when there is still no real plan as to how it is going to be delivered. The government should have learned that what happens when you do not consider the implications of a shoddy implementation plan is a pink batts scheme. If you create an environment where people are not properly trained for what they are supposed to do, not given clear guidelines on how to perform their task and not given the support they need to do their job, you have to expect a degree of failure. That should be a lesson learned from the pink batts program. But here we are, putting together a national curriculum content that will leave teachers ill-equipped for implementation. They will be overwhelmed with the size and scope of the task. There is inadequate provision for training and support and there is a distinct lack of clear guidelines to follow.

The government should have learned that what happens when you are led down the garden path by a minority interest is that you lose sight of the big picture. You end up pandering to a single entity with a minority view point. You end up pushing pokies legislation that is hated by millions of people just to garner the support of a single person. But here we are, creating content that is so ideologically skewed that it pushes every cultural context except reality.

The national curriculum in its current format goes to great lengths to add weight to minority views, Indigenous culture and Asian culture without equal weight for the dominant British heritage and Judaeo-Christian traditions on which this country was founded. I am not opposed to including such content in the curriculum. Indigenous culture is a very important component of modern Australian culture. Our country's geographical ties to Asia also need to be recognised, but these influences must be viewed, as they are in the real world, through the framework of our overwhelmingly British heritage and dominant Judaeo-Christian traditions. These are the foundations of Australian society. They are the foundations of the world our children live in. They are the foundations that have built our language—the language that our teachers will be using to educate our children. To ignore these foundations would be no less a failure than to completely ignore Indigenous and Asian culture.

These concerns about the content of the national curriculum are concerns held not just by the coalition; they are views shared by key stakeholders. Dr Kevin Donnelly, the director of the Melbourne based Education Standards Institute, said that he too could see this coming. He said:

I can see that my fears about the new curriculum were well founded.

He described the content as:

… a heady mixture of politically correct perspectives: sustainable, indigenous, feminist, class, postmodern and cultural relativist.

He shares the view that it is only through the context of our Western heritage that we can understand our legal system, our political system, our language, our literature and our education. We have to question why someone would sit down and develop a national curriculum that goes to great lengths to ignore the terms BC and AD to indicate years simply because BC stands for 'Before Christ'. We must not mention the C-word. No, they thought it would be better to use the term BCE: 'Before common era'. That is rewriting history at its best.

Not content with rewriting history, this government is supporting a national curriculum that gives a fantastic outline of the Labor Party but conveniently neglects to balance the outlines of the Liberal and National parties. That is serious. That is in the national curriculum. Perhaps if the people on the ground were given the opportunity for input and the government took the time to put its ego in a box long enough to listen to what the people were saying it would avoid such embarrassment.

The government should have learnt. They still are not listening to what people are saying about the carbon tax and it just makes people angrier—and we saw it today. It makes people more determined to force an election by any means possible. They need to avoid that personality flaw here and allow for more voices into the national curriculum formulation. In the time afforded by the extension of this deadline, the government should accept their own shortcomings and actively seek advice from those who really do know better. Including a representative from the non-government schools on the Australian Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs Senior Officials Committee would be a very good start, because so much of the future depends on our education system.

The lives of generations to come will be hugely shaped by the education that we provide now for our young people. It is of great concern to me that such an important part of our society is now in the hands of this government, Labor and the Greens, who clearly demonstrate that they are most incapable of learning themselves. I really do hope that this curriculum is delayed so that we can have some balance and we can get it right, because if we do not get this right it will not be the government that suffers but the children—that is, until we reach the ballot box.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, it is always a pleasure to see you in the chair and I hope you are well today.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking on the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011 this evening, I will start by reading a quote out because sadly it sums up where we are at with this legislation. It comes from the President of the New South Wales Teachers Federation, Bob Lipscombe:

The Australian curriculum's not ready to be implemented in New South Wales. We must be careful to ensure that when we do implement it we don't do it in a way that undermines the already high curriculum standards in this state …

There are issues around the overarching framework it fits in and importantly there are also issues around the resourcing that will be put in place to support its implementation.

Until these questions are addressed by the Federal Government, then a delay is quite appropriate.

Mr Lipscombe said that on the ABC news on 10 August 2011. He spoke not only for New South Wales but also for the states and territories of the Commonwealth because sadly, as we stand here this evening debating the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011, we see that the national curriculum is not ready to be implemented.

The coalition supports a national curriculum in principle. We are not concerned with the idea. We are sadly concerned, though, once again with how it is being implemented by the Gillard government. This dates back to 2008 when Julia Gillard, our current Prime Minister, said it would take three years to develop and implement. That was in 2008—three years ago—and it would be ready to go by January 2011. If I am not mistaken, it is now August 2011 and here we are debating this bill.

It is ironic that the coalition sought to amend the legislation when it was initially put so that we could look at a start date of 2013 or 2014 and the government would not allow our amendment, yet here we are having to look at either a 2013 or a 2014 start date. It shows that, once again, this government is lacking when it comes to implementation. Although it has been quoted by pretty much every speaker that has been before me on our side, it is worth reminding the House what the Prime Minister said during the election campaign: 'This nation's talked about a national curriculum for 30 years. I've delivered it.' Sadly, she has not and it is going to take some time yet.

If it is to be delivered in a way that is meaningful and does the right thing by schools in this country, it is going to need some change. That is why, in a very positive and bipartisan way, the coalition is putting forward two amendments to help improve the government's legislation, to show the government the way. It is often said—I must say wrongly—that we are negative in the approach that we take. Here we are being extremely positive. We are offering two sensible amendments to show the government the error of its ways and asking it to take them on board to improve the legislation that it is putting forward. It will be very interesting to see what the government does with this positive approach that we are putting forward. The two amendments we are putting forward make a lot of sense. The first relates to the importance of ensuring that schools are provided with appropriate support and assistance to implement the Australian Curriculum. You would have thought that you would take that sort of assistance for granted—that schools would be granted support to implement. I would have thought that that is as logical as day following night. Sadly, it does not seem to be the case with this government. We are putting forward an amendment which would see that happen. We would see teachers getting the support that they need to implement the curriculum. Teachers would have the confidence to say: 'We are going to be teaching a national curriculum in maths, in English or in science. We know exactly what that curriculum is about. We know exactly how students need to be taught. Therefore, we have confidence going into the classroom and making sure all students across Australia get the teaching that they need to develop and go on and be wonderful individuals.' That is a very positive contribution to this debate and to this legislation, and I hope that it will be one that the government will take on board.

Our second amendment seeks to include clear representation of the non-government school sector with respect to decision-making processes for future time lines of the national curriculum. I would just like to point out to the government and to the education minister in particular—and the one that went before him—that there are actually two types of education that we have in this country. There is a very good government sector and there is a very good non-government sector. We do not just have one sector. Therefore, if we are to get balance in the way the national curriculum time lines are to be set, about what the character of those guidelines should be, about what should be in the curricula, it would only be wise and fair that both the non-government and government sectors can play a part in doing that. If a national curriculum is to serve the learning needs of our children then we should ensure that it does it for those children who are learning in the non-government sector as much as we do it for those students learning in the government sector.

These are two what you would call positive, modest amendments—ones which will go a long way to alleviating the recurring concerns about the curriculum process. When you look at the detail that has been in the curriculum, or the overarching framework which has been set out, there have been concerns. Our two amendments will address them. The government should do the right thing and take them on board.

I would like to point out two particular flaws that the curriculum has in it. I think most of the speakers on our side who have been before me have touched on these, because I think they are fairly important. Sadly, Labor's curriculum is driven on ideological grounds. For example, in the history component, the Labor Party and union movement is included but there is no mention of the Liberal or National parties or the parties on the conservative side of politics that went before them. Imagine if we were developing the national curriculum and we put forward that it would only address the history of the United Australia Party, the National Party, and the Country Party that came before it, and the Liberal Party. Could you imagine the outrage if we left the union movement and the Labor Party out? The other side would be just ballistic in their rage if we did that. Yet they have the gall to do it here. It just beggars belief that they could do such a thing.

The worst thing about it is it highlights what they are about here. It is not about a national curriculum which is about teaching our students across the country maths, science and English in a uniform way; sadly, there is a deeper desire here, and that is to drive the ideology through our students. I would hope that Labor would be able to look at this and say: 'This is not the right way to teach the young people of this country. We need to provide balance.' They should put themselves in our shoes from a moment and say: 'Yes, look, if the reverse was done, we would have problems with that. We need to address this.' And I hope that they will.

The second point that I would like to make about this national curriculum as it has been developed so far by this government is that it is overcrowded. There is an excessive amount of content to be covered in courses, which means less flexibility for schools. I would have thought in the 21st century we should have been looking to put more flexibility into our schools, not less, by giving our teachers the freedoms to be able to operate within their classrooms by giving them an outline of what needs to be addressed but not detailing every last sentence. If you are trying to drive an ideological agenda maybe, because you would say: 'You have to talk about the Labor Party and the union movement. You have to talk about those things. Of course, don't worry about the other side.' It is overly prescriptive. We need to pull back from that. We have to allow teachers and our principals to be able to go about doing the things that they do best. They need the flexibility to be able to do it. I hope we will get a pullback from that overly prescriptive approach, because our students across the country will benefit from it, our teachers will benefit from it, our principals will benefit from it, and our whole education system will benefit from it. If we continue to be too prescriptive the national curriculum will not do the job it is meant to do.

I would like to draw my speech tonight to a conclusion. So it is nicely rounded, I would like to go back to where I started, which is the quote from Bob Lipscombe, because I think that quote, although it is on behalf of the New South Wales education sector, reflects what the concerns are across the country as a whole:

The Australian curriculum's not ready to be implemented … We must be careful to ensure that when we do implement it we don't do it in a way that undermines the already high curriculum standards …

There are issues around the overarching framework it fits in and importantly there are also issues around the resourcing that will be put in place to support its implementation.

Until these questions are addressed by the Federal Government, then a delay is quite appropriate.

The Prime Minister is on the record as saying: 'This nation's talked about a national curriculum for 30 years. I delivered it.' She has not delivered it.

We have to make sure that her embarrassment of not having done that does not mean that we rush our implementation now. Our kids' futures are at hand. A lot of us here have students who are going through the schooling process at the moment. We want this to be done correctly. The coalition, in a very positive manner, have put forward two amendments—two positive approaches—to try to fix the mess that the implementation of this bill is likely to create. I hope the education minister will take those two amendments on board. I hope the Prime Minister will see the positive approach on which they have been put forward and see that this is being done to improve the educational outcomes of our children and to make sure that our schools, our teachers and our principals have the right guidelines going ahead. The coalition support the idea of a national curriculum. What we do not support is the way this government is going about it.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011; a bill that seeks to address a rather unfortunate oversight by the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, and one twice raised in this place by the shadow minister for education, but only now sought to be fixed by the minister. The oversight referred to is the implementation date of the national curriculum—currently set for commencement in just five months time for non-government schools. This sounds like a noble goal, but it is terribly hard to implement a curriculum that is yet to be finalised.

The shadow minister first raised the concern about the implementation deadline for non-government schools in November last year, and earlier this year repeated calls for a simple amendment to be legislated to remove this unreachable deadline. The reforms for a national curriculum—initially promised to be implemented by January 2012—have drifted and been left incomplete by a government well known for its inability to implement programs on time or on budget have start dates now pushing out to 2013 or 2014 and a legislative deadline rapidly approaching. This bill should have been unnecessary. But for the pigheadedness of those opposite in not understanding the problems in their own legislation, the problems this bill seeks to address would have previously been addressed.

Nonetheless, the fact that the national curriculum is yet to be finalised did not, of course, prevent the current Prime Minister from proclaiming on 2 July last year: 'This nation's talked about a national curriculum for 30 years. I delivered it.' One might have assumed that if a national curriculum had indeed been 'delivered' then an eraser would not have been needed to rub out the error riddled legislation the Prime Minister put forward back in 2008 when she was the education minister standing behind the former Prime Minister.

Ironically, the Prime Minister claimed to have 'delivered' the national curriculum, despite falling far short of doing so by the January 2012 deadline—as we see by the need for this amendment. The Prime Minister claimed to have 'delivered' the curriculum she has not delivered, just as she promised to the Australian people she would not deliver a carbon tax and is now doing so. No wonder, today, we find a 'convoy of no confidence' on our doorstep that has travelled to Canberra from across the nation to send a clear message to this incompetent government: the Australian people want an election now.

Let us be clear: this government is rushing through a national curriculum not for any good educational reasons but simply for a political reason to enable the Prime Minister to live up to her claim that she has delivered it. Simply, the Prime Minister is prepared to compromise children's education for a simple political purpose. What a disgrace!

Although the coalition broadly supports the intent of having a national curriculum, naturally, particularly under this government, we are deeply concerned about the looming implementation stage. This is especially of concern with a new minister who, as minister for the environment, rushed through an incompetent and poorly thought out program which will go down in our nation's folklore—a program that managed to burn down some 190 homes. We certainly do not want that performance repeated on our nation's schools or on a national curriculum simply because it has to be rushed through.

I would like to air a few broad points relating to the implementation of a national curriculum—or, if you would like, the important narrative and required elements behind the move to a national curriculum. Firstly, we must not allow a race to the bottom. In my home state of New South Wales, we already have a robust curriculum, developed over decades. The last thing we want to do in New South Wales is go backwards with our children's education. I have spoken to a great many teachers in my local area that are keeping a keen eye on the development of the national curriculum, yet they remain cautious about the dangers the implementation of the national curriculum may have and how it may have the potential to water down the high standards already in place in New South Wales. For the national curriculum to produce the results that the country has asked of it, it must look to the future and not backwards into the past. There must be an assessment of the needs of our country, and we must look to where it will be in years to come and present our children with a system that will meet their needs in the future and not lock them into the ways of the past. We will gain nothing and lose much if the national curriculum fails to provide for the future. This is why it cannot and must not be rushed. It is also worth noting that across New South Wales and the rest of Australia many schools who are doubtful of the quality of the national curriculum are considering alternatives for their students, such as the benchmarking International Baccalaureate program. In the past, the New South Wales Higher School Certificate has been recognised across the globe as being a first-class finishing qualification, and the move to a standardised curriculum could see this standing ruined in the eyes of the world.

The second crucial point to recognise is the important role that all sectors in the education system play in developing our children as well-rounded young adults. The national curriculum, if not established in the correct manner, with all the relevant checks and balances satisfied, could endanger the tireless work of the many great teachers of New South Wales. These teachers, who are responsible for teaching the future of our great nation, should not be sold short and forced to teach to exams. Instead, they should be allowed and encouraged to uphold the high standards that are currently evident in New South Wales. Time and time again, we have seen the failure of Labor ideology, the ideology of a deluded belief in centralised control of decisions by a small group of elite, when our history has shown, time and time again, that the best decisions are always made by people working at the coalface. We therefore should not implement a system that would tie the hands of our world-class educators and possibly cause a drop in our educational standards.

Non-government schools are a crucial pillar of our education system in Australia. Without these educational institutions, some of which are over a century old, our education system would not be able to meet the demands of our population. In fact, if government funding to these schools were to be cut, the resulting burden on the state system would mean the collapse of our world-class education system. Over the past decade, class sizes in secondary schools have increased, and in some cases there are now 45 students to one teacher. Without non-government schools, this number could very easily increase still further, reducing the quality of education for all. Within my electorate of Hughes, there are many schools, government and non-government, all which are great schools filled with dedicated teachers who are teaching the next generation of Australians. I have been out and about, visiting local schools, and these visits have reinforced the importance of our work in this key area. We simply cannot get these reforms wrong through rushing them through. We must not let any of these teachers or students down by pushing them into a framework that is not ready and is not able to deliver them the results that they deserve for their hard work.

While the coalition will not oppose this bill, due to the obvious need for the parliament to act on what the coalition has been saying since November last year, it is not possible to implement a curriculum that is yet to be finalised. The coalition will seek to make two important amendments to enhance the progress of the reform, to deliver reform that works and that does not let our kids and their dedicated teachers down. I call on all members opposite to look deep inside themselves and to consider these amendments carefully. Do any of you really want to carry the burden of knowing that you had a choice to improve this bill and this program and chose not to for political expediency? There is a deep black hole in the current national curriculum proposal, and that is a complete lack of assistance in implementing the reforms. Currently, there is no nationally agreed or consistent approach across all jurisdictions to ensure that schools are receiving support in the area of professional development to enable teachers to implement a new national curriculum. Our amendment will rectify this to ensure a smooth transition into practice. We must offer our education professionals the training and support that they will need to implement this big change in Australia's educational system. We must not lock out teachers who work for non-government schools and, as a result, cause their students to suffer, hurting Australia's future in the process.

Our second amendment seeks to include representation from the non-government school sector in the decision-making process for future time lines of the national curriculum, providing the non-government sector with a seat at the table which they have not had to this point. This is likely a key reason why the government has thus far appeared unaware of the implementation time frame problem sought to be rectified by this bill. The government's failure to provide the non-government school sector with a seat at the table in the implementation of a national curriculum is a stark reminder of the bad old days of Mark Latham's infamous hit list, heartily supported by many members opposite during those dark days. By locking the non-government sector out of the decision-making process, we will lose the expertise and wisdom of some of the country's best and greatest educators, who want nothing more than the best education for our students. Instead of knocking down our system to the lowest common denominator, we should be seeking to raise our schools up, and to do this we should be asking for input from all educational institutions, not just those run by government.

The coalition's proposed amendments are crucial to ensuring a smooth and successful implementation of the national curriculum, and while the performance of the government in this area has been weak at best, particularly in failing to recognise and act with the coalition to address the government's failures in the implementation of the national curriculum and subsequent legislative issues such as those we are having to address with this bill, I feel it is important to review what stakeholders are saying about these important coalition amendments. The President of the NSW Teachers Federation has spoken of concern about the lack of support for the implementation of the curriculum, which the coalition amendments would address. On 10 August this year he said:

There are issues around the overarching framework it fits in and importantly there are also issues around the resourcing that will be put in place to support its implementation.

Certainly, the coalition agree the government is failing to support our teachers to implement the national curriculum. We encourage those opposite to support our amendment on this key issue.

The President of the Australian Education Union also shares this position, having said previously:

… we're also seriously worried by the absence of any funding to support the implementation.

And, as previous speakers have canvassed, the Independent Education Union has described our amendment to provide a seat at the table for the non-government school sector as 'an important step forward' and an amendment 'that should be supported by all parliamentarians'. The amendments to be moved by the coalition are good and sensible. I encourage those opposite to support these reasonable moves to improve the implementation of the national curriculum.

In conclusion, there has been a lot of discussion regarding the overly prescriptive, biased and ideological content of the national curriculum, but I will not go into that in detail. However, as a previous speaker stated, I do understand the Labor Party and the union movement are included in this new national curriculum, whereas the Liberal Party have been left out. As a previous speaker noted, could we imagine if the reverse applied? We would not hear the end of the screams. I do not have any particular problem if the Labor Party and the union movement are included in the national curriculum—that is the way this current government is going. I simply suggest that these subjects belong in the ancient history curriculum.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011. This bill seeks to repeal the 31 January date for the implementation of the national curriculum in non-government schools as outlined in the Schools Assistance Act. I congratulate the member for Hughes and the member for Wannon, who spoke before me, for their very good contributions to this debate. However, I want to take up a couple of points made by the member for Hughes. He did go on a little too much about the strength of education in New South Wales. Everyone knows that Queensland has the best education system and the best curriculum! It is arguments like those that are divisive and are half the reason we have the problems we have. When it comes to the education of our children we must step aside and, from an educator's perspective, try to get a great result.

I represent schools in Townsville, Australia's garrison city. Children come from every corner of Australia. We see kids graduate from schools in Townsville with a great collection of school uniforms and unfinished subjects across the board. We see confusion between the states and between curricula, and about what grade they will stay in or go to, especially when they transfer between states and sometimes even intrastate. Clearly a unified approach would be great. The only way we can get this done is with a united approach.

It is clear that this time frame is far too rushed. Changing the deadline is vital in ensuring that independent schools are adequately prepared for the introduction of this curriculum, the first version of which has not even been approved yet, despite protestations and assertions to the contrary even last year and despite it being less than six months until the date of its expected implementation. I reiterate the statement by Prime Minister Julia Gillard in July last year:

This nation's talked about national curriculum for 30 years. I delivered it.

That is pretty much like health reform. They talk about delivery before anything has even been parcelled up. That is probably the greatest statement since Prime Minister Chamberlain said, 'Peace in our time,' after having talks with Adolf Hitler. It is a bit too much to believe when it comes to these things. They just do not deliver. Has the Prime Minister of the country ever delivered anything so prematurely? We will wait and see because we have health reform and all sorts of reform that we are going to deliver that she has already said has been signed off.

It is over a year later and we still do not have a final copy of the curriculum that is ready to be used anywhere any time soon. This bill is the government's way of conceding that they have failed to deliver. They have failed to deliver the national curriculum they have been boasting about in the time line they have committed to. It is an abject failure. It should weigh heavily on the minister's mind.

The coalition has had the foresight to amend the act. Even in March this year the government failed to see the problem coming and are now scrambling to make the changes that we should have agreed to five months ago. As the member for Hughes said, this bill is completely and utterly unnecessary, but we support this bill as a necessary measure to ensure that non-government schools are given adequate time for the curriculum rollout. I acknowledge though that the government's blunders at every turn with the Australian curriculum have made this necessary.

The issues I have with the national curriculum are not related to the concept. Like many members of the coalition, I think it is important that the curriculum taught in schools is the same in Queensland as it is in every other state. My problem is the way in which this government are so lockstep, with square peg and square hole, that so many of their policies are continually mishandled. As the member for Wannon and the member for Hughes, who spoke before me, said, there should be a framework around which school principals and individual schools can work. What a school can do in Mt Isa, Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory or Townsville is different to what a school can do in the heart of Melbourne or the heart of Sydney. There are differences and there should be a framework around which they can work to achieve the same results and get the same outcomes but give the local environment, the local identity and the local teachers and educators a chance to show why they spent four years or more at university to become teachers.

This national curriculum is heavy on details but the support for it is light. Even experts across the country have acknowledged that the content will be overwhelming for many teachers. Funding to support its implementation has been completely absent. This money is essential to provide teachers with the training and professional development needs to give children a good education from a new curriculum. Too often we see that the teachers' time has been taken off. We have more and more student-free days and more and more time out for teachers for resource time when they are not in the classroom. Teachers are like nurses: they want to be in the classroom. They want to be with their class. Too often we are pulling these people away from what they want to do—what they are trained to do—to make them fill out paperwork.

The coalition has put forward two amendments, both of which I fully support, to address some of the national curriculum's shortcomings. The first of these aims to address the lack of support for schools in implementing the new curriculum. As I have said, the government has taken no measures to ensure that schools across the country are given the assistance they need to make the national curriculum a success. This amendment seeks to address this problem. The second of the coalition's amendments relates to the standing council responsible for the national curriculum time line. Neither this council nor its advisory officials committee, the Australian Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs Senior Officials Committee, have representatives specifically to represent the views of the non-government schools sector. That surely must set alarm bells ringing for everyone in this country. That this part of the education system does not have a dedicated voice in the decision-making process for the Australian curriculum is a serious limitation, and addressing this absence will ensure that adequate consultation of non-government schools can and should take place.

Non-government schools are an integral part of Townsville's community and education sector. They are every bit as important as state schools and Catholic schools. Playing a vital part in offering parents choice and alternatives and with more than one-third of Townsville's schools being non-government, it is crucial that a group that accounts for such a big proportion of our education system be listened to when decisions regarding the implementation of the new curriculum are being and will be made.

I would also like to take this opportunity to raise my concerns regarding the government's NAPLAN tests. I have had concerns in relation to NAPLAN and the way it has been rolled out since day one. I have discussed in the past in this parliament the issues I have with NAPLAN. The program has been running for four years, and it seems as though the NAPLAN agenda has completely consumed the teaching agenda. In some schools children are being taught in preschool to prepare for the year 3 NAPLAN test. In between, music, art and sport have been dropped by the wayside as people prepare for nothing else because there is so much pressure applied to the results of the NAPLAN. I was speaking to a principal at a local state school just a couple of weeks ago. He told me that he knew right now that his grade 3s next year will not do well. They know, but there is nothing they can do. They will not get the resources, so they will fail the year and their funding will be cut. Their access to these things will be cut.

Students are taught to be proficient in the areas that NAPLAN will cover as teachers in schools do whatever they can to cater to the My School website, not to deliver a rounded education to students. I also add that there should be more aide time to go with the teacher. If you can get more aide time in primary schools and early childhood especially you will have a better result in years 9, 10, 11 and 12, because the problems of children not being taught the basics will be addressed by having a teacher there all the time.

The victims in all this are the areas that are so vital to a curriculum but not covered by the NAPLAN. Sport, music and art, as I have said, have all fallen by the wayside as schools have been forced to focus instead on improving their NAPLAN scores and concentrate on nothing else. Without a wide-ranging curriculum covering all areas, not only are the opportunities of these missing fields being taken away from kids; they will be less engaged in the teaching. A national curriculum is an important chance for Australia, and the government has already created far too many problems in trying to develop this change. We must get it right and we must take the time to get it right, and to get it right we need the right people sitting at the table to give their points of view—and they must be listened to.

In supporting this bill I would like to add one final point. From pink batts to Building the Education Revolution, this government has created countless problems by trying to rush through problems in legislation. We just cannot afford that sort of behaviour. We cannot afford to add the Australian curriculum to that list. It cannot be done and it should not be done. Thank you.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Schools Assistance Amendment Bill 2011 before us today amends the original bill in order to repeal the date by which a non-systemic or approved school system must implement the Australian national curriculum. Whilst the coalition will not oppose this bill, I must say that I am frustrated—frustrated that once again in this House we are debating yet another amendment because once again the government could not get it right. Those opposite regularly stand before us, berating the coalition for what they say is opposition for opposition's sake, accusing us of only ever saying no. But how hypocritical are these claims when, back in March, when the government amended the legislation to change the implementation date for other schools, they simply said no to the coalition's amendment to address this discrepancy. They dismissed our positive and practical proposal out of hand. Why did they oppose our amendment? Only they know. However, if the government had listened at the time, we would not be here now, debating an amendment to this legislation yet again. This all could have been concluded back in March. But we should not be surprised; listening seems to be something this Gillard government regularly fails to do.

The coalition supports the principle of a national curriculum. However, I take offence that Prime Minister Gillard has claimed that she has already delivered it. In July last year the Prime Minister stated:

This nation's talked about national curriculum for 30 years. I delivered it.

If the Prime Minister had indeed delivered a national curriculum back in 2008, when she claimed to, we would not be standing here, having this debate today, three years later. The national curriculum was due to be implemented from January of this year. It was not. It is still not ready, and stakeholders have serious concerns with both the content and the fact that no funding has been proposed to support schools and teachers through this massive change to our education system. Yet from what the Prime Minister said last year, as far as she is concerned a national curriculum was delivered last year.

In principle I support a national curriculum. Like the International Baccalaureate does at an international level a national curriculum would provide an equal education standard around Australia, avoiding much angst when families need to move interstate. In our transient society, it is important that students are comfortable within their learning environment, and a national curriculum helps to give them confidence. A national curriculum provides students with broader opportunities, both domestically and internationally, as their achievements are more quantifiable.

But when will this Gillard government admit that making an announcement does not equal reform? Making an announcement does not equal delivery. Real reform comes with competent delivery, smooth implementation, and open and transparent consultation with stakeholders. When you look at this government's track record of schemes such as Fuelwatch, home insulation, and Building the Education Revolution, I have grave concerns as to how the national curriculum will be rolled out.

This concern is compounded as there does not seem to be any funding or support for the necessary training required for a national curriculum to succeed. It is imperative that teachers, in both the government and the non-government sector, receive adequate support throughout this process. That is why the coalition is moving an amendment to ensure that schools are provided with appropriate support and assistance to implement the national curriculum. I do not think anyone on either side of this House would deny the importance of our teachers. Teachers are an integral part of our society, shaping the youngest in our society into lifelong learners. I also do not think that anyone in this House would deny that teachers are already undertaking a massive job with enormous responsibility often without the support they deserve and need. With the introduction of a national curriculum, their workload will increase—there is no doubt about that. An entire overhaul of the teaching curriculum will take time to learn how to teach and deliver, and would greatly benefit from teacher training and development. This is common sense, and has been endorsed by the Independent Education Union yet the government has not taken moves to ensure this occurs for non-government schools.

Perhaps the government does not understand the concerns of these stakeholders. Again, we face an issue about a lack of consultation. I have spoken on a number of bills before parliament this year which have had a major impact on the direction of industry, the economy and the Australian people. Yet with many of these bills, there has been a very limited consultation period in which stakeholders could voice their concern, raise issues and make suggestions. It seems that this may be happening again, as the concerns expressed by experts in education, teacher representative groups, and professional associations share the coalition's concern about the lack of funding. However it does not seem that their voices are being heard. Non-government schools do not have specific representation on the Australian Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs Senior Officials Committee. This means that non-government schools have little opportunity to share their experience and thoughts on the implementation of a national curriculum, despite being greatly affected.

The coalition is today moving an amendment to rectify that. The government is introducing a national curriculum across the board to both government and non-government schools. This means that students and teachers in both forms of schooling will be affected, so it is very important that representatives from both are heard. Around half of all students will attend a non-government school at some point during their education, and non-government schools bring further ideas and considerations to the table. Non-government school representation is an important step forward, and I hope it is one that the government will take on board and action.

I have 19 non-government schools in my electorate which educate a significant number of students. These students will experience the national curriculum just like those at the 26 government schools in my electorate—as will their teachers and school staff. They also need support and representation as the coalition provides for in our two amendments to this bill. Even more importantly these students, teachers, administrators and parents should not be overlooked again by this government just as they were overlooked in March with the original amendments to the implementation timeline.

I trust that this government will take a good look at its failures to date and go forward with the national curriculum in a much more positive way, not bungling its implementation as it has with so many other programs. The coalition amendments to be moved would be a good start. I trust that this Gillard government does not ignore them out of spite as seemingly happened back in March when the government missed an opportunity to rectify the blown out implementation time line for all schools. Let us not see such an important change to Australian education mismanaged again.

Debate adjourned.