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

This year, 2012, is the National Year of Reading, and I have been given the honour of being appointed one of 24 national reading ambassadors. There are also a number of state and territory ones. We work with our patron, William McInnes, the well-known author and actor. It was certainly a surprise to be made a reading ambassador, and I never believed I could be in such august company. My fellow ambassadors are mainly writers or actors or very experienced in artistic communications, particularly for children, and have far more to contribute to reading than me.

I believe my role is to let the parliament, the country and my state know why this year has been set up and how we should be raising the awareness of all Australians to understand the benefits of reading and to hopefully develop a love of stories and to enjoy the act of reading. Did anyone in this House—there are not many of you here—know that 46 per cent of Australians cannot read newspapers, follow a recipe, make sense of timetables or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle? Nearly half our population cannot read with any fluency. It is a shameful and worrying statistic.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey 2006 found that approximately seven million, or 46 per cent, of Australians aged 15 to 74 years had scores at level 1 or 2 on the prose scale. Prose literacy is defined as the ability to understand and use information from various kinds of narrative texts, including texts from newspapers, magazines and brochures. The four main domains tested were: prose, document, numeracy and problem solving. A fifth domain, health literacy, was also tested. Scores were grouped into five skill levels—only four levels were defined for the problem-solving scale—with level 1 being the lowest measured level of literacy.

So Australia really needs to do more to ensure our population is more than just literate. As a fifth-generation Tasmanian, my education was distinctly lacking in incentives to be literate. I can understand why we have this dreadful figure of 46 per cent of Australians not being functionally literate. Certainly my folks did not read much, and not to their children, and their parents did not read at all. So reading was not a natural pastime in the 1960s and the 1970s, and I notice that there are still members of my family now who do not read very much at all. We did not have the need to on the farm. We did not have BAS, emails or much in the way of reading material. A newspaper or a farming magazine was the most likely thing to be looked at, and the radio provided the other stimulus during my childhood.

My stimulus to learn to read was that I needed to do more reading and writing in my employment to represent other people. It is much more difficult to learn as an adult than as a child and it did take me a long time. It is very hard to do many things if you cannot read. Having learnt to read and write, I have since devoted considerable effort to the adult literacy program and I now know the value of reading to both adults and children. Every day I read a lot, either through my work with the House, as an MP, or as a pleasant pastime. It was as president of the adult literacy program and the adult literacy council that I sat and passed the HSC English exam. Now, I am the House of Representatives representative on the board of the National Library, as well as joint chair of the Joint Committee of the Parliamentary Library. I am very proud to have both those roles.

Libraries are a key information source. I have used public libraries all my life. They empower people and they help our democracy. Libraries and their services give me great joy. I was sad to note that they have renamed our libraries in Tasmania the 'LINC', which to me is misleading—firstly because it is spelt wrong and, secondly, it does not imply reading or the recreational joy of the book. It seems very impersonal and more to do with communications jingle lingo.

So I am going to work hard this year to try to encourage more children to get into books and to understand libraries. They are one of the most important parts of our education system. Losing oneself in a story is a marvellous way of coping with times in your life: while you are waiting at the doctors surgery, to board a plane—like many MPs—to travel, waiting in a queue, just waiting to fall asleep or sitting on a rainy day in your favourite chair.

This government has recognised the need to improve reading standards across the education spectrum. The Gillard government is committed to improving the educational outcome of all schools and school students, and it is providing funding for three Smarter Schools National Partnerships. There will be $540 million over four years for the Smarter Schools National Partnership for Literacy and Numeracy to support the infrastructure and practices that will deliver sustainable improvement in literacy and numeracy, including $350 million for rewarding improved performance. There will be $1.5 billion over seven years for the Smarter Schools National Partnership for Low Socio-economic Status School Communities to support a range of reforms that address educational disadvantage associated with so-called low socioeconomic status in school communities. And there will be $550 million for the Smarter Schools National Partnership for Improving Teacher Quality scheme and wide reforms to attract, train, place, develop and re-train quality teachers and school leaders. A quarter of all Australian schools—2,564—have been targeted for support through the low socioeconomic status school communities national partnership and the literacy and numeracy national partnership program. Approximately 793,000 students—that is, 23 per cent of all students—attend these schools. Thirty-two schools in my electorate of Lyons are benefiting from these partnerships.

With this motion I am asking people, both young and old, to share their particular joy in reading with their communities. Families can start by reading to their kids and their grandkids. If you are an adult, start to learn. You may want to start with the outboard motor manual or with the sewing machine manual—whatever is the link or the hook that is needed to get people ready. We all need to have pathways for people to get on board.

The beginning at school is so important. TAFE has always played a great role for people who go to training with low reading and writing skills, and they have been able to address their needs at this level. Adult literacy is also something that needs more attention now; it is always being forgotten in the education debates. Members may wish to use their newsletters—and I hope that members do take that opportunity—to promote their local libraries and publicise local events for the Year of Reading in their own electorates. I hope they organise some events for schools and go into some of the retirement villages to some of our oldies and offer to read in those nursing homes, or go to the schools and offer to read. Encourage reading whenever you can in your communities. As I said, all the newsletters that go out from MPs should promote the Year of Reading this year and opportunities for people to get involved in their libraries if they have not been. I am sure every member would like the opportunity to stand in front of a library and get photographed, so there is an opportunity for their newsletters and a great opportunity to promote the Year of Reading.

This is something beyond politics, and I think we should all support this motion. I hope that everybody will enjoy some reading today, and I certainly thank everybody who will speak on this motion and who will give it support. I hope that we keep adult literacy in the front of our minds as we go into education debates in the future. (Time expired)

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lyons finished his very fine speech with the statement that literacy, reading, is something beyond politics. He is absolutely right. Each of us in our electorates encounters families and children in schools who struggle with literacy. They might be migrant families for whom the opportunity has never arisen to learn properly the language of life in Australia. Their opportunities are restricted, their confidence is often limited and their ability to participate is reduced. For children struggling through school it is an extraordinary challenge. I want to take this moment to reach across the chamber to acknowledge not just the motion of the member for Lyons but his own story. We have many disagreements with those on the other side. He is one of the good guys today. I acknowledge what he has achieved against difficult odds and the fact that he has become a national champion for literacy and reading and honesty and reaching out to those who are most in need of adult literacy as well as those who are most vulnerable to falling through the cracks in our schools.

Having said that, let me deal briefly with two elements here: the problem and the solution. I want to deal with the problem from a personal perspective. I was fortunate to come from a reading household, so my circumstances were not challenged as such, though those on the other side may say that my cognitive skills might not be what they otherwise might have been. But the real exposure that I have had over the years was through three fronts. The first was as a literacy teacher at Princes Hill School near Melbourne university while I was a student at Melbourne university, working with kids in their transition years to secondary school and recognising that, for those who struggled, it was very hard for them to acknowledge the challenges they faced. That gave me a sense of the cultural issues, I do not mean along ethnic lines but the sheer secondary school culture and challenge faced in kids acknowledging that they have an issue and a challenge. That is a big thing.

The second was in the housing projects of New Haven when I was studying at Yale in the United States. There was an ongoing program of working with kids, mostly of coloured background, almost all of distinctly disadvantaged background, many of whom had virtually no capacity to read whatsoever because of their social circumstances. To be engaged in that program was to recognise the incredible, fundamental transformative power of literacy and reading, not just in terms of career opportunities but in terms of the ability to structure and think and imagine one's way out of a problem and to imagine one's way forward. It was uplifting, and my only regret is that I was not more involved still in that program.

The third element is in terms of my own town of Hastings. Hastings is where I have my office. According to the 2009 Australian Early Development Index, it showed the highest proportions in Victoria of youngsters starting school with poor language development. West Park Primary is a fantastic school with committed teachers but it has huge social indicator challenges which translate to literacy.

That brings me to the practical programs which are about solutions. I am very fortunate to have worked with the broader program of linking schools and early years. This is where Hastings in particular comes in. Because of the commitment of Hastings Rotary Club and their Reading for Life program under the Linking Schools and Early Years program, we have been able to work on bringing volunteers for literacy to children to help enhance their reading skills, their self-esteem and their motivation. Each volunteer work with a child one-to-one for 45 minutes every week for between 10 and 15 weeks, with enormous real measured improvements in the quality of reading for these kids and therefore their passage for future schooling. The Myer Foundation has provided $3,000 to this program, and BlueScope almost as much. We recently had business operators in the town come to a breakfast. I want to acknowledge the work of Geoff Harvey and Professor Marilyn Fleer from Monash University. Both have contributed enormously at different times in their own way to literacy in Hastings. I acknowledge all of the volunteers and the headmasters of the three schools in Hastings.

My message is that there is much to be done. We have achieved a lot, but there are still numerous kids who need a better start in life and this is best exemplified by practical programs such as Reading for Life, and we will simply keep going until every child in Hastings gets that opportunity to be fully able to read by the time they leave primary school.

Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the motion moved by the member for Lyons about the importance of the National Year of Reading and the importance of literacy as a goal for our children and for adults throughout this nation. I commend him on his appointment as an ambassador as part of this program and also join with the member for Flinders in acknowledging the excellent work that he has done on these very issues. In fact, I can recall his first speech on coming to this place in 1993 when he spoke of the issues that he faced as an adult in dealing with the question of becoming a proficient reader and being able to school himself. He stands in this place as someone who has triumphed over many difficulties and he can be a beacon of hope to those who in later years seek to establish literacy as a basis for their communication and to improve their lives.

The National Year of Reading itself is an excellent proposal. We know that it is important to get to kids young and we know that it is important to have the very basic skills of literacy to ensure that people can fully contribute to life in our community. We know that reading skills provide children with the opportunity to learn, to understand society and to be an active part of it. We know that if kids do not get that start it is that much harder for them in the years ahead.

In my electorate of Bruce, which covers the area around Dandenong, Mulgrave and parts of Springvale in metropolitan Melbourne as well as Glen Waverley and Wheelers Hill, we have a significant number of communities which have come to Australia recently and where English is often a second language or not a language that is spoken at all. We know that for those families it is incredibly important to ensure that their children get a good start in life. They often come from families very determined to make the most of the opportunities in this great country of ours. In the circumstances, all we can do to encourage literacy in that situation is incredibly important.

The Gillard government has provided some $1.3 million towards this campaign, which is going to be run through libraries in conjunction with state governments, community groups and commercial partners. It is all about ensuring that the entire community is part of this project. It is about working on the basics and giving people the opportunity to learn and encouraging reading at home in particular. There will be children's competitions, peer-to-peer book reviews, adult book clubs and workplace literacy programs as part of a very broad set of events. All of that provides, I think, excellent opportunities in ensuring that we improve literacy within the Australian community. I urge all Australians to get behind this program. I urge all Australians to ensure that this National Year of Reading becomes a basis for improving the statistics which are disappointing about the Australian community in general but which say quite clearly why there is so much that needs to be done.

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

I also rise today to support the motion by the member for Lyons and the words all of the other speakers who have spoken to this motion. On the first issue, I would like to particularly acknowledge the member for Lyons and his stance, his work and his great advocacy in this area. It is a bipartisan area. It really deserves support from both sides of the chamber. The National Year of Reading is a very significant and a very important initiative because it provides an avenue in which awareness can be raised about the terribly low rates of literacy in Australia. It is absolutely staggering when you look at the fact that 46 per cent of Australians do not have functional literacy. That means that every day there are thousands of Australians who cannot read a newspaper, who cannot read a medicine bottle, who cannot follow a recipe and who cannot make sense of a timetable.

I had my own experiences with literacy in the workplace a couple of years ago when, as I was preparing for our very busy Christmas Day in our seafood retail outlet, I had written down the instructions for how the day would go, because it was a 4 am start and it was one of the busiest days of the year. I gave the instructions to one of the fellows that was working for us in the kitchen, and I remember going into the kitchen two hours later and he was still trying to make sense of the instructions for Christmas Day and reading through each line meticulously. It absolutely staggered me. It will always remain with me: the image of this gentleman reading a page, and it was taking him two hours to read it and make sense of it. So from the workplace we have enormous challenges. There are many people in the workplace who do not have literacy. I have many companies come to me and say that they are having to send their employees to literacy classes. So it is an important year that we must acknowledge.

The National Year of Reading is an absolutely fantastic initiative. The goals that have been set out to improve literacy for all Australians are to understand the benefit of reading as a life skill; to promote the reading culture in every home; and to establish an aspirational goal for families of parents and caregivers sharing books with their children every single day. It is not an easy thing to do, with all of the technology that is out there. Once we would come home and we would read a book. I used to relish reading books in my family home. Now people go on PlayStations, they watch TV, they play computer games. I see my 23-year-old constantly on a computer monitor.

But Pulitzer Prize nominee Nicholas Carr, in his book The Shallows:What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, makes a very interesting comparison between internet usage and reading books, on cognitive learning particularly. He says:

Once I was a scuba diver in a sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

Isn't that a terrific way of describing the wonderful richness of words and how this new technology has taken over our thought processes—that strange staccato quality where we jump from one topic to another in a haphazard order? Kids are learning to do that and not learning the very basics of literacy. While the internet is a wonderful tool, we really need to have a balance, to ensure that literacy skills are not limited by technological platforms.

It is so fantastic to see the member for Lyons promoting this. He has certainly had his challenges. I want to acknowledge his absolute inspiration to us all. In learning to read and write as an adult and as a member of parliament, he is a true ambassador for all of those people out there struggling with this very important issue.

The National Year of Reading is a really great program, and I want to commend the government on its initiative. It will bring a reading culture into every home. A few years back I was at a national literacy day at one of the local schools. I asked one of the group that I was with how many of them had a book in their home, had seen a book in their home. Most of the group had never seen a book in their home, had never been read to from a book. But they did point out to me that their parents read biker magazines, boating magazines and car magazines. But we should not presume that there is a culture of reading. It is clearly important for our children to grow up to be able to read and write. They need to do that while they are actually in the classroom, but we need to start literacy at a very early level. So I absolutely commend what the government is doing here.

In the brief time I have left, I just want to commend the Adult Migrant English Language program. We must also help our new immigrants. (Time expired)

Sitting suspended from 13 : 29 to 16 : 00