Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked today.

Those opposite need a lesson in taking responsibility. If you are going to hold out to the Australian public that you support a world-class education system, then, when faced with evidence and facts that show a fundamental failing by the Labor government in Western Australia in the area of education, you need to take action. You need to end the ‘no-blame game’ and acknowledge that the Carpenter government has failed to deliver the education standards that Western Australian children deserve.

The Rudd Labor government is doing everything that it can to ensure that it does not blame the Carpenter Labor government for its failings in the education system. Instead of showing leadership, instead of showing initiative, instead of producing policies with substance, they are indulging in their favourite game: the Labor no-blame game.

In March 1997, a decision was made by all state, territory and Commonwealth education ministers. They agreed on a national goal. That goal was that every child leaving primary school should be numerate and able to read, write and spell at an appropriate level. We now have a report—which it would appear the minister has not read—which ranks Western Australian primary school children as worst in reading, writing and maths in all the states and territories.

This report shows that the Carpenter government has failed the children of Western Australia, and this is a disgrace. This failure by the Carpenter state Labor government to provide an adequate education system makes a mockery of federal Labor’s so-called education revolution. What makes it worse is that Mr Carpenter is a former education minister. The fact is that the report and the minister’s pathetic answer to my question today clearly indicate that this Labor government is playing the no-blame game in respect of the Carpenter Labor government in Western Australia.

The Rudd Labor government is immersed in a conspiracy of silence with the WA state Labor government. This is how that game is played out: first, the Rudd Labor government agrees not to criticise the state Labor governments for their failings and, in return, the state Labor governments agree not to criticise Mr Rudd’s government—to keep their mouths shut. The minister’s answer to my question today indicates that he has not read the report or, indeed, if he has read the report, has clearly not understood the findings. The report highlights the failings of the education system in Western Australia and yet the minister comes in here today playing the no-blame game and tries to make excuses for the disgraceful situation we have in Western Australia in relation to education. The minister’s answer is all about Labor rhetoric. It is designed to protect the states and to ensure that they are not held to account.

Worse than that, the minister’s answer to my question attempts to make excuses for them at the expense of schoolchildren in Western Australia. The Rudd no-blame game is destroying the future prospects of Western Australia’s greatest asset, its children. The Rudd Labor government will do anything for a cheap headline rather than tackle the substance of the education issue. In federal Labor’s recent press release on the education revolution in our schools, this is what the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister say:

Tough action is necessary to achieve real change.

I ask: what tough action is being taken by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education to hold the Carpenter Labor government to account? Absolutely nothing, no comment—almost justification and praise is being given for the level of education standards in Western Australia. Labor’s so-called education revolution is nothing more than a stunt being perpetrated on the Australian people.