Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Mason, you seem to think that quality is an optional extra for those with the ability to pay. That seems to be the model that you are proposing. The process of developing the national curriculum is one in which representatives of the non-government sector have been directly involved. The national curriculum will detail the content and the achievement standards that all young Australians should have access to, regardless of their socioeconomic background. So the quality of the education you get should be based not on your postcode but on your access to the very best resources this country can provide and the very best teaching. It should be based on the fundamental principle of equality of opportunity for every child in this country.

This is a fundamental principle of equity that the Liberal Party has historically walked away from. We are seeing it here again tonight. Very much at the centre of debate here is the failure of the Liberal Party to face up to its responsibilities to ensure that every child in Australia gets access to a quality education, no matter where they live, no matter who their parents are and no matter how much money they have in the bank. That is the principle that I think this parliament has to focus on.

There are requirements in terms of both content and achievement standards. They will, however, continue to provide for flexibility in terms of innovation and creativity for the development and delivery of the curriculum at the local level by individual schools. The national curriculum will not mandate the practices that schools or teachers use to deliver the content that they teach. What it will provide, though, is the capacity to ensure that we can get proper standards right across the country. We can ensure that schools and teachers will continue to use their professional talents, their professional judgement about the ways in which to cover the material and in what sequence and how best to reflect local and regional circumstances and philosophies in the learning environment.

I was a schoolteacher for 10 years. I will say this to you, Senator Mason: I know something about the difficulties of teaching in a working-class district in the north of Melbourne. I can say this to you on the basis of my experience: the fact is that in this country the levels of inequality are unacceptable.