Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Brown for his question, but he has ruined my reputation by describing one of my answers as 'good', so no doubt I will be disciplined by the tactics committee! But I will be less helpful here because I do not have the answer to the specific questions he raises. I am informed, by the opposition, that the spread of specialist teachers among the state school system is not as high as we would like. I will try and get him the figures. I know a lot of the work is done by teachers who carry other responsibilities. They do music teaching and choir and provide other support of music in the schools while doing other duties. I will have to take the specifics of his question on notice because I do not have those statistics, but I suspect the minister for education may be able to get them from the state authorities and give us a better feel for exactly the penetration of specialist teaching positions across the various state systems.