Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is one of those rare occasions when I find myself agreeing with an utterance from Senator Dastyari, and that utterance was: funding isn't everything. But those on the other side of the chamber are prepared to throw any amount of money into any pit that they fancy without determining the efficacy, the effect of that money and the priorities and outcomes that should be delivered. This is typical of the socialist end of the political spectrum: they are happy to spend other people's money until there is none left. It does not matter about the results.

If you want to look at the results in the education system, I am one of those people who lament the decline in literacy standards and student outcomes that have been evident over recent years. I read the other day in the newspaper that the number of children starting school without adequate numeracy skills is rising. The problem is not that we have not got enough money in education—education funding has increased by 100 per cent over the last 20 or 30 years while student enrolment has grown by only about 18 per cent—but that student outcomes have declined.

Throwing cash at a problem may be the easy way out, but actually structuring a program that is going to deliver results that is much more important. The government have, to their credit, identified this. They have said that teacher quality is absolutely paramount, and it is. It strikes me as incongruous that you can go into teaching with perhaps the lowest ATAR or tertiary education score and yet you are responsible for teaching the next generation. We should be expecting much higher standards for those seeking to teach our children.

School autonomy is also very, very important, because schools can make determinations that are in the best interests of their students. They do that, and they should do that, by engaging the parents in the education system. Too many parents think that the school can do it all themselves. That is not the case. We have got to make sure that parents are spending time with their children, that they are helping to develop their skills so that they can be built upon in the school and then enhanced in a practical environment. I want to give an example of that. When I was a publican and we employed a school graduate as a part-time person to work in our cafe, that person was unable to calculate the change from a $5 note for a cup of coffee. That was when coffee cost less than $5. They could not do that manually without the benefit of a cash register, and that was a year 12 graduate in the early 1990s. That is simply unacceptable and yet we are now risking going even further down that path if we deny that we have to get absolute outcomes. Throwing money at the issue is simply not going to solve the problem.

The final plank of the government's approach—and I think this is very important—is strengthening the curriculum. It is not good enough to teach shades of grey. There are some absolutes that are important in education. Being able to read is an absolute prerequisite. Being able to write is an absolute prerequisite. Being able to think for yourself is a prerequisite. Research abilities and things of that nature are important, as is the historical basis for things—such as learning the times tables. Students will ask, 'Why do we have to do that? We can just google or get a calculator.' It benefits people in development of their brains and everything else as we go along. We should not be just chasing new methodologies and ditching the things of the past simply because we might think they are anachronistic. They are not. It is about the development of our children and the education system.

There is a lot we can do that does not involve new money. We need to ensure that teachers are the best they possibly can be. It is about giving schools and parents a real investment in their children's education and making sure that schools can provide the services and the sorts of facilities that are most necessary and, of course, it is about strengthening the curriculum. Strengthening the curriculum means building around the core. It means establishing the basics so that children can learn to the best of their ability, and that is ultimately what we want from our education system. Right now, the statistics show that over successive years the system has not been doing the best it possibly can for our children.