Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thought that this was the Parliament of Australia and not fantasy land in the sense that we are dealing with a hypothetical here. If there is a change of government in New South Wales—and I hope there is—the point would be made very plain to the incoming education minister that the government stands on the side of parents. Parents need to have a good understanding about how their child is performing, not just simply something saying that they exist and that they are actually in the classroom. We want a clear reporting process. We want something that is very easily understood. We think it is reasonable that parents know how their child is performing in comparison not only with other people in the state but also with other people in the classroom.

The only people who have something to fear out of this are mediocre teachers. We think that the best teachers are going to welcome the chance to have parents know that their students are achieving an A outcome, a B outcome, a C outcome or whatever. No-one has anything to fear. We stand for excellence in education on this side. We have put it very plainly to the states. My understanding is that Minister Bishop is expecting some responses back from the states by the end of July. I guess we will deal with the detail of those responses then.

It is really important that the member for Jagajaga does not do herself a disservice by standing for mediocrity. The Labor Party are all about rewarding mediocrity. Members of the Labor Party are constantly looking for examples to satisfy the case put to them by the Australian Education Union or the New South Wales Teachers Federation that mediocrity is okay. We have a view that we want to achieve excellence from our students. Earlier reforms from this government dealt with literacy and numeracy benchmarking. The way in which those opposite rallied against that because somehow it was going to expose teachers did them no service at all. Without wanting to embarrass my poor son, but I am about to, if it had not been for Dr David Kemp’s reforms earlier in the life of this government revealing literacy traps, which then enabled my son to find out that he was not reading and writing properly, he might not be as good a student as he is today. I am quite proud about the fact that this government has stood for encouraging excellence and exposing where excellence is not being achieved. Whether it is the New South Wales Liberal Party, the New South Wales Labor Party or whoever it happens to be, it is an example that the member for Jagajaga will go and grab for, because she stands for mediocrity while we on this side stand for excellence.

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