Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I have a favourite quote from John Dewey and it is:

What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all its children.

I have loved this quote for a long time and I think it is a good motto to take with the shadow ministerial responsibilities that I have at the moment. While I am not the best and wisest parent, I certainly have a very clear idea of the sort of education I want for my own children. I want excellence. I want high expectations of achievement. I want recognition of their individuality. I want teachers who know my children, like them and push them to achieve their best. I want my children to be happy learners who follow their curiosity. I want them to be prepared for the world. I want to futureproof my children. I want them to be prepared for the jobs of the future and for the lifelong learning that those jobs will require. I want them to be prepared for life itself—to know how to collaborate, to communicate, to innovate and to get along with others. I want schools that are well-resourced. I want teachers who are well-trained and who have the time and the support to continuously update their knowledge and their skills. I want principals who are excellent school leaders—who engage the community outside the school and make every teacher, every child, every person working in the school and every parent proud to be part of that school community. I know what I want for my children, and it is what I want for every Australian child no matter where they live and no matter their family background. I want the best for my kids, and I want the best for every Australian child—but that takes extra resources.

We have, right before us at the moment, a choice to make. We have a government that says they want to give a $50 billion tax cut to big business while, at the same time, saying that they have to cut $30 billion from our schools. On average, that is $3 million from every school across Australia. I ask my colleagues: which is a better investment? If you took any person at random, stopped them in the street and said, 'Here's $2,000—you can give it to your local school or you can pass it on as a tax cut to big business knowing that a fair proportion will go to overseas shareholders and knowing that $7.6 billion of the $50 billion is going to the big banks,' what do you think they would say to that? That is the choice that is before us right now. We are making that choice in this parliament.

This week we have heard a lot about rights. We have heard about the right to racist hate speech, the right to be a bigot and why it is important to have that right. But I ask you: what is the more important right? The right of every child to a decent education, the right of children with a disability to be included in their school and get the learning support they need to be active learners and prepared for the world after school, the right of children who are struggling with their reading to be allowed to learn to read, the right of children to learn basic mathematical concepts, the right to learn to write and the right for gifted and talented children to be challenged so they are able to make the most of their gifts—they are the rights that we should be talking about in this parliament. The right of children in remote communities to get the same opportunities as children in the middle of the biggest city in the country, the right of Indigenous kids, kids who are from a non-English-speaking background and kids from small schools to get a decent education as Australian citizens are the rights that this parliament should be focused on this week.

We are joined here today, in the gallery, by a group of very dedicated principals, teachers, parents and advocates for schools. They are Shelby Papadopoulos from Colac Public School; Rebecca Hack and Billie-Jean Ryals from Berserker Street State School; Cathie Dendle, who is a parent and teacher at Biloela State School, and Matt Sahlqvist, the principal; Peter Clifton from Magpie Public School in Ballarat; Kate Mitchell from Box Hill; Rob Shepherd from LeFevre High School; Rae Taggart from Glenelg Primary School; Jenny-Marie Gorman from Darlington Primary School in South Australia—not in New South Wales, I have one of those too;Peter Skinner from George Bass School; Jill Biddington from Rivendell School; Peter Rouse from Canley Vale High School; Phil Seymour and Erin Sinnott, co-principals from Hayes Park Primary School; Chris Presland, the principal from St Clair High School; David Lee, the principal from Atwell Primary School; Scott Mosey, a parent from Roleystone Community College; and representatives from their unions too. They are here because they are determined to fight for decent funding for the children who attend their schools and children like them all over Australia. I heard from these people today. I heard from Jeff Ward from Sanctuary Point Public School in New South Wales who talked about the huge difference Gonski needs based funding had made in his school. He said, 'Before this extra needs based funding, my school was a heads down, hoodies up community.' But the surge in school pride meant that their whole community now has a hoodies off, heads up attitude.

I heard from Kambrya College—a fantastic school where I met the principal and Michelle, a parent, who talked about the difference that individualised learning had made for her daughter with learning difficulties at school, the confidence that it gave her and the fact that she lost her anxiety about school. This is a school that has done such great work. I heard from their school captain as well. He was a kid who was at risk of dropping out and disengaging from school altogether. He was expelled from another school. At this school, because of the specialised help he got, not only did he pass his first maths test but also he became the school captain. That is the difference that extra resourcing, extra one-on-one attention, more teachers and more help with the basics can make.

Today we heard from the Australian Education Union, and their State of Our Schools Survey indicates that principals are saying that, if these $30 billion of cuts proposed by the government proceed, their kids will miss out. Students with a disability or learning difficulties will miss out. Principals are saying that that help with the basics—with reading, writing and maths—will be cut because they cannot afford to give those children the individual support they will need.

The government says that it is all about reform and it is not about money. We agree there should be reform. That is why we put these reforms into our agreements with the states. It was Christopher Pyne, when he was the Minister for Education, who cut the reform agenda. Our reform agenda said we needed to focus on quality teaching, quality learning, empowered school leadership, meeting student needs and transparency and accountability. We had those reforms in place. It was those opposite who said: 'We should give up on the reform agenda. It doesn't matter what the states do. They can do whatever they like.' We said that we should have comprehensive literacy and numeracy support for the first four years of school, have school readiness assessments, have ongoing implementation of professional standards for teachers, introduce better improvements for initial teacher education and induction into the classroom, have a new principal performance and development framework and be giving principals greater autonomy in schools. These are just a few of the reforms that we demanded from states in return for extra funding. This is not a question of extra resources versus reforms. This is a question of: can you do these reforms without extra resources? And the answer is, no, you cannot.

A couple of weeks ago I got a message from a fantastic teacher. I have three children in three great schools. They all have great teachers. In my youngest child's year 1 classroom we are using this great app that keeps the parents in touch with what the kids are doing all day. So I get photos and updates of what my son is doing in school. His teacher sent through a note which is a quote from Valerie Welk:

I promise you every day your child will learn something.

Some days they will bring it home in their hands,

some days they will bring it home in their heads,

and some days they will bring it home in their hearts.

That is the sort of education that I want for my children. I want my child to be extended, challenged, loved, treated as an individual and given the support he needs to achieve his best. But it is not just what I want for my child; it is what I want for every child. That is why on this side we will always stand up for needs based funding and we will never accept $30 billion of cuts to our schools.

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