Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my friend the brilliant member for Braddon for her question. Her question prompts me to inform the House of some very good news, because information out this morning shows that the number of kids finishing high school is going back up. The number of boys finishing high school is going up, the number of girls finishing high school is going up, the number of kids at Catholic and independent schools finishing high school is going up, and the number of kids at public schools finishing high school is going up. This is a big deal because, basically, for the last decade it's been going in the opposite direction. It's been going down and down, and now it's starting to turn around. This is good news because, as most of us will know, it's more important to finish high school today than it was when we went to school. Now it's your ticket to the show because so many jobs require you to finish school and then go on to TAFE or to university.

I'm asked about risks, and I think everyone here will remember what happened last time the Liberals were in power—how they ripped the guts out of our public schools; how they ripped $30 billion out of our public schools. That's when all of this started. We're still dealing with the consequences of it, because it wasn't just the number of kids finishing school that went down; it was the number of kids going to school that went down as well. School attendance rates under the Liberals dropped from 93 per cent down to 86 per cent. The good news is that that's going back up now too, for the first time in a decade.

What else happened under the Liberal Party? Teacher shortages went through the roof. I can now tell the House some good news: that's turning around as well. There are now more schoolteachers than ever before and more people enrolling to become a teacher as well. That's up six per cent this year, but it's just the start. There is so much more that we need to do.

That's why we're fixing the funding of our public schools. It's the biggest new investment in our schools by an Australian government ever. That's not a blank cheque; that's funding tied to reform—the sort of reform we need to make to make sure that kids learn to read, to write and to count. It's things like evidence based teaching, things like phonics checks for kids when they're little to identify kids who need more help, and things like small-group tutoring to give them the help that they need so that we make sure that kids who fall behind catch up and keep up and even more kids finish high school.

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