Kym Richardson (Kingston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Education, Science and Training. Does the Australian government support incentives and rewards for teachers? Is the minister satisfied that the existing system is fair to Australia’s best teachers? Are there any alternative policies, and what is the government’s response to them?

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kingston for his question and acknowledge the huge support that he gives to all schools in his electorate. The Howard government believe that a high-quality teaching workforce equals higher standards in our schools. We believe that teachers should be rewarded and recognised for their performance and their professionalism. One significant way in which the Australian government is rewarding and recognising teachers is through the National Awards for Quality Schooling. For the fifth year these awards have been presented in Parliament House, and today I announced over $1 million in funding, for teachers and principals and schools, to recognise excellence in teaching and performance. I know the member for Kingston will be delighted that a school in his electorate, Seaford 6-12, were awarded the inaugural Medal of Distinction for the work that they are doing in raising standards in their school. I want to congratulate Seaford 6-12 on that outstanding performance.

What needs to happen, though, is for the state governments to complement this recognition of teacher performance. Currently, as is self-evident, state governments employ the majority of teachers in this country through state government schools. The current system is not ensuring that we can attract the best and brightest into the teaching profession and retain them. Currently there are rigid pay structures and inflexibility in the system that is working against people being attracted to teaching and people staying in the teaching profession. So we believe state governments should follow the lead of independent schools and introduce an element of performance pay in the terms and conditions of teachers’ salaries. This flexibility and the recognition of performance would ensure the ability to attract bright young people into teaching and indeed retain older teachers, who I am afraid are leaving the profession because of a lack of incentive in the system.

I was asked about alternative policies. The Australian government will continue to press the state governments to introduce performance pay; we will continue to show leadership in that regard. I notice that the Labor Party have said that they support, in principle, performance pay. But what we know about the Labor Party is that they will say one thing publicly, to curry favour with the public, but then say another thing behind the scenes. They will not be able to deliver performance pay for teachers because the education unions are against it and the Labor Party are beholden to the education unions in this country. We had an example yesterday when the Leader of the Opposition said that the Latham schools hit list was over. That had been a Labor policy for decades—to take money away from Catholic and independent schools. So the Leader of the Opposition comes out and says, ‘We’ve got rid of the hit list.’ Yet what do we read in the Age newspaper? The old union hacks that make up the Labor Party are still committed to the politics of envy and driving a wedge between government and non-government schools. The fact is that the Labor Party have no credibility on education reform because they cannot and will not stand up to the education unions.

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is also to the Minister for Education, Science and Training. I refer to the minister’s proposal for so-called performance based pay for teachers listed by the minister for consideration at the April meeting of Commonwealth, state and territory education ministers. What additional Commonwealth funds will the government provide to support the minister’s proposal?

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian government has put on the agenda for the next education ministers meeting an item for performance pay. We will be discussing with the education ministers how they can incorporate an element of performance pay in their arrangements with teachers and to follow the lead of the independent schools.

The Australian government currently provides $33 billion to schools across Australia. What is proposed over the next funding agreement is that there will be an additional $9 billion, so the Australian government’s commitment will be some $42 billion. Nine billion dollars is a lot of money to use to encourage state governments to introduce performance pay for teachers so that we can attract and retain the best and brightest in the teaching profession.