Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Tuesday, along with the Prime Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Child Care, Maxine McKew, I had the pleasure of announcing 13 new locations for the Home Interaction Program for Parents and Youngsters, including the Minto Family Centre in my electorate. The Rudd government is proud to have committed $32½ million over the next five years to the rollout of the Home Interaction Program for Parents and Youngsters right across this nation. This government is committed to the education revolution, and that is why we are building the best educated, best trained and best skilled workforce in the world. To achieve this, we have to get to work at the earliest opportunity and start with kids in preschool. That means ensuring that kids, regardless of their postcode, get the best possible start in life.

The home interaction program will go a long way to support kids in communities right across this country. It is not a new program; it has been trialled and used in other countries around the world, including the United States, Canada and Germany. Borrowing not only from the international experience but also from the experience of the Brotherhood of St Laurence, where it has effectively been trialled over the last 10 years, it has been demonstrated that this program works remarkably efficiently.

Children who undertake the home interaction program when they enter primary school show that they are well ahead of or at least equivalent to their peers in the first year of primary school. The program is aimed at three- to five-year-olds to assist with the provision of home tutors and books and assisted education resources to prepare these kids for school. Grants will be provided to local community organisations which engage tutors to provide home based services for these children. The program will offer educational support to very young kids from disadvantaged families not only across my electorate but in all Australian states and territories. From next year we will be rolling out a further 50 of these programs.

One of the 13 new centres announced by the Prime Minister in Minto the other day will be in Claymore, in my electorate. The centre will be up and running soon and I have encouraged a number of dedicated and established organisations in my electorate, including Macarthur Diversity Services and UnitingCare Burnside, to make expressions of interest to implement the program locally. When I talked to the Chief Executive Officer of UnitingCare Burnside, Jane Woodruff, last week in Minto, she informed me that they would be only too pleased to be part of this program that will prepare children for school.

Macarthur Diversity Services help disadvantaged and marginalised people in my area to overcome poverty and distress. They currently offer a successful program that aims to help families with young children who have little or no support network. I meet regularly with Judith Taylor, the Executive Officer of Macarthur Diversity Services, and I know that they too would be delighted to help develop in our Claymore residents the skills and resources that assist in parenting.

We all know that parenting plays a crucial role in our children’s education. This program is designed to help parents provide their children with the skills and confidence to start school with a more optimistic approach to learning. Evidence shows that the earlier you make educational intervention the more chance you have of ultimately getting a positive educational outcome. This is particularly the case when we are talking about kids from disadvantaged backgrounds.

This program is a positive step forward to make sure that all little ones, regardless of their postcode, get the best possible start in life. It is designed to ensure that their parents have the confidence, skills and commitment to participate in the lifelong process of educating their children. The program has been well received in my area, and I am committed to supporting it into the future.