Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a Labor member of parliament, I believe that it is my mission to make sure that a child who grows up in my electorate—in Springvale or in Clayton South—or one of the kids I met when I was living up in North East Arnhem Land has just as good a chance as a young person who grows up in the Prime Minister's electorate of Wentworth of becoming a High Court judge, a company CEO or a member of this chamber. When we look at the recent decades of progress that we have made in Australia on this question, there is something to really celebrate here. My grandmother was one of 13 children and she was born on a dairy farm in Queensland. She was educated to year 4 and nothing more than that. Her husband was an incredibly intelligent man but he served out his time working in menial jobs and never got to use that fine mind of his. There was a good reason for that—and there were people like that all over Australia at that time in our history. It was because Australia at the time was not a very wealthy country and we had an education system that only served people who grew up in wealthy families.

This has changed. Today the vast majority of young people in this country get to finish year 12, and four young people in 10 get to go to university. That is something all of us should be incredibly proud of. But there are still some incredible challenges that face all of us in this chamber who are trying to get a fair go for Australian kids. Today in Australia a four-year-old who grows up in a disadvantaged community is twice as likely as a child who grows up in a really wealthy community to be developmentally delayed. As kids work through the school system we see the gaps grow over time, not diminish. We know that a child who grows up in a really wealthy family is about three times as likely as a child who grows up in a really disadvantaged family to get to go to university. There are specific pockets of concern. An Indigenous man in this country is more likely to end up with a prison record than a university degree.

All of us in this chamber should be absolutely outraged when we hear these facts and these statistics, because they indicate that we have a long way to go to make sure young people in this country get a fair go. Equity is not the only issue facing our education system. One of the reasons Australia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world today is that we have a really highly skilled population compared to a lot of other countries. But this too is under challenge. When we look at the performance of Australia's school system, we hear incredible stories from people who talk about this issue in this chamber. But when we look at the system as a whole the reality is that it is a system in relative decline. Australia, which once had one of the best education systems in the world, is now starting to middle when we look at our comparator countries. Interestingly, in many instances the countries that are streaking ahead of us are Asian countries. We have a lot of critical issues facing our education system.

I want to talk today about proud I am as a Labor member of parliament to belong to a political party that is actually confronting and addressing these difficult challenges. Some weeks ago our shadow education spokesperson and our opposition leader announced the 'Your Child. Our Future' policy. In the time I have been watching politics this is the first time a serious attempt has been made to take some of the schools that are serving disadvantaged communities in my electorate and bring them up to the standard that we see in some of the wealthier parts of the country.

I cannot cover all aspects of the policy today and I really want to encourage those at home to seek out some of the detail of this on the internet. There is so much in the 'Your Child. Our Future' policy. One of the core aspects of this is needs based funding, something Labor has been talking about for quite some years now. What that means is that the resources that every child needs to flourish are going to go to those kids. So the kids who are most in need are going to get the most help—and that is a very important principle that we need to abide by.

But that is not all this policy is about. It includes things such as ensuring that every child in this country gets one-on-one support for literacy and numeracy to make sure they have the chance to build those foundation skills. It is special support for kids who are our being left behind in our education system such as young people with a disability. It is extra resources to support school leaders to bring their communities with them on this journey to becoming the best school system in the world. I believe there is no more critical issue facing this parliament today than what is going on in our schools and education system. I am incredibly proud of this policy and I hope that those at home take the time to have a look at the detail of what we are proposing.