Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is innovative, combining learning and sport, and these teachers do it without performance pay. They do not ask for it and they do not need it. And, just to take that interjection from Senator Johnston, they do it all themselves without any extra funding—all by themselves—with the goodwill and commitment of the students, the parents and, most importantly, the teachers. I hope that has cleared that up for you, Senator Johnston. These are the very same people Minister Bishop likes to malign. That is about real performance by teachers and students—unlike what we see from this lazy, tired government. I shall talk more about the virtues of Forrestfield Senior High School at another time, but it is important to talk about the great work of people like Peter Noack and Greg Maynard and the staff and students in the context of federal funding for schools.

But back to the Treasurer and his comments that so effectively suppressed the minister for education. What can we take the Treasurer to mean by these comments? One way to interpret these comments is that further power will be taken away from the states: you will do as we say or you won’t get your funding—more bullying, as usual, from the Treasurer. Sadly, this is the kind of behaviour we have come to expect from this minister.

There is a more sinister interpretation. We have witnessed in this very place, in late 2005, this arrogant government using its numbers in the Senate to guillotine debate and ram through the so-called Work Choices legislation. Then the states lost their High Court challenge. So could we see a repeat performance over education? Will we see the federal government using the corporations power to take away control of education from the states? This would be a monumental disaster for the great public schools system, for teachers, and, more importantly, for students. No wonder the minister for education has been sent to the naughty corner for letting the cat out of the bag over this government’s arrogant approach to public education.

Labor has a fresh approach to education and education funding. It is no wonder public opinion is condemning the Howard government for its treatment of public schools, and it is little wonder public and expert opinion is so receptive to the good work being done by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Kevin Rudd, and the shadow minister for education, Stephen Smith. There is Labor’s Local Schools Working Together program to provide funding for capital across government and non-government schools where it is needed. I wish to repeat that for those on the other side who may be confused: across government and non-government schools where it is needed. These are areas where population growth means that parents and schools are demanding more and better facilities. The idea of sharing infrastructure is a very good one, and I commend once again the responsible shadow minister for promoting this policy. This is all part of Labor’s education revolution.

Another part of Labor’s plan is 260 childcare centres on school sites. Once again, this is another excellent idea, saving the double drop-off for parents, but—guess what?—ignored by this government. In addition there have been a number of other very good policy proposals put forward by Labor already this year: early childhood education guaranteed, efforts to get more students studying science and mathematics, and a national curriculum for the key areas of history, science and maths, working with the cooperation of the states and territories.

Let me end by making it perfectly clear that talk of ‘hit lists’ is over. To respond to Senator Ian Macdonald’s contribution—which I always find completely different, to say the least—I will say it one more time. It can be picked up if he has his TV on in his room. It is over. There are no hit lists. Schools and students, government and non-government, will be better off under a federal Labor government. Funding will not be cut. It will also be fair and will be on the basis of need. We will see public opinion liking what they hear from Labor on education. The voters will get their opportunity later this year. They will vote on who should get their performance pay—our version of it at least—and I suspect it will not be people on the other side either in this chamber or in the other place.