Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I couldn't help but reflect on the importance of education as my good friend Senator McDonald, the envoy for Northern Australia, was giving her speech. It actually took me back to some reading I've done recently in relation to Neville Bonner, who was the first Indigenous parliamentarian elected to federal parliament. In fact, this month is the 50th anniversary of Neville Bonner's swearing in as a senator of the federal parliament. He was from my home state of Queensland and from my party, the successor of the Liberal Party, the Liberal National Party of Queensland.

When one reads and reflects on Neville Bonner's story, one of the things that leaps out is he managed to attain his position in this place with the benefit of only one year's formal education—one year's formal education! It's told in his story that when he was a young boy growing up outside of Lismore a local police sergeant or detective encouraged his mother to send Neville and his siblings along to the local state school at Lismore. They got dressed, they went to the school and immediately the parents of the white children descended on the school to take their kids out. Neville Bonner said he had indescribable feelings when his opportunity for education was denied to him at that point. That was something he carried with him for the rest of his life. Notwithstanding that, he still managed to achieve election to this place and to serve his party, his country and the people of Queensland.

We should not have a debate in this place on higher education, universities et cetera without certainly my party talking about Sir Robert Gordon Menzies and his role in the university sector. Menzies said:

Our great function when we approach the problem of education is to equalise opportunity to see that every boy and girl has a chance to develop whatever faculties he or she may have, because this will be a tremendous contribution to the good life for the nation.

Before I go into the particulars of the bills I want to reflect on that quote and what it means in terms of my party's philosophy with respect to education and the university sector—the philosophy I subscribe to. First is the concept of equalised opportunity. We often talk about providing equal opportunity—we need to strive to provide equal opportunity to everyone in this country regardless of their background, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of their gender and regardless of whether they live in the bush, the city, a regional area or the outer suburbs; 'We need to provide equal opportunity to everyone in this country'—but sometimes we neglect to talk about how we go about equalising opportunity, how we go about helping people regardless of their background and how we assist young Australians to make the most of their opportunities and equalise those opportunities. Menzies hit the nail right on the head when he talked about the role education plays in terms of equalising opportunity.

The second limb of that quote is that 'every boy and girl has a chance to develop whatever faculties he or she may have'. There is recognition that there's individual responsibility involved in that. It is up to the individual to make the most of whatever God-given faculties they have—to work and study hard in whatever field and whatever endeavour and to progress their life as far as they can using the faculties they've been given and to the best of their ability.

The third element is that by doing that—by equalising that opportunity and by each boy and girl developing their faculties to the best of their ability—they're contributing a great good to the nation, so there's a contribution to the nation. So there are three elements in that philosophy in relation to the role of education. Those elements were invoked by Robert Gordon Menzies in that quote.

Those on the other side will invoke the spirit of Gough Whitlam—and good luck to them; that's fine—but let us never forget that under Sir Robert Gordon Menzies in this country there was an absolute explosion of the tertiary sector. The University of New England was established. Monash University was established. Macquarie University, La Trobe University, the University of Newcastle and Flinders University—a host of new universities came online. There was also an explosion in the number of university students—from 53,700 in 1960 to 88,230 in 1966, an increase of 35,000 in just six years. There was an extraordinary increase in the number of university students and also in female participation. In 1952, 19.7 per cent of university students were women. By 1966 that had increased to 25.9 per cent. Of course, that was part of the journey of reaching the levels that we see today.

I also couldn't help but reflect upon the speech that Senator Chandler gave in relation to this topic and her great advocacy in favour of freedom of speech on our campuses. It reminded me of a quote by Menzies that the mission of our universities— (Time expired)