Page 1596 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
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commitment to languages other than English and taking out the fundamental learning about the impact of people on our planet are retrograde steps.
There was an important project in the wings to strengthen government high schools, and I am going to quote from Trevor Cobbold’s media release today. It was sad to see the minister for education ridiculing an earlier quotation from Mr Cobbold, because I am quite sure that Labor will be seeking his support in the federal election campaign because of his strong and very, very expert work on public education. He talks about one of these projects; it cuts to the heart of the matter. He said:
While the ACT has high average outcomes by international standards, it also has a very large gap in outcomes between the highest and lowest achieving students. The difference for 15-year old students in reading, mathematics and science is amongst the largest in Australia and amongst the high income OECD countries. There is a large gap in outcomes between students from low and high income families.
What matters most in improving school outcomes are more teachers and support staff, improving teaching and reducing the impact of poverty, low incomes and broken families on student learning.
Despite all its rhetoric about social justice, the Government has given up on improving equity in education. In six years of office, it has made only token efforts to reduce the achievement gap in our schools.”
Mr Cobbold criticised the government for failing to honour its election promises on high school improvement which, he said, is a key plank in any equity strategy. To my mind, a $500 a year bursary to eligible students is no substitute for that.
Finally, on education, I would like to remind members that it takes a village to educate a child. Therefore, children, parents, teachers and community members must be central to the development and implementation of all education policies and programs, and I see no real commitment in this budget to that kind of collaboration.
Mr Speaker, there are many aspects of this budget that time constrains me from addressing today. I have talked about them in Assembly debates and I look forward to addressing them in future sittings and in estimates hearings. The budget surplus as revealed and forecast in this budget makes me wonder whether last year’s cuts to the community sector and environmental programs were unnecessary in financial terms as well as social and environmental terms. I hope the government does not do what most commentators think it will do and use the budget surplus to fund its re-election campaign. One can only hope.
Every journey begins with the first step. Given the abandonment of the government’s original greenhouse strategy it would be fair to say that this government’s climate change response journey began with two steps forward, one step back. It now lags behind the community in this regard because they have been moving steadily forward. I applaud the small steps that the government has taken in a forward direction. Hopefully, scientific inevitability and public demand for urgent action will convince it to stop walking and start running in the near future—hopefully, before next year’s election budget.
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