Andrew Leigh

On Sky AM Agenda, I spoke with host Kieran Gilbert and Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield about the choice between economic debt of 10% of GDP and a social debt of 200,000 unemployed; about the government's plans for better schools; and about the passing of former House Speaker Joan Child.http://www.youtube.com/v/qKYWuHgcrKE?hl=en_GB&version=3

With rain forecast all morning, we've decided to cancel today's Welcoming the Babies. Apologies for any inconvenience.

I have an article in today's Canberra Times about the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Let Many Shoulders Take Some of the Burden, Canberra Times, 20 February 2013

Disability touches the lives of millions of Australians. Almost one in five Australians either have a disability, have a family member with a disability or are a carer for someone with a disability.

Yet our response to disability has not reflected the scale or severity of its impact. In a prosperous nation like ours, it is profoundly wrong that heart-breaking, often shocking, stories of life with disability are not exceptional.



In parliament recently, I shared a letter from one of my constituents, Denise Reid. Ms Reid wrote to me about her son Tim, a 21-year-old man with Down syndrome. She wrote about Tim’s sense of humour and love of music. But she also told of the demoralising task of continually having to prove her son’s disability to maintain the modest payment she receives:

‘My son has an intellectual disability. There is no cure and he will never grow out of it. ... The payment is small and sometimes I feel like giving up the bureaucratic battle. But I don’t. I fill out the form and visit the GP to complete another form and wait to hear if I’ve been able to prove disability. That makes me sad.’

If this situation, where mothers of children with Down syndrome have to constantly prove that their child’s chromosomes have not changed, sounds like an unfortunate quirk of the system, we only have to consider some of the other indefensible anomalies in the current system.

Imagine you rented a car from Canberra airport, and had an accident as you drove out of the airport that left you a paraplegic. Your payout eligibility might differ depending on whether the hire car company had registered that vehicle in Victoria or Queensland.

The same disability is treated differently if you got it falling off the roof while cleaning your own gutters or being while paid to clean someone else’s.

That is how much of a patchwork our current system is.

Such stories have been heard so often in discussions around the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

People with disabilities and their loved ones don’t need is a system that makes living with disability a bureaucratic battle.

It is with that spirit and with a recognition that past governments have not provided adequate support to people with disabilities and their carers that the government is putting in place a National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Underpinning the rationale for the Scheme is the appreciation of an uncomfortable truth: disability, itself, does not discriminate. Each of us is just a car crash away from a profound disability, a dice roll in the genetic lottery from giving birth to a child with a congenital abnormality.

Under the current system, the risk of falling foul of that lottery—and of the emotional and financial costs that often follow—is heaped on the shoulders of those people with a disability and their carers. It is, effectively, privatised.

What the National Disability Insurance Scheme will do, like other landmark reforms such as Medicare and universal superannuation before it, is transfer that risk across society. It will ensure that those citizens not in a position to meet their own care needs are supported, not swamped.

The Prime Minister emphasised this in a recent address to the National Press Club, saying that the Scheme sets out to ensure ‘those hit with life’s cruellest blows get the help they need.’

A National Disability Insurance Scheme system comes with a serious price tag. But that should not prevent us from transferring the risks and costs of disability to where they rightly belong: on the shoulders of the many, not the few.

The Scheme will provide people with a disability individual care and support based on their needs, giving them real choice and control over these supports, fostering innovative services that are delivered and coordinated locally, and bringing long-term certainty to the resourcing of disability care and support.

Chief Minister Katy Gallagher lost no time pledging her commitment to the National Disability Insurance Scheme at the outset. As a result, when the ACT becomes one of the NDIS launch sites later this year, around 5,000 Canberrans with a disability will benefit.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme is a long-overdue reform, helping to make Australia’s social safety net a little stronger and our nation a little fairer. Hopefully it will help thousands of Australians—like Tim and Denise Reid—who should be getting more support and doing less paperwork.

Andrew Leigh is the federal member for Fraser, and his website is www.andrewleigh.com.

Thanks to last week's parliamentary intern, Thomas Baker, for assistance in drafting this piece.

I am inviting locals to come along and celebrate the newest members of our community at the third annual “Welcoming the Babies” event on Sunday 24 February 2013 (10.30am to 12.30pm) Glebe Park, Canberra City.

I am proud to be holding my third Welcoming the Babies event and am looking forward to celebrating the day with parents and members of our community. The inaugural Welcoming the Babies held in 2011 had 150 people in attendance, including babies, their parents, and siblings. I invite parents to register babies up to 18 months of age, so that they can participate.
As a father of three young boys I know how daunting it can be trying to get information about what’s out there. By bringing together the various services and organisations in one place we’re hoping to make looking after young ones that little bit easier. It’s a chance for parents to find out the different things out there for them and connect with other parents. It’s also a way for us to celebrate our youngest and cutest residents.

The event is also a reminder that we need supportive families and a strong community to give children the best opportunity in life. Last year was a great success and was a fun filled day with face painting, balloons, and entertainment. I’m looking forward to an even bigger Welcoming the Babies this year.

Parents wishing to register their babies should email andrew.leigh.mp < at > aph.gov.au or call 6247 4396 with the name of their baby and their contact details.
All members of the community are invited to come along and help celebrate “Welcoming the Babies”.

I spoke in parliament today about Teach for Australia (Joe Hockey, speaking before me, had wrongly suggested that my electorate was named after Malcolm Fraser, so I had to set him straight).

Tax Laws Amendment (2012 Measures No. 6) Bill 2012, 14 February 2013

It is my great pleasure to serve as the member for Fraser, a seat named after Jim Fraser, who was the ACT's sole representative in this House from 1951 through to 1970. It is true that he did serve alongside Malcolm Fraser for much of that period, but there are significant differences in outlook between them. Jim Fraser was a proud Labor member, committed to social justice, committed to the rights of workers and a true reforming member of this House. While the shadow Treasurer may seek to model his politics on those of Malcolm Fraser, that is not my role model here in this place.

I rise today to speak about one of the schedules in the Tax Laws Amendment (2012 Measures No. 6) Bill 2012, which provides tax deductible gift-recipient status to an organisation known as Teach For Australia. Teach For Australia is modelled on Teach For America, which is now in its third decade. Teach For America bases its success on two vital truths: firstly, that there is no more important job that teaching disadvantaged children and, secondly, that there is a reservoir of idealism among talented university students. More than one in 10 US Ivy League graduates now applies to Teach For America. Its recruiting is so selective that it is able to take just the top 20 per cent of applicants.

Since starting in 2009, Teach For Australia has sought to bring the same model to disadvantage in Australia's schools. Disadvantage is rife in the Australian school system. A few statistics bear that out: according to Teach For Australia, the most disadvantaged students in Australian schools are three years of learning behind the most advantaged by the time they are in mid-high school. One in five year 9 students living in households with no-one in paid work fail minimum reading standards. In remote schools, 39 per cent of students do not finish high school, and in very remote schools that is 65 per cent. Of those attending university, only 15 per cent of university students come from the bottom socioeconomic quartile, compared with 42 per cent from privileged backgrounds. There is a crying need to get great teachers into disadvantaged schools. The government's Gonski reforms are focusing on improving resources for those schools, but Teach For Australia also plays an important part.

Teach For Australia associates, as the teachers are known, train for six weeks in intensive summer training at the University of Melbourne, and then continue to receive formal education, mentoring and leadership coaching through their two-year placement. Teach For Australia associates are now teaching in schools in Victoria, the ACT and the Northern Territory. Like Teach For America, they are an extremely selective program. Fewer than one in 10 applicants to Teach For Australia is selected. The average university entrance score of Teach For Australia associates is 97.

Tony Simpson, principal of Copperfield College in Melbourne's outer west, describes his Teach For Australia teachers as 'mindblowingly successful'. The way in which Teach For Australia trains their associates encourages students who might not have studied education to combine theory and practice. As Teach For Australia founder Melodie Potts Rosevear put it:

‘TFA allows select individuals to complete roughly one-third of their degree, and then to combine theory and practice by doing the rest of the degree over the course of the next two years as they are teaching.’

Like the UK counterpart, Teach First, independent evaluations support the success of the Teach For Australia model. For example, a randomised evaluation that Mathematica Policy Research did on Teach For America found that the benefits from having a Teach For America teacher were equivalent to an additional month of learning.

But we will not just see the benefits of Teach For Australia in the classroom. Teach For America now, with nearly a full generation having gone by since the first Teach For America teachers went through the system, is beginning to reshape US education policy debates. Two Teach For America alumni have founded KIPP schools, a set of charter schools that focus on teaching American students in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. There are more than 26 elected officials in the United States who have a direct experience of teaching disadvantaged students as a result of Teach For America. Like President Obama's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, who taught in Chicago and Melbourne, these politicians are far better policymakers for having taught disadvantaged students.

The challenge that Teach For Australia faces is to show the same successes in Australia. As the minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth said:

‘I congratulate these graduates for completing their initial training of the Teach For Australian program and for their commitment to teaching kids in some of our most disadvantaged communities over the next two years. Through Teach For Australia we are giving some of Australia's brightest and keenest graduates the chance to make a real difference in the lives of students who may be struggling because of their social circumstances.’

I know the commitment to Teach For Australia is a bipartisan one. I would like to acknowledge the member for Aston, who served on the board of Teach For Australia, and who I know is a strong supporter, as am I, of the Teach For Australia model.

Right here in the ACT we have terrific Teach For Australia teachers working in our schools. Imogen Byrne at Belconnen High School has now finished her TFA time and is still teaching at that school as are Corey McCann at Calwell High School and Igraine Ridley-Smith at Calwell High School, who received the New Educator of the Year Award at the 2012 Public Education Excellence awards—a real testament to her hard work with science and maths students. Felicity Olver at Erindale Secondary College and Lia Van den Bosch at Hawker College have also passed their first two years of the program and are teaching in the education system, which is a clear indication that many Teach For Australia associates stay in the education system beyond the two years they are required to.

Now in year 2 of the program in the ACT are Sebastian Knox at Belconnen High School, Bridget Martin at Erindale Secondary School, Stephen Barnard at Lake Tuggeranong College, Jessica Brunton at Lake Tuggeranong College, Tanya Greeves at Lanyon High School and Helen Baxendale at the Canberra College. Now in their first year of the program in the ACT are Min Kim at Calwell High School, Robert Pickup at Erindale Secondary School, Jessie Snodgrass at Kingsford Smith School, Alpha Cheng at Caroline Chisholm High School, Zed Mancenido at Lake Tuggeranong College and Hannah Brickhill at Melrose High School.

I had the pleasure of having two Teach For Australia associates work as fellows/interns in my office. These people not only work hard in the classroom and work on programs out of school hours but also in their school holidays decide to work for a member of parliament. It is a crazy idea but I and my staff delighted in having their ideas and enthusiasm with us in the office. I thank Daniel Carr and Tanya Greeves for that.

The power to change lives is a power that is in the hands of great teachers. I will read a letter from a Melbourne girl to her English teacher Liam Wood. She wrote:

‘You were the only teacher that believed in me... I was doubted, labelled dumb/stupid and put down constantly in every class, except in Writer's Workshop. You created an environment that made each student special, like they belonged in the class ... I know I never spoke about personal things but you and Writer's Workshop changed my life just before I had given up. Things at home have even gotten better since I joined your class. ... Never forget that by treating young adults/teenagers like equals or as a friend and just simply believing in them you'll give them faith, hope, dreams and inspiration.’

That was just one of the several letters that Liam received from his students.

Teach For Australia is a powerful program. It is changing lives among children in disadvantaged schools. I hope that as a result of it receiving tax deductible gift recipient status through this bill it will encourage further philanthropic support for a program which is part of the broader work that all of us in the House have to do to improve the quality of education that the most disadvantaged students in Australia receive.

I spoke in parliament today about the Canberra Cavalry, and argued that mine is the sportiest electorate in Australia.

Canberra Cavalry, 14 February 2013

On Saturday night the Canberra Cavalry blasted Perth Heat out of the park to win the title of Australian Baseball League champions. Baseball may be a game that is played on the southside, but it is a game close to my heart. As somebody who enjoys numbers and sport and also the enthusiasm with which the sport is played, it is great to see a Canberra team coming out on top. In particular I pay tribute to Canberra's first baseman, Aaron Sloan, who was named MVP of the season, hitting .625 and scoring three runs of the weekend. Canberra Cavalry are building a local fan base.

They are a team of which I am proud in a city where sport is played as well as anywhere in Australia. In fact, I would put my electorate of Fraser up against the sporting prowess of any other electorate in this place. We are assisted slightly by the fact that we have the Australian Institute of Sport; nonetheless, we have great teams like the Brumbies and the Raiders and now the Canberra Cavalry showing the way and showing that Canberra is not just the political capital, the bush capital, but also the sporting capital of Australia.

I spoke in parliament yesterday about the ACT's new GP Super Clinic.

GP Super Clinic, 13 February 2013

On Monday I had the pleasure of turning the first sod for a GP Super Clinic in my electorate of Fraser. Located at the University of Canberra campus in Bruce, the Super Clinic is one of 48 such clinics that have either begun operations or are under construction as part of the government's healthcare agenda. This GP Super Clinic will form part of a hub-and-spoke system in the ACT, with future facilities in my electorate in Casey and in Calwell in South Canberra.

These investments in high-quality, comprehensive, convenient health services have significant benefits for the people of Fraser. As well as being convenient -- grouping services such as occupational therapy and physiotherapy under the same roof as the local GP -- Super Clinics allow for team work among health professionals, promising better quality health care.

Being located at the University of Canberra, the Super Clinic has a strong emphasis on educating medical, nursing and allied health students. It will soon be turning these university students into the next generation of health professionals, helping maintain and improve the standard of primary health care in the ACT and the broader region.

The GP Super Clinic could also help attract and retain health professionals. We know that medical students who train in the ACT are more likely to end up living and working locally, so having the magnet of a large, high-quality facility linked to student education is a great benefit for the future of health care.

Established by Ochre Health and jointly funded by Health Workforce Australia, the University of Canberra and the federal government, the Bruce GP Super Clinic is the product of a partnership, working together to provide better health care.

I thank all of those people involved in establishing the GP Super Clinic; their hard work is already bearing fruit: Minister for Health, Tanya Plibersek; the ACT Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher; University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stephen Parker; University of Canberra Chancellor, John Mackay; University of Canberra Deputy Chancellor, Tom Calma; and John Burns from Ochre Health. I would also like to acknowledge Thomas Baker, an intern in my office, who attended with us and who assisted me in preparing today's remarks.

With the government's commitment to build more than 60 new Super Clinics around Australia and to upgrade and extend around 425 existing health practices and facilities, the construction of the Bruce GP Super Clinic is part of the government's national health vision. This is a vision for better health care, better health training and better health research. I was pleased to see that coming to fruition with the beginnings of the Bruce GP Super Clinic.

I spoke in parliament yesterday about the argument for a profit-based mining tax.

Mining Taxation, 13 February 2013

There is a lot of overheated rhetoric and debate around the mining tax, so I thought it might be useful to the House to return to the origins of the mining tax that is being discussed today: the Henry review's extensive report into the Australian taxation system. It discussed the principles behind a profit-based mining tax. It said:

'The finite supply of non-renewable resources allows their owners to earn above-normal profits (economic rents) from exploitation. Rents exist where the proceeds from the sale of resources exceed the cost of exploration and extraction.'

It goes on to say:

'In most other sectors of the economy, the existence of economic rents would attract new firms … However, economic rents can persist in the resource sector because of the finite supply of non-renewable resources.'

That is the underlying reason a profit-based tax is a more efficient tax in the mining sector.

We have had profit-based taxes in other contexts as well, the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax introduced by the Hawke government being the classic. When that was announced back in 1987, industry members took out front-page ads. We said back then that a profit-based tax would be anti-capitalist, and those on the conservative side of politics opposed a profit-based tax for the petroleum sector.

But what has been the history of that? Under the PRRT there have been substantial increases in production in that sector. Crude oil levies and royalties were hurting the sector, because when the price was low the tax impost became unsustainable. Now more than 20 years of oil production and 30 years of gas production remains in Bass Strait. But the PRRT revenue is volatile. We saw PRRT revenue drop by two-thirds during the global financial crisis. Profit-based taxes are inherently volatile taxes, but they ensure that Australians get a fair share, and they do so without decreasing the incentives to invest in the mining sector. Before the last mining boom, Australians were getting $1in every $3 of mining profits through royalties and resource charges. But as mineral prices went through the roof, in some cases increasing 10-fold, the share of mining profits that were being collected in tax went down to one dollar in seven. Profits went up by $80 billion, but the government only collected another $9 billion in revenue over the period 1999-2000 to 2008-09.

It was in that spirit that the government took on the recommendation put forward by the Henry review for a profit-based mining tax. It was backed by many sensible economists from widely across the political spectrum. As members of the House with an interest in US politics will recall, Sarah Palin made a name because as Alaska governor she introduced a Petroleum Profits Tax. So in order to oppose a profit-based mining tax you have to be to the right of Sarah Palin. Indeed, it was the Minerals Council of Australia who, in their submission to the Henry review, said that Australia ought to have a profit-based tax on minerals. They argued for a shift from royalties-based to profit-based taxation in their November 2008 submission, because they recognised that that was the right way of taxing minerals.

Now, some of those opposite will say: 'What about company taxes? Aren't company taxes enough?' But when the House Economics Committee considered the mining tax in late 2011 we had Fortescue come to see us, and I asked executives from Fortescue how much company tax Fortescue had paid, and the answer was zero—none at all; not a cent. So, when those opposite speak in their opposition to the mining tax, they are effectively saying that when world prices go up Australians should not get more. They are on record. The shadow Treasurer said, on 25 May 2010, when asked about mining company tax, 'Well, I think they pay a fair share.' The Leader of the Opposition said, on 26 May 2010, that mining companies ‘are paying more than their fair share of tax’. Despite the fact that commodity prices had gone through the roof and mining profits were going through the roof, the Leader of the Opposition thought mining companies were paying too much tax.

And then in 2010 we had this overheated rhetoric, reminiscent of what was said before the introduction of the carbon price, about what a profit-based tax would do to the industry. The Leader of the Opposition said it would 'threaten thousands of jobs in Western Australia and threaten investment'. The shadow Treasurer said it would 'discourage investment and cost jobs'. The Leader of the Opposition described the mining tax as a 'penalty tax almost guaranteed to kill the mining boom stone dead' and said that 'it will kill the goose that's laid the golden egg for Australia'.

Let's see what has happened to that mining boom—to those golden geese. Since July 2010 the Australian economy has created over 380,000 jobs in total; 67,000 jobs in mining. There has been over $152 billion of capital expenditure in mining. Capital expenditure in mining has increased by nearly 160 per cent. Total business investment increased by nearly 45 per cent. Expected mining capital expenditure for 2012-13 is more than three times what it was in the year before the MRRT was announced and the resource investment pipeline has more than doubled since the MRRT was announced. It is difficult to see a mining boom that has been killed stone-dead. It is difficult to see a goose that has been killed. In fact, the only geese appear to be those who are honking the interests of the mining magnates.

Getting a profit-based tax in place is not only economically efficient it is also an equitable way of sharing the proceeds of the boom. Fundamentally, the difference here is that those on the conservative side of the House believe that the minerals belong to those who have the mining licences. But that is not the case. These minerals are owned by all Australians. When the world price goes up it is not going up because of the sweat of the brow and the ingenuity of Australia's mining magnates. Whatever else you can say about Gina Rinehart or Clive Palmer, you cannot seriously argue—no-one in this House has seriously argued—that they are responsible for increases in the world price of commodities. Therefore, the question is: when that world price goes up—in some cases tenfold—shouldn't you maybe increase the rate of tax which those firms are paying? Wouldn't it be fair to increase the rate of tax those firms are paying? That is fundamentally what we are debating here in this House.

Those opposite argue against the mining tax. They argue that it ought to be scrapped, despite the fact that none of their prophecies of doom have come to pass over recent years. Yes, mining tax receipts will be volatile. That is because commodity prices are volatile. It is also—and I think this is a point that is too rarely acknowledged in this debate—because profits in the mining sector depend on the investment stage. So as we move through the three stages of the mining boom—that price boom through to the investment boom through to the output boom, which we are now seeing, in which total extraction is significantly above what it was—we are going to see different levels of profits. At a stage when firms are doing significant investment, we are going to see lower profit levels. At a stage when volumes are up, we are going to see higher profit levels.

The question for all of us here in the House is: if we believe the minerals are the birthright of all Australians, if we believe that the world price is not set by any of us here, then surely we should believe that a profit-based mining tax is the right thing to do—a profit-based mining tax that is backed by economists across the political spectrum, just as a price on carbon pollution is backed by economists across the political spectrum. It is a good tax, and one of which I am proud.

With Valentine's Day 2013 marking precisely seven months to the federal election, I thought it'd be fun to come up with a few #ElectionValentines (in the spirit of the #AuspolValentines tag that I ran on twitter last year).

Just put your message on Twitter with #ElectionValentines, and I'll post the best ones here. Or if you're not on Twitter, put your Election Valentine in the comments below.

And because Valentine's Day is a time of love, no scratchy ones please.

A couple to get you started:

• You've got my first preference. #ElectionValentines


• Roses are red, violets are blue. You'll always do better than my number two. #ElectionValentines


• At the end of the day, you're the only soul that counts. #ElectionValentines

Others have joined in:

• @mimhoff I am swinging towards you #electionvalentines


• @paulhoworth let's be each other's caretaker. Period. #electionvalentines


• @reddishraven My branches were stacked from the moment I met you. You were parachuted into #1 on my ticket... #ElectionValentines


• @laureningram I'll campaign for your heart #ElectionValentines


• @BK_Zer0 Will you form a Coalition with me? #ElectionValentines


• @jack_brady Love early, love often #ElectionValentines


• @sspencer_63 There's no optional preferential in our relationship, only primary votes. #electionvalentines


• @P_T_RYAN You hold the balance of power in my heart. #ElectionValentines


• @chriskkenny: You are my first optional preference #electionvalentines


• @MrDenmore (Down on one knee). I have a question without notice. #ElectionValentines


• ‏@ALeighMP You've redistributed my heart to my mouth. #ElectionValentines

• @trickibee I think we should move from a bicameral system to a single house.


• @VincoFive Even if I wasn't campaigning I'd want to kiss you, baby.


• @MrDenmore I can promise you an extended honeymoon period


• @CCC_ArtsEvents I wanna hold your hansard


• @DooleyKate After years of donkeys, I prefer you


• @johnwaynesdukes All my preferences flow to you.


• @brookewylie "I elect you the representative of my heart"


• ‏@ange_wilson There's nothing marginal about my love for you


• @MrDenmore Grow old with me and I'll offer you Veterans Affairs


• @raymarcelo "Have I polled you lately that I love you?"


• @richardtuffin There's no division in my heart. Your "eyes" have it!


• @katinacurtis May our love be as long lasting as the count in a Hare-Clark voting system...


• @SarahWiley8 You'll always have a safe seat next to me


• @Elias_Hallaj Will you be the wind beneath my left and right wings?


• @significance "I may be a donkey, but the Robson rotation has no effect when you're the only candidate for my heart".


• @BadenKirgan The pendulum has swung.


• ‏@piedtyper888 You're in like Flynn


• @Macdonald_Steph A hundred votes would be too few.. to carry all my love for you


• @swegen31 It's bennelong time since I've felt this way


• @Cheddared You're a labor of love!


• @katinacurtis My vote for your heart will always be valid


• @SarahWiley8 You can be my minister for love


• @P_T_RYAN Let's pair.

• @DaniBevins Hey baby, can I have your numbers?


• @Macdonald_Steph You've captured an overall majority of my heart


• @TheKouk Dote early and often


• @laurie_ms I'd live in the other side's safe seat for you


• @sarahinthesen8 (aka Senator Sarah Hanson-Young) You ring my (Senate) bell


• @TonyIKnow Q: Did you enjoy dinner? A: Yes. Q: Supplementary question; will you marry me?


• ‏@imathew Labor's red, Liberal's blue, Greens are green… Nats are, too. Indies are grey, Dems yellow, betcha glad I'm your fellow.


• @toddkirby I could write a 17 minute speech about why I chose you

• @fairerfields Not even Estimates could question my love for you.


• @2FBS Love Me, Love My Man Date #electionvalentines


• ‏@wgcullen Love me tender, love me true, love me so I'll vote for you


• @significance let's exchange preferences.


• @StephenCena If polling be the food of love, give me excess of it


• @deemadigan How do I love thee? Let me count the votes.


• @KRuddMP Roses are red, violets are blue. If you don't have a date, Question Time starts at 2 :) KRudd

I spoke in parliament today about the government's schools reforms, flowing out of the Gonski Review.

Australian Education Bill, 12 February 2013

Each of us comes to this place with the perspective of the work we did before we got here. So it is not surprising when we hear former business people calling for less regulation, former union organisers calling for better protection for workers, farmers calling for more assistance to agriculture or, in my case, a former professor arguing for more investment in education. But I think there is some fairly strong evidence to back up the notion that great investment in education not only pays off in a more affluent society but also in a more equitable society. In my first speech I described education as being the best antipoverty vaccine we have yet developed, because a great education gives you opportunities in life which are greater than you can achieve without that opportunity.

Education allows people to make more choices. We know that raising education levels boosts health and boosts happiness. We also know some other things about our education system over recent decades. Work that I did with Chris Ryan found that Australian numeracy scores had flatlined since the 1960s, and our literacy and our numeracy scores had flatlined since the 1970s. Chris and I also showed that the academic aptitude of new teachers fell from the early 1980s to the early 2000s, with students in the top tier of their own class less and less likely to choose teaching. I have also done work looking at the relationship between pay and the academic aptitude of teachers, showing that when states raised the pay of new teachers the TERs of those in teaching went up, and that it is indeed possible to attract more academically gifted students into teaching by raising the pay of the teaching profession.

So it is very pleasing to me as a Labor MP to recognise the importance that teacher quality has in the government's reform agenda. As John F. Kennedy once said:

‘Let us think of education as the means to developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our Nation.’

And the way we fulfil that ambition is through having great teachers.

I recently carried out a survey on education in the Fraser electorate. We got responses from around a thousand electors and a good distribution across school sectors, with 67 per cent saying that their children were in government schools, 25 per cent in non-government schools and eight per cent in both systems. We asked respondents what they thought was the most important issue in education. The issue that topped the list was attracting and retaining great teachers, 43 per cent of respondents. That was followed by boosting literacy and numeracy, 18 per cent; maintaining  a well-rounded curriculum, 15 per cent; reducing bullying and cyberbullying, eight per cent; smaller class sizes, seven per cent; helping students with disabilities, five per cent; and assisting students from disadvantaged backgrounds, four per cent. We asked respondents whether they felt that the school that their child attended was well resourced. Of those whose children attended both government and non-government schools, 19 per cent said the school was not well resourced. Of those whose children attended non-government schools, 20 per cent said the school was not well resourced. And of those whose children attended government schools only, 29 per cent said the school was not well resourced.

A majority of respondents had used the MySchool website and a majority of respondents had seen a BER project, indicating that in my electorate many people are taking advantage of important reforms that have occurred under this government. This history of education reform goes back to the Hawke and Keating era, where funding for schools was considerably increased and a greater emphasis was placed on school completion. It often worried me in the Howard era when you would hear then Prime Minister Howard, and sometimes his ministers, suggest that education was not for everyone, that finishing school might be the right approach in some cases but not in others.

It particularly worries me when I hear politicians give different advice to kids from low-income backgrounds to what they give to their own children. Once was the day when you could leave school in year 9 and get a well-paying job in a factory or as a mechanic. There was a range of good jobs available to, say, a young man who was good with his hands but who had not completed year 12. But these days if you want to be a mechanic, you had better be able to reboot the on-board computer systems and probably download some upgrades. That requires good literacy and numeracy skills, and it requires good people skills because working on cars is a different job from what it once was.

We need an Australia in which everyone finishes school, not just as the Leader of the Opposition said last year, 'the right kids'. This government believes that we need a system which addresses equity and which invests in all schools. We have repeatedly said that the debate over government and non-government schools is a debate of the past. Our passion is in investing in all schools. You saw that when the global financial crisis hit. It was an opportunity then to carry out major infrastructure spending, knowing that the impact on the economy of infrastructure spending is greater than the impact of cash handouts. We used that as an opportunity not just to support jobs, local architecture, construction and tradespeople around Australia but also to provide schools with facilities that would improve the learning experience.

In my electorate, Florey Primary School encourages students to follow in the footsteps of the great Howard Florey, the inventor of penicillin. They used their BER money to invest in better science classrooms. At Amaroo School, they used their BER money to invest in new classrooms with removable partitions to encourage team teaching and allow teachers to learn from one another. That infrastructure investment was right for the times for Australia, and from so many schools the message that came back to me was that this was a once-in-a-generation investment.

But as I said before, we recognise that teacher quality is the No. 1 issue in education. It is the issue that came out as No. 1 from my Fraser education survey. Certainly, if you speak to education researchers it is very likely they will place teacher quality at the top of their list.

This government has agreed the first ever teacher performance and development framework, including annual teacher appraisal processes, starting this year. We have introduced new pathways into the teaching profession through Teach for Australia and Teach Next. I am looking forward to speaking at greater length on Teach for Australia in the Tax Laws Amendment (2012 Measures No. 6) Bill 2012, which is giving Teach for Australia deductable gift-recipient status.

Our plan is to ensure that by 2025 Australia is ranked as a top five country in the world for education performance. As I said at the outset, our test scores have flatlined—in some cases, even gone down. So this is a big ask. Looking back over past generations, the challenge of raising school performance to amongst the best in the Asian region is a major one. But there is strong support for it in the local community, and there is strong support for making sure that we raise the performance of all children.

One constituent of mine in response to the education survey wrote, 'We have one son who attends kindy. He has delayed speech and because of his disability he has fallen behind in literacy and numeracy. More funding for disabled students at both government and non-government schools is highly required as schools don't have resources to deal with children with disability'.

Many respondents spoke about the passion of their staff. One person wrote, 'The staff at our school are extremely hard working and dedicated to providing the best educational experience for our children. This would be enhanced by better resourcing and additional funding to enable them to focus on what they do best, and that is teaching'. Another constituent noted, 'We have been informed that the ACT has only one school with dedicated music teachers for students, with teachers who are actually trained in this subject'. We have listened to experts and to many, many people who have spoken out around Australia about the importance of placing quality teaching at the core of the government's reform agenda.

The bill will commit the government to providing needs-based funding to support schools in the future. It will be tied to parties' agreement on implementing reforms, and that will ensure transparency and accountability. There will be benchmark amounts for each student and, on top of that, loadings for educational disadvantage will make sure that those who need extra support get it.

In closing I would like to acknowledge the many Canberrans and those around Australia who have worked to make the Gonski reform a reality. There is a spectrum of views in the education policy debate, but I pay great tribute to those who have passionately backed the Gonski reforms. In the ACT I  acknowledge AEU Secretary, Glenn Fowler, and officers Peter Malone, Cathy Smith, Bill Book, Sue Amundsen, Sascha Colley, Mike Fitzgerald and Penny Gilmour. I acknowledge the executive: Phillip Rasmus, Roger Amey, Piers Douglas, Stuart Gilmore, Ingrid Bean, Jo Larkin, Roseanne Byrne, Murray Chisholm, Peter Curtis, Nina Leuning, David Stone, Shane Gorman, Janet Harris and Lana Read. There are many other active AEU members who have written, emailed, telephoned, visited, letterboxed and 'given a Gonski'. I am sure David Gonski's mother never imagined that his name would go from being a proper noun to being used in that way. I acknowledge former president of the AEU Phillip Rasmus, current president Lana Read, vice-presidents Roger Amey and Ingrid Bean, and the active parent community under the leadership of the P&C's Vivienne Pearce and, before her, Jane Tullis. The hard work of other organisations in the community has also been vital to bringing this bill before parliament.

This is a mass movement from the Australian community recognising that Australia is at our best when it has an education system that supports all students. The promise of Australia is not fulfilled if a child who grows up in poverty is destined to stay in poverty for the rest of her life because the schools that she attends are not able to bring her out of poverty. The great promise of Australia—the Australian dream—relies on ensuring that we have great teachers in every school, that we address educational disadvantage through targeted investment and, in particular, that we make sure that we get great teachers in every school.

Teaching disadvantaged students is, I think, among the most important jobs in Australia. It is, at times, an extraordinarily difficult and challenging job, but it is a job which can change lives. If you read autobiographies of Australians who have grown up in poverty you will often see that there is a single teacher in the author's life who, at a certain moment, encouraged that child to change their life course and to see the opportunities that lay ahead of them. That is why, in so many first speeches—particularly by Labor members—you will hear stories of education. I know that my colleague the member for Canberra will often tell of the important role education played in her life. It is a powerful story indeed.

We need education to change more lives. We need an education system that reaches out to the most disadvantaged and encourages the top. Our education system can reduce poverty and produce more Nobel laureates. I hope this bill will do just that.