03 December 2008 in Speeches
SCHOOLS ASSISTANCE BILL 2008 - Consideration of Senate Message
Mr BRIGGS (Mayo) (12:19 PM) —I rise to support the shadow minister, the member for Sturt, and to support amendment (4) passed by the Senate last evening. What we saw before was typical of the Deputy Prime Minister where she puts words into people’s mouths and verbals people. She made the claim that we do not support education. That was the claim she made when she stood up and spoke. That is completely untrue. I spoke very clearly in this House on this bill because I do support education. I support education because I understand the importance of educating our young people. As a father with two young children, I understand how important education is. As a conflict of interest, I intend to send my children to an independent school. I know that might be offensive to those on the other side, but I do. In fact, my eldest will be in her primary year of school in 2012 when this national curriculum starts—three years away. So why is the Deputy Prime Minister threatening the independent schools sector in December 2008 with something that will not begin until 2012, and we have not even seen it yet? We in this place are expected to sign a blank cheque for the Deputy Prime Minister on a national curriculum that my children will learn under. You sit there and tell us we do not care about education. Let me tell you, Deputy Prime Minister, that we do care about education—we care deeply about education—and we will not be told by a bullying Deputy Prime Minister that we do not. We know that is your tactic. We know the arrogant tactic to come in here and be virtuous on everything. We dare speak out. Can you imagine an opposition speaking out? Can you imagine an opposition actually standing in this place, in a democracy, and raising issues with the government of the day, particularly when we might be right? I know it hurts to make mistakes. We have all made mistakes. The previous government make mistakes, this government has made mistakes; and you have made a mistake. So you should change your mind on this bill and accept the amendment.
Yet again the Deputy Prime Minister refuses to identify the shadow minister’s and the opposition’s role in this. That is part of the political tactic—the opposition is irrelevant. We have seen it with the global financial crisis where a big mistake was made on the bank deposits guarantee, a mistake they would not have made had they listened to the Leader of the Opposition. We have seen it with this bill—she has backed down on two provisions, the schools hit list being the main one—and we have seen it with this mistake. There is no need for the national curriculum to be moved until 2012. It has not been written yet. We know who is going to be writing it—close friends and people from backgrounds not dissimilar to that of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Mr BRIGGS —We know what their backgrounds are. I am not commenting on their backgrounds but we know what the backgrounds of some of these people are. The member for Sturt, the shadow minister for education, referred to the view of some in the sector on this bill. I would like to reflect on one of the submissions to the Senate inquiry—one from Geelong College, which is an independent school, so I know that the Deputy Prime Minister does not like it. It is probably quite a well-resourced school, in fact. This is what they said to the Senate inquiry: What is of particular concern, however, is that, through the introduction of the legislation in its current form, we are being required to accept the national curriculum even though it is yet to be written.
So, it is a blank cheque for the Deputy Prime Minister to push her ideological agenda. This is what it is all about—it always is with the Deputy Prime Minister. She is a very clever lawyer; she argues her way through things. She is very good at it. I accept that she is extraordinarily good on her feet. The problem is—
Mr BRIGGS —Here we go again! The typical tactic—bullying the opposition. Go ahead. You can try to bully us all you like. It might work in the Labor Party, it might be part of the Labor Party’s tactics, but it does not work with us. We are happy to stand up and argue our point because we are right. One thing I imagine will be included in the national curriculum is the word ‘decisive’. Let us see how many more ‘decisives’ we get on the decisive-o-metre today. We are up to six in December; let us see what we get up to today. There were 156 in October and 111 in November. We are off to a flyer in December. What the Deputy Prime Minister can do today to give assurance to the independent school sector is accept the amendment and move on.