Jason Clare
Blaxland · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“I thank the member for Kooyong for her question and for her passion in this area of higher education. Like me—like all members of parliament, I think—she understands the power of education to change lives.”
“I've said work on fixing it is unfinished business, and I have said—and you all know—that the Australian Tertiary Education Commission has also pointed out the work they're doing on the cost of teaching and learning that they will finalise next year. They are the facts.”
“I thank my friend the big-hearted member for Blair for his question. As he knows, tomorrow, every Australian worker will get a tax cut and three million Australians will get a pay rise, and that includes hundreds of thousands of childcare workers right across the country.”
“It's good for the workers because they get paid more, but it's also good for parents because the centres have got to cap their fees to get the money. For the average family with a child in child care, it'll save them about $1,500 over the next two years.”
“The reforms also include the legislation that we passed through this parliament last year, which means that if you don't meet the standards, you can have your funding cut. That wasn't an idle threat. I can tell the House that we've now issued notices against 115 centres.”
“These are the schools that do a lot of the heavy lifting, that play an outsized role in educating the most disadvantaged children in this country, the children who are the most likely to start behind or fall behind. The children who need our help the most.”
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“I've said work on fixing it is unfinished business, and I have said—and you all know—that the Australian Tertiary Education Commission has also pointed out the work they're doing on the cost of teaching and learning that they will finalise next year. They are the facts. What is also a fact is that no government has done more to cut student debt than this government and this Prime Minister. We have cut student debt by 20 per cent for three million Australians, and by doing that have taken $16 billion off the backs of young Australians—something, by the way, that the Liberal Party described as 'profoundly unfair'.”
“I thank the member for Kooyong for her question and for her passion in this area of higher education. Like me—like all members of parliament, I think—she understands the power of education to change lives. The truth is that we've got a good education system in Australia, but it can be better and it can be fairer, and that's what the reforms that we're implementing across early education, across school education and across higher education are all about. Particularly in higher education, we're driven by the recommendations of the universities accord. We've now implemented 36 of the 47 recommendations in the accord in full or in part, and we'll continue to work through that report. As you rightly point out, that makes recommendations about the Job-Ready Graduates scheme. I have said it has failed.”
“The reforms also include the legislation that we passed through this parliament last year, which means that if you don't meet the standards, you can have your funding cut. That wasn't an idle threat. I can tell the House that we've now issued notices against 115 centres. Forty-seven centres have now suddenly fixed the problems they've refused to fix for more than five years, and seven centres have voluntarily relinquished their licences. I can inform the House that, today, my department has cut funding to a service in Victoria that has been warned and continued not to meet the standard. This is not the end; this is just the start. The truth is that this work will never end, and we'll continue to take the steps we need to keep our kids safe.”
“It's good for the workers because they get paid more, but it's also good for parents because the centres have got to cap their fees to get the money. For the average family with a child in child care, it'll save them about $1,500 over the next two years. So it is good for workers and good for parents, but it's also good for our kids because we've added a new condition. To get the funding, the centre also has to meet the national safety standard. This builds on the work that we've been doing over the last 12 months—the banning of personal mobile phones in centres, the CCTV trial and the mandatory safety training. I can tell the House that now 99 per cent of workers have done that national mandatory safety training. That's the first phase. The next stage of that training will start to roll out next month.”
“I thank my friend the big-hearted member for Blair for his question. As he knows, tomorrow, every Australian worker will get a tax cut and three million Australians will get a pay rise, and that includes hundreds of thousands of childcare workers right across the country. As I told the House last week, when we were first elected, childcare workers were leaving the job in droves not because they didn't love the job but because you could earn more money stacking shelves than educating our kids. That has now changed. It's changed because of the 15 per cent pay rise that we've delivered. As a result of that, there are now 20,000 more childcare workers working right across the country. It turns out that if you pay people more, more people want to do the job. That's why what we announced a couple of weeks ago and locking it in is so important.”
“They want to stop them getting more funding to get through university and want to break universities. What is going on here? You've got the Liberal Party, you've got the National Party and you've got One Nation all competing against each other to see who can be the most extreme, whether it's on education or multiculturalism or anything else. They're like the neapolitan ice cream of Australian politics. The problem is they all want to be vanilla!”
“If you're a kid from a disadvantaged background—you're growing up in Albury-Wodonga or Dubbo or Wagga or Burnie or Bendigo or Rockhampton or Cairns or Townsville—it means more than doubling the amount of funding to help you finish your degree, with things like extra academic support, tutoring and mentoring, from $600 a student to more than $1,500. This is the sort of thing that I'd hope my old mates in the National Party will support, but it's too late because the Liberal Party have already told us that they're against it. And not just that—we've had a National Party senator just make a speech in London, of all places, saying that she thinks we should break Australian universities. We want to open the doors of our universities to more kids from the bush and the regions.”
“That's why it's important that we change the way we fund our universities as well, and that's what the legislation I introduced today is all about. If you're a kid from a poor background or from the regions or the bush and you get the marks or you've got what it takes to take on a university degree, then we'll guarantee a funded place for you at university. And not just that—we'll also give you extra support not just to get to but to get through university as well. That's important because we know that kids from regional Australia, kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, are about twice as likely as other kids to drop out of university in the first year at university. Now, what does this mean in practice?”
“I thank my friend, the brilliant member for Braddon, for her question. I've told the House many times that almost 50 per cent of young Australians in their 30s today have a university degree, but not everywhere—not in the western suburbs of Sydney where I grew up, where it's about half that, not in regional Australia and not in the bush either, where it's even lower. That's not because of a lack of talent. Talent is everywhere. It's opportunity that's not, and it's education that can change that. That's why the reforms we're implementing to fix the funding of our schools is so important, as well as tying that to reform to help more kids finish high school and then go on to TAFE or to university.”
“It's the engine the ATEC can use to bring the Accord to life, to make the big structural changes the Accord talks about and to open the doors of opportunity. Talent is everywhere. It's opportunity that's not, and this bill will help change that. It will mean that more young people from poor families and from the regions and the bush get a crack at university and that they get the support they need when they get there. It will change lives. For universities it means more students and more funding. For the whole system, it means an extra $3.6 billion over the next decade. Is it everything we have to do? No. There is a lot more we need to do make our education system better and fairer, but this is the next step. It will help to open the doors of opportunity wider. I commend this bill to the House. Debate adjourned.”
“However, it will be the ATEC that makes the decision about allocations to universities, in consultation with the universities through the process for negotiating mission based compacts. This change responds to feedback from our universities. They told us that this power—to set individual allocations within the national planning level—should be exercised by the independent ATEC, and I agree. To help the ATEC with this work, the ATEC will be given access to international student and provider information collected under the ESOS Act. The National Student Ombudsman will also be provided with access to this information. The bill also enables information collected by the Ombudsman and TEQSA to be shared with the ATEC to inform their work. This is an important bill.”
“There is currently no statutory cap on international students, and this legislation does not change that. But we are putting the power to set international student allocations for higher education providers into the hands of the independent ATEC. In other words, where the government sets a national planning level, the ATEC will allocate the places to individual universities and other higher education providers. The minister will do this by making an international allocation pool determination, setting out the overall number of planned commencements. The minister's determination may also require ATEC to take into account government priorities, such as student housing and market diversification, when they make their allocations.”
“The bill sets the base equity amount at $1,535 and the base regional amount at $1,398. Both of those will be indexed each year. It's not just extra funding, though. It's what it will be used for that helps more students who start a degree to finish it. It's real reform. The bill does one more thing. It sets out a framework for the ATEC to exercise its existing power to allocate international student numbers. As members would know, the government currently manages international student numbers through an annual national planning level. Under the national planning level, the government sets indicative allocations of new overseas student commencements that may start at individual universities. These indicative allocations are used to guide the visa processing work of the Department of Home Affairs.”
“It will provide funding for things like tutoring, mentoring and other academic support and direct financial assistance like scholarships and emergency grants. There were previous programs, like HEPPP, that did this. But funding for those programs was capped. This is different. Like needs based funding for schools, this will be demand driven. The more students a university has that meet the criteria, the more funding they'll receive. The more students there are at a regional campus, the more funding that university will receive as well. To give you an idea of what this will mean in practice, under the old HEPPP the average amount provided to universities per student last year was $600. Under this new needs based funding system it will be more than double that.”
“The second part of this bill puts in place needs based funding—think Gonski for universities. The school funding system provides schools with extra funding based on where they're located and the needs of the students they educate. Students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds receive additional support. So do schools in the regions and the bush. The Universities Accord recommends that we do the same sort of thing for universities, and it does that for a reason. The evidence tells us that students from low-SES backgrounds and students from the regions and the bush are less likely to start a university degree. They're also less likely to finish it. The data indicates they're up to twice as likely to drop out after their first year at university than other students. That's why needs based funding is important.”
“And, if the ATEC believes that the total allocation pool isn't big enough to meet the demand from students from poor families, from the regions and from the bush, then they can ask the minister to increase it, effectively uncapping the system for these students. If you've got what it takes, you get a place. The bill also provides support to assist universities to transition to this new system. Underenrolled universities will be able to access a temporary funding floor to the end of 2031. Overenrolled universities will be able to keep student contributions above their cap, but only up to a maximum amount. As part of fixing this, the ATEC anticipates it will allocate approximately 20,000 more Commonwealth supported places to overenrolled universities next year, where they currently receive only the student contribution.”
“Because this is about managing growth and building a bigger and better and fairer system, the total number of Commonwealth supported places each university receives will be made up of two things: first, what's called their core student load to make sure they do not go backwards; and, second, an additional growth allocation. This gives the ATEC the ability to allocate additional places where it thinks they're needed, including for students from low-SES backgrounds and from the regions and the bush. The ATEC will do this every year. It's this second part, the additional growth allocation, that really gives the ATEC the ability to open the doors of opportunity to more Australians.”
“This bill gives the ATEC the tools it needs to manage all of that growth, to grow the system where it's needed. As part of this, it'll end the 'hunger games' that exist at the moment, where, in the desperate competition for students, some universities enrol students they don't get Commonwealth funding for, something that the accord said is undermining the whole system. This is how the bill works. It gives the Minister for Education the power to set a total allocation pool. That's the total number of fully funded Commonwealth supported places allocated each year. It gives the ATEC the responsibility for allocating these places to universities and other eligible providers.”
“In simple terms, if you get the marks or you've got what it takes, you'll get a place—a Commonwealth supported place. We've already done this for Indigenous students. We passed that legislation in 2023. This will do the same sort of thing for all students from poor families, from the regions and from the bush. It's part of the new managed growth funding system created by this bill. There are more Australians at university today than ever before. And it's going to continue to grow. Next year there will be 16,000 more places for more students in the system. The year after that, there will be another 16,000. The year after that—another 16,000. In 2030, this increases to 19,000 additional fully funded Commonwealth supported places. Over the next decade, we expect to fund an extra 230,000 commencing students at university.”
“What it says is that, by 2050, we're going to need a workforce where 80 percent have a TAFE qualification or a uni degree and that the only way to do that is to break down the barriers that stop so many young people from poor families, from regional Australia and from the bush from getting to university. That's what this bill is about. It's the seventh accord bill that I've introduced. The first six created the Student Ombudsman, paid prac, and FEE-FREE Uni Ready courses. They cut student debt by 20 percent, changed the indexation and repayment rules for HELP loans, and established the Australian Tertiary Education Commission. This bill implements two more important changes recommended by the accord. The first will help more people from poor families and the regions and the bush to get into university.”
“And that's what this bill does too. Today close to 50 percent of Australians in their 30s have a university degree, but not everywhere. It's about half that if you grew up in a poor family or in the regions. It's even less in the bush. Basically, young people who grow up in poor families or outside our big cities are less likely to get a crack at uni than other Australians. And, if they start it, they're less likely to finish it. I want to change that. The universities accord says that we need to change that. The accord is the biggest review of our higher education system since Bradley, almost 20 years ago. It's a blueprint for the next twenty years.”
“These are the schools that do a lot of the heavy lifting, that play an outsized role in educating the most disadvantaged children in this country, the children who are the most likely to start behind or fall behind. The children who need our help the most. And these are also the schools that are the most underfunded—until now, until this government, until the agreements we've struck with every state and territory. It means an extra $20 billion in our public schools over the next decade. But it's more than that because this funding is tied to reform—the sort of reform that's needed to help more children to catch up, to keep up and to finish high school. That's what things like evidence based teaching, phonics checks, numeracy checks and small-group tutoring are all about. They all help to open those doors of opportunity wider.”
“We changed the law to guarantee access to three days a week of government supported early education and care for every child who needs it. We did that because we know it's kids from the most disadvantaged backgrounds who get the most out of early education and care—and who are the least likely to get it. The way the law used to work meant their parents couldn't get the subsidy and so their kids couldn't get the sort of early education that other kids get. They were shut out. That's now changed. The three-day guarantee started a few months ago and for those kids it opens that door of opportunity a little wider. So does what we're doing in schools, in particular fixing the funding of our public schools.”
“I move: That this bill be now read a second time. On election night four years ago the Prime Minister talked about opening the doors of opportunity—the great mission of Labor governments. He said, 'I want every parent to be able to tell their child no matter where you live or where you come from, in Australia the doors of opportunity are open to us all.' 'And like every other Labor government, we'll just widen that door a bit more.' More than anything else, it's education that does that, that opens doors, that changes lives and that changes countries. And that's what the changes we are making to the education system are all about: the changes to early education that get rid of the barriers that have stopped a lot of children from poor families from accessing early education and care. That's what the three-day guarantee does.”
“Parents will save about $1,500 over the next two years. Second, you need to meet the national safety standard. There is nothing more important than the safety of our kids. I think all members of parliament would agree making centres meet that standard is important. So this is the trifecta—more pay for workers, prices down for parents and more work to keep our kids safe.”
“The fifth is the 15 per cent pay rise. I told the House yesterday that, when we came to office, childcare workers were leaving the system in droves, not because they didn't love the job but because love doesn't pay the bills, and they could earn more money stacking shelves than they could educating our kids. That's now changed. Because of that 15 per cent pay rise, we now have 20,000 more workers in our childcare centres today than before that pay rise, something the Liberal Party never did and something One Nation would never do—something this Labor government has done. It means more money in the pockets of workers across the country. But it's not just that, because you've got to apply and you've got to commit to two conditions to get this funding. First is a cap on your fees. That means parents pay less than they otherwise would.”
“It's been in place for about six months, and that's already helping tens of thousands of kids from poor families to get access to early education that were denied that before—again, opposed by the Liberal Party and opposed by the orange Liberal Party up the back. The third is building childcare centres where they don't exist at the moment, including in primary schools. If you're a mum or a dad and you've got a kid at school and you've got a kid at child care, that means one drop-off not two, once again opposed by the blue Liberal Party and opposed by the orange Liberal Party. Fourth is the biggest safety reforms that have ever been made to child care. That includes banning mobile phones. That includes the CCTV trial. That includes mandatory safety training, and that's supported by everyone across the chamber.”
“Can I thank my friend the totally awesome dolphin-training member for Tangney for his question? Child care isn't a nice to have for more than a million mums and dads across the country; it's an essential service, and we're rolling out five big reforms to make it better, to make it fairer and to make it safer. The first of those are our cheaper childcare laws, and you'll remember they were opposed by the Liberal Party. They were also opposed by the Liberal Party with the orange logo up the back. I can tell the House that, after three years, those cheaper childcare laws have saved the average family more than $11,000. That's the first. The second is the 3 Day Guarantee.”
“Ninety-five per cent of centres are at the national safety standard now. I want it to be at 100 per cent. I think parents expect it to be at 100 per cent, and that's why we're doing this. It builds on the safety reforms that we're already rolling out, it's what every parent in this country would expect and it's what every child in this country deserves.”
“Over the last two years or so, that has saved parents a lot of money, and what we announced last week will save them even more. What we announced last week will save the average family with a child in child care about $1,500 over the next two years. Again, it's the sort of thing that only a Labor government would do. The Liberal Party would never do it. The liberal party with the orange logo up the back would never do it. It's only the Labor Party that would do this—real cost-of-living help pushing wages up and keeping costs down for parents. But we also announced something else last week. There's nothing more important than the safety of our kids, and that's why we've set a new condition. In order for centres to get this money, they've also got to be at the national safety standard.”
“But it's now changed and it's changed for a reason: the 15 per cent pay rise that we've now delivered. If you want proof of that, job vacancies are now down 31 per cent, job applications in some places are up 30 per cent and there are now 20,000 more childcare workers doing that sort of life-changing work right across the country. In other words, it's worked. It turns out that, if you pay people more, more people want to do the job. That's why what we announced last week is so important. It's the sort of thing that only a Labor government would do. It's good for workers, but it's also good for parents, because it's part of the deal for childcare centres to get this extra funding that they've also got to cap their fees.”
“I thank my friend the hero from Holt for her question, and happy birthday to little Ilija, who's turned one just in the last couple of weeks—am I right? Fantastic. Childcare workers do one of the most important jobs in this country, but you wouldn't know it from what they've historically been paid. When we were first elected a couple of years ago, childcare workers were leaving the job in droves not because they didn't love the job but because they couldn't afford to keep doing it, because you could get paid more stacking shelves than you could educating the most precious things in our lives: our kids. If you want proof of that, look at the data. In some centres the attrition rate was 40 per cent. That's 40 per cent of the workforce leaving the job they love in any given year, and that's a crisis.”
“The percentage of childcare centres meeting the national quality and safety standards is now at the highest level ever, and the number of inspections by state regulators of childcare centres in the last 12 months is the highest it's ever been, and this is a good sign. It's an indication that things are changing for the better. But we're not done yet. There is a lot more work that needs to be done. The truth is that this work will never be fully completed, and I'll have more to say on that in the next few weeks.”
“I can also inform you that the legislation that we passed through this place last year is being used, and it's working. This is the legislation that gives us the power to cut funding off to centres that aren't up to scratch. I can inform the House now that six centres have shut, that 44 centres have suddenly fixed the safety and quality problems at those centres that existed for years but that they had refused to act to fix until this legislation was passed, and that others have now hit the deadline and, if they haven't hit the standard, have been issued with notices of intent by my department to suspend or to cancel their funding. I can also advise the House of more encouraging information.”
“Mandatory child safety training is now rolling out, and every childcare worker across the country has six months to do that training. I can inform the House that after three months 90 per cent of childcare workers have already done that training, and that's a good sign. Our childcare workers, our educators and our teachers are the best asset that we've got to keep our kids safe, and they are just as hurt, just as angry, just as sickened and just as broken as the rest of us by the revelations from last year, and the fact that 90 per cent have done that training within three months, I think, shows how seriously they're taking this. And it's not the end; it's just the start. The next tranche of safety training rolls out in August.”
“I thank my friend the mellifluous member for. Moreton for her question—also known as the best singer in the Australian parliament, I'm informed, as well. There is nothing more important than the safety of our children. Over the last year, I've been very blunt that not enough has been done by governments, whether it's Labor governments or Liberal governments or state or federal governments, to keep our children safe in early education and care. A lot has happened in the last 12 months. Personal mobile phones are now banned in every centre across the country. CCTV is now being trialled in centres across the country. The Attorney-General is working with states and territories to strengthen working-with-children checks. A national register of every childcare worker is now up and running.”
“The second point is we're now taking steps to make it easier for young people to get a degree cheaper and faster, particularly for young people that have already got a TAFE qualification.”
“Thank you for your question about student debt. I know your passion and your commitment to this area. Can I make a couple of points about student debt and other related reforms that we're making in our universities. The first is that we've cut student debt by 20 per cent for three million Australians, and that's the biggest cut to student debt by any Australian government ever. It's taking a massive weight off the backs of young Australians—the same young Australians, incidentally, that were helping with the legislation that the Treasurer has introduced to make it easier for young Australians to buy a home. We don't want to have a country where young Australians are forced to rent forever. That's what this legislation is all about.”
“That's what mums and dads would expect. It's what kids deserve. It's what Labor governments do. It's what Liberal governments always undo. Labor governments invest in education, and it's Liberals that rip the guts out of education. Can I use this opportunity for a quick shout-out to our teachers. They deserve every cent that they get. They deserve, like every other worker, the tax cuts that are in the budget and in the legislation that the Treasurer introduced today. Early education teachers as well. These are the people who are the real glue, the real magic, the real heroes of this story who teach our kids the basics and so much more. All of us know a teacher who changed our lives. That's what a good education does. It changes lives. A great education system changes countries.”
“It's what we do in education that is so important in that task, and it's public education that does so much of the heavy lifting here. It educates kids from everywhere—from rich families and poor families and everything in between, in the cities, in the regions, in the bush, of all backgrounds, of all cultures, of all religions. It's these schools, traditionally, that have been the most underfunded—until this government, until this bloke here, until this Prime Minister, who fixed the funding of our public schools. It's the biggest investment in public education by an Australian government ever—$20 billion of extra funding to fix the funding of our public schools—and it's not a blank cheque. This is funding that's tied to real and practical reforms, like phonics checks and small-group tutoring to help kids catch up.”
“I thank my friend the remarkable member for Reid for her question. She's also a proud product of Sefton High School. It's Public Education Day. It's also Thursday. I know my friends opposite would like a story, so let me give one to you. I was looking at my old school photos over the weekend, and as I looked at my year 7 photo I saw the tallest boy in the class. He was a boy named Corey. He was a refugee from Vietnam. In my year 12 photo, he's the shortest kid in the class. Why is that the case? He was the tallest in year 7 and shortest in year 12. It turns out Corey was five years older than the rest of us. His mum changed his age on the paperwork because she didn't want him to miss out on an education. She didn't want him to miss out. I don't want anyone to miss out. We don't want anyone held back. We don't want anyone left behind.”
“I think that should send a shiver down the spine of every parent around the country. But it's not the only thing that they've threatened to cut. There are two other things on the chopping block. We're building childcare centres at the moment, right across the country, where they're needed—in our public primary schools, including two in the member for Whitlam's electorate, one in Calderwood and one in West Dapto. It makes sense because, if you're a mum or a dad with a child in primary school and a child in child care, then it means one drop off, not two. Guess what? The Liberal Party have said they'll get rid of all of that as well. We're also helping kids get the skills that they need to get ready to start school, kids like Marina's little boy, Jason. Good name; good kid.”
“Can I thank my friend, the wonderful member for Whitlam. Tomorrow is Public Education Day, and I am a proud product of public education. The truth is that our public schools have never been properly funded or even on a path to full funding until now, until this government and until this Prime Minister fixed the funding of our public schools. In the budget, you see it—the biggest new investment in public education by an Australian government ever, $20 billion over the next decade. All of that is now at risk. We remember what the Liberal Party did the last time they were in power. They ripped the guts out of funding for our public schools. On the weekend, on Sunday Agenda , with Andrew Clennell, Senator Andrew Bragg threatened to do it all over again. He repeatedly refused to rule out cuts to health and cuts to education.”
“In the next few months I'll introduce legislation that will guarantee a place at university for kids from poor families, from the regions and from the bush. If you've got the marks or you've got the skills to take on a degree—if you've got what it takes, you will get a place. The Australian Tertiary Education Commission will help us to roll all of that out. That'll change what universities look like. But we've also got to change the way universities act. Students have got to be their top priority, and that's what the National Student Ombudsman is all about. The boards of universities have got to become more accountable, and that's what the next stage of reform is all about—including the use of consultants. And the university regulator, TEQSA, needs better powers to be able to act where universities don't or won't.”
“We're rolling out free TAFE and study hubs in the bush and now, for the first time ever, in the outer suburbs, and we're funding more places at university. This week we took the next step. Just yesterday, we passed legislation to set up the ATEC. That's the Australian Tertiary Education Commission. That'll help us to break down the barrier between TAFE and university, make it easier to move between the two and make it easier to get a degree more cheaply and faster. It'll also help to end the hunger games, where universities are eating each other alive for students. Instead, the ATEC will allocate places to individual universities. It will also help more kids from poor families, from the regions and from the bush to get a crack at going to uni in the first place.”
“I thank my friend the classy member for Cunningham for her question. Can't get anything past you, Daz! Under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, the number of kids finishing high school jumped from about 40 per cent to 80 per cent. That was nation-changing reform. It created businesses and a workforce that otherwise wouldn't exist. A couple of years ago, I released the Australian Universities Accord. What that says is that, over the next few decades, we'll need a workforce where not just 80 per cent have finished school but they've gone on to TAFE or to university as well, and the accord sets out a plan for us to get there. Over the last few years, we've bitten off a big chunk of it. We've cut student debt. We're rolling out paid pracs for teaching students, nursing students, midwifery students and social work students.”
“They'll allow the minister to appoint at least one and up to three commissioners on a part-time basis, in addition to the chief commissioner and the First Nations commissioner. They recognise the public good of higher education to Australia and the importance of academic freedom in the objects of the bill. They require the ATEC to establish a committee to provide advice and recommendations to the minister in relation to the Higher Education Standards Framework and ensure that the committee have appropriate expertise in higher education. All of these amendments are sensible, and I commend them to the House.”
“I move: That the amendments be agreed to. This bill establishes the Australian Tertiary Education Commission, the ATEC, which is a key recommendation of the Australian Universities Accord. In supporting the amendments that have been made to the bill by the Senate, I acknowledge in particular Senator Faruqi and Senator Pocock in the other place, as well as the member for Curtin and the member for Kooyong in the House of Representatives, for the work that they have done and their engagement in the development of this bill. The amendments that we will now consider that were made in the Senate will allow the ATEC to initiate its own advice to ministers. They'll strengthen the ATEC's role in providing advice on research and research training.”
“This is all part of the agreements we signed with every state and territory a year ago this week to fix the funding of our public schools—the biggest investment ever in our public schools by an Australian government. It's not a blank cheque; it's tied to important reforms just like this. (Time expired)”
“By last year, that had jumped to two-thirds. It had jumped from one in two to two-thirds in three years. At Five Dock Public School, in the member for Reid's electorate, it's even more incredible. Three years ago, it was one in two—50 per cent of kids were on track with their reading. Last year it was 90 per cent. That's about the most incredible news that I have heard in my time as education minister. The impact of that is potentially massive. If you get the basics right when you're little, then you can build on it. And we need to build on that too. That's why this year, for the first time ever, every state and every territory will roll out the phonics check in year 1. We're going to do the same thing with maths; this year, most states will roll out or pilot a maths check, a numeracy check, as well.”