2CC

SUBJECTS:  Speech to Sydney Institute; Greg Rudd; Labor leadership; Visiting Adelaide

E&OE………

Jorian Gardner: Christopher Pyne, you gave this speech last night.  What are you calling for? 

Christopher Pyne: Well, essentially I’ve said that one of the most important things that any Government can do in education is to address the difficulties we’re having in Australia with teacher quality.  I think most people understand that good infrastructure is important in schooling, but nothing is more important than the teacher themselves and the curriculum they’re imparting to students and in Australia all the evidence is we’re going backwards on the outcomes for students.  The OECD evidence is we’ve dropped our standards in the last 10 years, in spite of the fact that we’ve spent 44 per cent more on education.  It’s not money that’s the problem.  I think the problem in education is teacher quality and if a Coalition Government is elected federally we will bring most of our effort to bear on that issue. 

Gardner: Do you think that the money that’s actually in teaching is also an impediment to people going into the profession? 

Pyne: There’s no doubt about it. 

Gardner: You look at your future and you think where am I going to go?  Am I going to be a banker and earn $150,000 or $200,000 per year over here or do I become a teacher and earn $50,000? 

Pyne: This is a very significant problem and one of the reasons why people who are choosing teaching in responding to a survey said they chose it because it was cheap and easy and wouldn’t test them much beyond their year 12 subjects.  If you look at teaching as a career, after four or five years you are going to plateau financially and if you do absolutely nothing other than the minimum you’ll get paid exactly the same as the person who turns up early, leaves work late and takes the rugby and debating team.  Now, in today’s modern economy young people don’t choose a career like that.  Young people want a career where they can see if they work harder they get better rewards and they get career advancement.  That’s not the case in teaching.  It is a very antiquated system of remunerating employees and it can’t go on like that or this crisis in teaching will continue to get worse. 

Gardner: If you're elected into Government as looks likely to be the case you look likely to be the education minister then, Mr Pyne.  What then will you do about these standards of teaching and also about the pay rates? 

Pyne: There are two things the Commonwealth Government can do.  One is we have compacts with all the universities because the universities run the teachers colleges and all of their institutions.  We can direct the universities about the kind of teaching courses they’re currently undertaking.  I don’t think they’re practically based enough.  I think there’s far too much theory and that’s the feedback from teachers.  We need to make them much more attuned to the needs of future teachers about how to teach, how to engage with parents, how to assess students.  The second thing we can do is by introducing principal autonomy and local control for schools around Australia, give principals the capacity to reward teachers who are hard working and to move out of the system underperforming teachers, which everyone knows are there, but no one’s been prepared to do anything about.  This has always been placed in the too hard basket. 

Gardner: It’s just basic common sense isn’t it to do that sort of stuff; reward teachers for doing well and get rid of the ones who aren’t.  Why haven’t we been doing this earlier? 

Pyne: It is just common sense, but unfortunately the teacher unions have real control over the education system in Australia.  Their answer is always more teachers, smaller class sizes and higher pay.  Now, simply paying all teachers more doesn’t solve the problem.  It simply pays all teachers more.  The problem is there is no competitive pressure in the teaching profession to do more work, or to do it in a more innovative way and therefore young people after about four of five years in teaching realise for them there is no career advancement, they sit in the staff room where they see while they’re working harder than the person who has been in teaching for twenty five years, they’re getting paid no more in spite of the fact the other teachers are getting paid more because they’re tenured and been there longer, that is sole destroying in teaching and parents know it.

Gardner: My best friend here in Canberra is a teacher; he is the head of a department here at a High School in Canberra and he is such a committed man to his students.  I’ve never seen someone so committed.  Every weekend you know, he is involved with the performing arts, he takes a football team and he goes away on camp on school holidays, he never gets a rest the poor bloke, but I know another teacher who is just completely bored with their job, turns up does a bit of teaching, leaves at 3:30.  The difference between those two approaches, a massive chasm in between, yet they get paid about the same amount.

Pyne: Yes, it’s absolutely ridiculous.  Teaching is a vocation for many people.

Gardner: It is.

Pyne: It’s something we should very much value, we don’t value it nearly enough in Australia, but teaching needs to be treated as a profession.  Now the teacher’s can’t say on the one hand, the Unions say we should be treated as a profession, and then on the other hand apply such a straight jacket to the way that teachers are remunerated and have career advances. In fact it is not a profession, it simply a bureaucracy.

Gardner: I hope you can do something about it when or if you are elected Mr Pyne.  I’ve got to say this, just a quick question without notice if you don’t mind.  You must be scared Kevin Rudd’s brother is moving on to the political scene, Greg Rudd.

Pyne: Another Rudd, another Rudd in Canberra is all we need.  I think Julia Gillard would be more frightened than I am.

Gardner: Do you think so?  I think another Rudd would be great. Do you reckon we will have two Rudds at the next election, one as the leader?

Pyne: I do, yes I very much do.  I think Julia Gillard will be facing a pincer movement from the Rudd brothers and she is finding it hard enough to control one Rudd, without controlling two.

Gardner: Well there are a lot of rumours going around Canberra that this is going to happen sometime in the next four to six weeks, I mean I know you’re not in the party, but you must be hearing the same things we are.

Pyne: I though last night Joel Fitzgibbon on the Q and A program made it absolutely clear Julia Gillard’s days are numbered.  He is the Chief Whip; his job is to be counting Julia Gillard’s numbers, but clearly he is counting the numbers against Julia Gillard.   Last night he had three opportunities to express confidence in her and declined to do so. He in fact compared her to poor old Newcastle Knights who are twelfth on the table with no capacity to win the premiership and yet he thought she was like the Newcastle Knights.  Really she should sack Joel Fitzgibbon, if she was a Leader’s bootlace she would express some authority and sack her chief whip.

Gardner: Can I just ask you also before I let you go, you’re a South Australia is that right Christopher?

Pyne: Absolutely.

Gardner: Ok, we’ve been talking this morning about what’s great about Adelaide. We’ve been trying to come up with a few things.  There are more flights now that have been announced by the ACT Government of QANTAS going between Canberra and Adelaide.  Can you name me what is your number one thing about Adelaide that you love to do?

Pyne: Oh, that is easy, there are so many things, but the first thing I would do if I was a visitor from Canberra would be to hop in a car and within an hour, or three quarters of an hour you’re in some of the best wine districts in the world.  The Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, an hour and a half to Clare, a bit further to the Coonawarra and you can taste the best wine the world produces.

Gardner: Well, I could do that every night in my lounge room every night Christopher.

Pyne: A quick trip to the bottle shop.

Gardner: Yes, I’d just sit there with a Barossa red and a plant and I imagine I’m there. Christopher Pyne thank you so much for joining us on the program today, keep up the fight.

Pyne: Thank you.

ENDS