Transcript - Doorstop - 1 March 2010

SUBJECTS: National curriculum; Labor's record on education promises

(greetings omitted)

So, Mr Pyne, what are your thoughts on the national curriculum?

PYNE: Well after a brief examination of the national curriculum today, which has been, of course, released today, we do have real areas of concern. The national curriculum appears quite unbalanced as it stands at the moment. I note that there are a-hundred-and-eighteen references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and while we all believe that Indigenous culture and history should be taught as part of the curriculum, there are no mentions at all of Westminster, there are no mentions at all of the Magna Carta which, of course is the foundation of all our laws in this country and there is one reference to Parliament. So on one hand we have a seemingly over-emphasis on Indigenous culture and history and almost an entire blotting out of our British traditions and British heritage. But that's just one example. We note that four year olds will be taught about Sorry Day and ANZAC Day and Australia Day is not mentioned at all in the curriculum until grade three. We note that year nine's will be taught about massacres and the displacement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with no counterbalancing references to the benefits to our country that our forebears have evinced by building a nation that is the fifteenth-largest economy in the world, based on a commitment of freedom, a commitment to the rule of the law and based on our British heritage. So I'm deeply concerned that Australian students will be taught a particular black armband view of our history without any counterbalancing views and if Australians don't know about the basis of their past I don't know how they'll go forward with confidence into the future.

Are you as a group in favour of the national curriculum at this stage?

PYNE: Look, the Opposition is entirely in favour of a national curriculum. A national curriculum was our idea in Government. But it matters what kind of curriculum it turns out and at the moment it appears that the national curriculum has been skewed to a black armband view of Australian history. I know that the Government will immediately demand that the Opposition retract from its views that Indigenous culture has been over-emphasised and there'll be an attempt to smother debate about the national curriculum. There'll be false claims of racism by the Government in order to shut down debate about the national curriculum but I'll just give you one example. There are one-hundred-and-eighteen references to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and people. There are no references to Westminster, which is the basis of our Parliament. There is no mention of Magna Carta which is the basis of our laws and there is only one mention of the word "Parliament". Now we know who drafted the national curriculum, Stuart Macintyre, who had a large role in its drafting... wrote the history of the National Communist Party, is a professed former Communist and is the greatest exponent of the black armband view of Australia's history. If we get elected this year, we'll entirely review the national curriculum and if it doesn't measure up to what we expect then the Coalition will scrap it and start again.

A lot of people quite like the emphasis and say that perhaps it's about time and perhaps we were going too far the other way. What do you say about that?

PYNE: I think that it is vitally important that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and traditions and culture be taught in our schools but we are a Western democracy. The Australian people, especially parents and grandparents expect their children to be caught about Australia's role in the World Wars, about our commitment to fighting for liberty and freedom. About the sacrifice of our forebears in building this nation. There is absolutely no reason why you can't teach both sides of Australia's history. There's no reason at all why we can't have a balanced curriculum that at least mentions our arguments on laws, which is the Magna Carta...at least mentions the basis of our Parliament, which is Westminster. Now this is exactly the criticism that I anticipate.  The Government will say 'what the Coalition is saying is that they don't support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people being taught...a culture in our schools'. That is utterly false. It is a base lie. What we are saying, though, is that if we don't have a balanced view of Australian history, if you don't get taught all sides of our history over the last hundreds of years then how can you go forward knowing what Australia is as a nation?

The Teacher's Union is complaining that they weren't consulted about this. Do you think that other segments of society, of education share similar concerns?

PYNE: There are two other reasons to be concerned about this curriculum. Number one, it is being rushed. The Teacher Unions, the school principals, Associations, are all pointing out that this needs to be implemented quickly. There's been no provision made for training of teachers and principals about establishing the new curriculum and the timelines are so narrow that with the pressure on teachers and principals already it appears very unlikely the national curriculum will be delivered on time. A second thing to be concerned about is that so far, the Minister, Julia Gillard, has been entirely incapable of delivering in the Education Revolution. Kevin Rudd has admitted himself on the weekend that Labor has failed when it comes to education. We have one Trade Training Centre out of two-thousand, six-hundred-and-fifty. We have about quarter of a million computers in schools out of a million. We have two childcare centres out of the two-hundred-and-sixty that were promised. The Youth Allowance reforms haven't been delivered. There are no Commonwealth scholarships and the Memorial School Hall programme has been over budget and the tales of waste and mismanagement are legion. Berridale, on the weekend was promised a $285 000 hall which ended up costing $950 000 so the confidence that I have of Julia Gillard delivering this programme is absolutely nil.

On the Prime Minister over the weekend [unclear] think Australians disappointed in what's been achieved so far and seems to be taking the blame himself...do you think that's genuine or is this just a diversion tactic?

PYNE: Kevin Rudd is a very professional, cunning and scheming politician when it comes to trying to turn around his political fortunes. This playbook is straight out of the Peter Beattie school of Queensland politics. I remember watching television one Sunday afternoon when Peter Beattie announced an election in Queensland. He said the health system was broken and he had to be re-elected to fix it. This is exactly the same that Kevin Rudd is now trying to get the Australian public to believe. The truth is the Government's programme has been in freefall. They haven't been able to give away free Pink Batts. They can't be trusted to run a trillion-dollar economy. We said that before the last election and unfortunately what we predicted then is turning out to be true.

Nonetheless, do you think the tide may be starting to turn against the Rudd Government?

PYNE: I have no doubt at all that the Australian public are waking up to the fact that Rudd over-promised and has under-delivered monumentally. He admitted himself, in Education, on the weekend and in health: the Government has failed. Of course, the Pink Batts Programme has cost four people their lives. There are two-hundred-and-forty-thousand sub-standard installations of insulation across Australia. There are anything up to forty-eight-thousand electrified roofs and that is just the tip of the iceberg! In the Building the Education Revolution we have a $1.7billion blow-out in that programme. We have Julia Gillard Memorial School Halls being built right across the country costing anything up to 30% or more...greater than they should. We have a school, Tyalgum Public School which last week had a school hall delivered on the back of a semi-trailer which didn't fit on the foundations that have been laid for the school hall! A whole lot of work will now have to be done to make that work. Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd have completely and manifestly not met the expectations of the Australian electorate and we need to give the Australian public at the next election a good reason to vote for a Coalition Government to try and fix the problems.

Are the [unclear] in this curriculum thing being just rushed through, ham-fisted, on the people?

PYNE: Well, Julia Gillard appears to have far too much on her plate. Trade Training Centres haven't been delivered. Computers in Schools haven't been delivered. There are no reforms to Youth Allowance. There are no Commonwealth Scholarships. The so-called "double drop-off" of kids in the morning is still a double drop-off for most families. The MySchool website crashed on the first day. This is apparently her crowning achievement. A website. If Julia Gillard loses at the next election it'll be sad for her that her only achievement was to establish a website which crashed on the first day. Now we have a national curriculum which some people think has been handed down too late and there won't be time for it to be implemented. There's no training being put aside for teachers and principals. To me it smells of another disaster waiting to happen. The national curriculum is unbalanced. It will not give young Australians confidence about their future because it doesn't teach them the truth, necessarily, and the balanced truth about our past.

Just locally, we've just been introduced to the new SACE and the new SACSA framework as a lead-in for years eight, nine and ten. There's concerns with the Union that this new curriculum doesn't take that into consideration...do you think that local nuances of local education systems have been brushed aside?

PYNE: I support the national curriculum and the Coalition would implement a national curriculum but I think it probably needs to go a lot further and be managed and implemented a lot more cleverly. I think that, in the end if you're going to have a national curriculum this will eventually supplant the State education curricula and that needs to be focused upon in the transition from State to Commonwealth curriculum.

So do you think it should be another couple of years before it's put in place, with a bit more consultation?

PYNE: The Coalition said, two years ago, that the national curriculum had to be matched with proper training for teachers and for principals. What the Government has announced, I think, is an accident waiting to happen. We have a new national curriculum announced today for consultation but the implementation has not been taken into account. Now the public may well expect...be expected to applaud the fact there is a new national curriculum but the implementation will be after the next federal election and on the basis of what we're seen Labor do already in education, whether it's Computers in Schools or Trade Training Centres or the Memorial School Halls, the likelihood of another bungle here has to be very high.

[unclear]

PYNE: If the Coalition wins the election we will have a thorough review of the curriculum because I am concerned about its unbalanced nature. I'm concerned that it doesn't give young Australians a proper understanding of our history from a balanced point of view. And if they don't have a good understanding of our history, then how can they actually go forward in the future with confidence about what sort of country Australia is. If we find the review confirms our very serious doubts then we'll scrap the national curriculum and we'll start again because it would be better for students to have the curriculum that they have now under the states than for them to have an unbalanced curriculum introduced that will do them more harm than good.

(ends)