Transcript - 5AA - 9 December 2010

SUBJECTS: National Curriculum Debacle

Chris Smith: Christopher Pyne, G'day.

Christopher Pyne: Good to be with you.

Smith: (inaudible) has got an agenda, clearly, and they're trying to get it in our schools. What I'm worried about most is the configuration of members on this OCARA committee. You've got this bloke who's proudly a former communist party. You've got mainly 14 academics and school teachers at the same time. I wonder whether they have a grasp of what Australians think out there.

Pyne: Well, Chris, the problem is Peter Garrett keeps walking into the glass sliding door. You can put every sign on it saying, "don't walk through this door; it's glass" and Peter Garrett just keeps banging his head on it. And he's made a complete mess of every program he's touched since he's been a minister and Julia Gillard promoted him after the election. She actually increased his responsibilities and put him in charge of our school curriculum. I couldn't believe it at the time, and now of course I asked him this week whether he would take the logical step of delaying the national curriculum until 2012 in order to get it right rather than rush it in and he wouldn't answer that question. He ducked and weaved and said as far as he was concerned it was coming in. It's clearly flawed.

There aren't just conservative people concerned about the national curriculum; groups like the New South Wales Teachers Federation, the New South Wales History Teachers - teacher groups that don't support the Coalition usually all across the country are saying this national curriculum is a disaster. And yet in eight weeks time apparently the national curriculum will be taught in our schools. The teachers have been given no training, no support, there's no money allocated to do any of these things. As you've already pointed out there are deep flaws in the curriculum. Even the High Court in the United Kingdom ruled if they were going to show children this movie, An Inconvenient Truth, they had to qualify it before they showed them with all the wrong facts in the movie. That hasn't happened in Australia, it's just going to be given to people as though it's factual.

Smith: I've got five pages of the wrong scientific facts contained in that documentary. If they were going to edit it down and create a documentary that was factual, it'd probably run about six minutes, but they'll show it unedited which is the problem. I'm a dummy right, and I've never worked for Government - thank God - I've only ever worked for private enterprise, but if you have anything on the agenda of significance and this is of significance to not only school children, but for the rest of the nation; you'd put together a website, you'd request school children, parents, grand parents, bodies of interest, should lodge a submission so that we can have a proper consultation. You get on radio, you'd have some of these (inaudible) discussing this with open line callers having forums and blogs with newspapers and do it properly and spend the time doing it properly.

Pyne: Let me give you an example about how bad this is. When the first draft was released I said there was an overemphasis on this national curriculum on indigenous politics, indigenous science, English writings etc. There was an indigenous theme through every aspect of the curriculum. The example I gave was that in the science curriculum the dream time was to be taught. Now, of course there should be an emphasis on indigenous Australians during the curriculum, but I do think that the dream time being taught in science.....

Smith: Science?

Pyne: Is taking things too far. Well, the politically correct establishment in Canberra attacked me up hill and down dale, and two days later, the Chair of ACARA Barry McGaw announced that the Dreamtime was being removed from the Science draft and that it should have never been there in the first place. Well, we didn't see too many of those people from the press gallery in Canberra writing that Christopher Pyne was actually right about this and why this is so important is that Julia Gillard has said that the National Curriculum is her number one reform. She said that that was the reform when she was the Education Minister that was most important and it's being rushed out, it's cumbersome, it's prescriptive, it was supposed to be a guide and yet now it's becoming a this is what you will teach on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from kindergarten to year 12. The government must step in, and because they won't, I've put a motion on the notice paper which will be debated and voted on in the House of Representatives that the Curriculum be delayed until January 2012 to get it right, rather than get it in.

Smith: You're not asking much, let's delay it and get it right. That's not asking much at all, but what's really angered most of my listeners, and on several occasions this week I've raised the topic about suggesting that there are controversies surrounding memorials, controversies surrounding ANZAC day. I can only think that we are embracing ANZAC day with the respect and reverence that it deserves, and then raising the fact that we are glorifying war. I mean, get a grip, I wonder if these people have ever been to a dawn service.

Pyne: Well, this week I raised this very issue about the concept that the spokesman of ACARA was saying that there is a question mark about whether we should be glorifying Gallipoli. Nobody is glorifying Gallipoli; Gallipoli is part of our Australia history which teaches us that war is bad and must never happen again.

Smith: And as a matter of fact, that particular theatre of war has very little glory attached to it.

Pyne: Of course, we're not glorifying Gallipoli or war; people are remembering the sacrifice of Australians that means that we are a free country today.

Smith: yeah, exactly, well keep at it, because there aren't too many on our side on this score, but I'm telling you right now that a litmus test of listeners who listen to these radio stations are all saying the same thing, "hold it right there, don't start social engineering our education system, especially brainwashing our kids". Just while I've got you briefly, Christopher Pyne, why won't Rob Oakeshott, Adam bant, Andrew Wilkie and Co support an enquiry into the BER or has there been a secret deal done just prior to the election do you think?

Pyne: Look, it's a very good question and it's disappointed me that a judicial enquiry hasn't been supported by some of the independents. I think that it's a pity because it's the only way that we can summon documents and Subpoena witnesses and get to the bottom of the costings of each project. Julia Gillard promised during the election that she would release the costings of each project because the Orgill Report doesn't have access to them and of course she hasn't.

Smith: And the Orgill Report was nothing more than a frost anyway, the Orgill Report

Pyne: Well of course I sais that the costings would never be released because this was just another one of her election fixes and two and a half months later and of course we haven't seen the costings and the only way to get to the bottom of them is to see the costings and that's what a judicial enquiry can do. But, we're not giving up, the enquiry is still alive, I'm going to try and run it through the Senate and then it will come back to the House of Representatives and we'll have another go in the New Year.

Smith: Ok, I'll let you go, thank you very much for your time this afternoon.

Pyne: Pleasure.

ENDS