Transcript - Doorstop - 19 January 2010

SUBJECTS: AEU boycott of NAPLAN tests; productivity; schools funding; polls; Prince William's visit; Community Cabinet; Exclusive Brethren

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, the Australian Education Union Conference has voted today to boycott the NAPLAN tests this May because of the Government's decision to go ahead with the MySchool website and the Government's inability to stop leagues tables from being produced from the information that the MySchool website will carry. The Opposition's position on that is that we don't believe that leagues tables are useful. We certainly don't think that they would add anything to people's information on knowledge about schools but we are not about to legislate to impinge people's right - particularly in the press - to create leagues tables if they choose to do so. My own personal view is that leagues tables have proved to be uninteresting and so impossible to understand...(inaudible)...pass very quickly after the first attempt. Putting that to one side, the teachers have announced that they will boycott the NAPLAN test. The Opposition doesn't support this boycott. We are against it. But we do understand the frustration that teachers have with the Government and with the Minister. Our view on the MySchool website is that it will be the next 'GroceryWatch' and 'FuelWatch'; that the MySchool website will go the same way as 'GroceryWatch' and 'FuelWatch' for one simple reason: it is not useful to provide information to parents and teachers and school communities without giving Principals the capacity and the autonomy to make decisions to change the environment in their own school to actually change those outcomes. So the Government is creating the information publicly that will allow schools to be criticised and allow school communities to feel bad about their particular school but they are not giving Principals the autonomy to act to change those bad results. Without Principal autonomy, the MySchool website will go the same way as 'GroceryWatch' and 'FuelWatch'. If the Opposition was in Government, we would continue with the website but we would give Principals the autonomy to manage their own schools so that they could change the outcomes the My School website had made publicly known.

QUESTION: Isn't transparency a good thing in that it allows us to have an honest debate about which schools are struggling and need greater resources?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look, transparency was the Coalition Government's policy. We announced that we would provide this information to parents. We said that we'd set up a website to do so. But we also said that we would match that information with Principal autonomy with the capacity for them to manage their schools in the same way as the Catholic systemic schools are managed, and independent schools are managed, so not just say what the problem is, but create the tools by which that problem can be addressed. What Julia Gillard has done is created the window-dressing with the My School website - which will be the same as the 'GroceryWatch' and the 'FuelWatch' websites - without actually giving the tools to Principals to act to effect an outcome in their local school community.

QUESTION: is school autonomy something that the Federal Government can actually deliver...(inaudible) states and territories?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The Federal Government has the power to do anything it wants to do. The Federal Government provides the vast majority of the funds to the schools. We did so in Government when the Howard Government was in power and when the new quadrennium funding comes around for schools, and for State Governments, there's absolutely nothing to stop the Commonwealth Government from saying that this funding will be linked to more Principal autonomy.

QUESTION: Is that what you would do in an Abbott Government? You would link Principal autonomy to Federal funding for schools?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: If we were elected at the next election, an Abbott Government would renegotiate the next quadrennium of funding to the schools through the State Governments with a mind to linking that funding to creating Principal autonomy in the public schools system.

QUESTION: Aren't you disappointed this boycott could stop parents getting information?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: The Opposition opposes the boycott. We don't support the boycott, and the AEU has never been a friend of the Liberal Party. We understand the frustration the AEU and Angelo Gavrielatos have about a Government that is publicising the problem, but not creating the tools for the solution and we share their frustration with this Government and it would be addressed if we had a full-time Education Minister, rather than a Minister who was more concerned about the next spread in Woman's Day or Women's Weekly than actually dealing with problems in her education to portfolio - which now stretch not just to the boycott of NAPLAN, not just to the inevitable failure of the MySchool website, but to the failure to deliver the Trade Training Centres promise, the failure to deliver Computers in Schools that was promised before the election and of course the now infamous Julia Gillard Memorial School Hall programme.

QUESTION: Should teachers face penalties over this?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Angelo Gavrielatos has announced today that they'll make their final decision, I think by April 12^th. I think it's probably far too early to be talking about penalties or other mechanisms that might be used to stop the boycott. Today is a day to indicate that while the Opposition doesn't support the boycott, we understand the frustration of teachers in dealing with this Government.

QUESTION: Does the Opposition support the Prime Minister's push for greater productivity growth?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, of course. We always want greater productivity growth in Australia. Under the Howard Government we had record levels of productivity growth over a long period of time. This speech last night of the Prime Minister's is just another example of how this Prime Minister is all talk and no action. Two years after he's been elected Prime Minister he's decided that we needed productivity in Australia and one of his solutions to that is to whack a great big new tax on every product sold in Australia and every service delivered in Australia. Now you don't get better productivity by introducing new taxes. So, we are not surprised that in a speech he talks about action needing to be taken by 2040 - everything with Kevin Rudd happens in ten, twenty, forty or even a hundred years - and we'll wait to see whether he actually does anything or whether it's just all talk and no action.

QUESTION: Do you think there's scope for improving the SES funding model for private schools? Do you think funding should be targeted more to need?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I think there is scope for improving the SES funding model. The Coalition supports the SES funding model, the Government doesn't. In Opposition, Julia Gillard made very strong statements in the House of Representatives about how she despised the SES funding model. They conveniently put that aside to win the 2007 election. In 2004, she wished to bring back the hated Education Resource Index. We support the SES funding model as an objective way of funding non-Government schools but we do see scope for improvement and we would await information from the review of the SES funding model to decide (inaudible)...Everything can always be improved but we believe that there should be an objective and equitable funding model for both non-Government and Government schools, whereas I believe that the Labor Government is trying to skate through the next election without having to make their position on the SES funding model clear and after the election they will abandon their temporary support for it.

QUESTION: Do you think broadly the balance is right between the amount of Federal public funds that go to private schools versus public schools?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You have to predicate that question on the basis of the facts to do with funding of the public schools and of course the overwhelming majority of funds to public schools come from the State Governments. The report that was released yesterday by the AEU again failed to make mention of the fact that public schools get the vast majority of their funding from State Governments. So that report lacked any credibility in my view. What I found interesting about the Government's response to it was that when they were in Opposition, Julia Gillard would seize on reports like this to attack the Howard Government and yesterday of course she was adopting the same response that the Howard Government had to these kinds of reports.

QUESTION: Is your view that, broadly, the mix is right? The balance...(inaudible) from the Federal coffers is about right?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, it's not for me to judge whether the split is about right or not. There is a process: the SES funding model. It delivers funding to schools, to non-Government schools. That is an objective assessment. I think that children in non-Government schools do need and deserve Government support. Not every non-Government school is a privileged or elite school. The vast majority of students in non-Government schools are in small Christian schools or small Catholic schools around Australia and small multicultural schools. I think the debate is skewed by people's already sustained views on non-Government schooling but I support the objective test of how the money should be delivered and I think it's a good test and we should continue with it.

QUESTION: What sort of possible improvements are you talking about, though?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Let's wait and see what the review says. There are experts who are going to enquire into how to improve the SES funding model. Let's wait to see what their recommendations are. I tell you what we will not do. We will not do what Julia Gillard did with the report that was commissioned by the previous Government into Principal autonomy which handed down 16 recommendations and the Minister sat on for two years before releasing last year and actually sets out a blueprint for how to deliver Principal autonomy which has been completely ignored. We will not ignore improvements that can be made to the SES funding model. We don't want the SES funding model to get out of whack with what is necessary because funds should go to schools that are in need. Funds should not go to schools that are not in need but that does not mean that the SES funding model is failing to deliver at this time.

QUESTION: Do you take heart from today's opinion poll figures?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well this will be my eighth election campaign. I fought my first one when I was 21 and lost to John Bannon, who was the Premier at the time, in the state result, and I think the only thing that matters is the poll on election day. In the last election the Liberal Party's polling indicated that I was well behind the week before election day and I won on election day, and I think that the only poll that matters is the one on election day.

QUESTION: Just on another issue, Prince William's touched down in Australia today. Do you think he'd make a good King of Australia?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I'm a Republican and I believe that Australia's Head of State should be available to every Australian. That is not the case at the present time, but I think until our Queen is no longer our Queen that issue is a dead letter.

QUESTION: And if she were to hand over to William instead of Charles would that make the Republicans' chances of achieving political change more difficult in Australia, do you think?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think there is a snowball's chance in hell of Prince Charles being overlooked for King. He is the person who is in line to be King. He's the heir to the throne. He's been the Prince of Wales for decades and there is no mechanism apart from, you know, most extraordinary circumstances, for anyone other than Prince Charles to be our next Head of State.

QUESTION: And if he is successful, then, in succeeding Queen Elizabeth, will that make the chances of a Republic stronger, in your view?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look, I don't wish to get into the Republican debate. [inaudible] I'm a Republican, and I'm delighted that my electorate voted 'yes' to the last referendum, but I don't believe that there will be any movement on the issue of Australia having its own Head of State until our Queen is no longer our Head of State.

QUESTION: Speaking of your electorate, are you going to Community Cabinet tomorrow night?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No, I'm not. I think the Community Cabinet is an expensive media stunt. It's designed to promote Labor in marginal electorates across Australia at taxpayers' expense. I think if Labor wants to promote their brand they should do so at their own expense. The Community Cabinets now cost anything between three and five million dollars. I think it is an outrage that Kevin Rudd is using taxpayers' money to hold yet another talkfest.

This one is in my electorate and I can tell you that the voters of Sturt would vastly prefer that he made some decisions rather than keeping on with this constant talk. The first decision he should make is to support the Coalition's position on the referendum on the Murray-Darling Basin. That would immediately get some support in Adelaide. If he doesn't do that then he's wasting his time coming to my electorate.

QUESTION: How does Community Cabinet and the public response associated with it any different, though, to the Opposition front bench meeting in different locations around the country [inaudible]?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well the Opposition doesn't take a retinue of people with them everywhere on this King's Progress that Kevin Rudd has adopted of Community Cabinets. We quietly come into town and hold a meeting which costs very little money and we do it very rarely. This will be the third community cabinet in Adelaide.

As I've said, the cost is now approaching between three and five million dollars at our best estimates, and I think there's a vast difference. What the Australian public would prefer is if Kevin Rudd actually got on and made some decisions and stopped all the talk and started acting.

QUESTION: Mr Pyne, do you support federal funding going to Exclusive Brethren schools?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I believe that schools that qualify under the guidelines that are provided should receive funding regardless of their religious or nondenominational status.

QUESTION: What if they fail to prepare children, arguably, for life in the broader community by denying them access [inaudible], things that have been allege about the Brethren's activities?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I'm not sure that those allegations are true because the Exclusive Brethren have received computers apparently under the Computers in Schools programme so the Prime Minister, who described them as an 'extremist cult', is apparently quite relaxed about them receiving computers under Computers in Schools and a Julia Gillard Memorial School Hall and funding under the SES funding model.

I don't have any experience with the Exclusive Brethren but my understanding is that they fulfil all of the criteria that are required by State Governments in the education of their children and until such time as they don't they should be treated objectively.

QUESTION: Should Australian schoolchildren be reading about the exploits of Jasper and Abby?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Look, I don't know what anyone's said about Jasper and Abby, but I really do think the Australian public would prefer the Prime Minister to get on and be Prime Minister rather than write children's books.

QUESTION: Would a Coalition Government scrap the Computers in Schools programme?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: There's no suggestion that the Computers in Schools programme will still be operating after the next election because our understanding is that it's supposed to be completed this financial year. So that's had allowance made for it into the forward estimates and I assume that programme will reach its full conclusion.

My understanding, of course, of Computers in Schools was that it was to deliver 975,000 computers. So far it's delivered about 150,000 computers so they've got to do a great deal more work in the next twelve months than they have done in the last two years.

(ends)