SUBJECTS: Education, Asylum seekers
STEVE AUSTIN:
Inside Canberra with two Federal MPs from Queensland. Bernie Ripoll, the Federal Labor Member for Oxley who's down in the City of Churches I think today Bernie, in Adelaide.
BERNIE RIPOLL:
That's right. G'day Steve. Yeah, down in Adelaide. I've got some financial services forums to attend to today.
AUSTIN:
I am glad you took the time to join us once again on the program. Thank you very much.
RIPOLL:
My pleasure.
AUSTIN:
Steve Ciobo is the Federal Liberal Member for Moncrieff also based here in Queensland. Steve Ciobo, good morning to you.
STEVE CIOBO:
Good morning Steven and good morning to Bernie.
AUSTIN:
Let me start with the issue that constantly crops up but it looked particularly worrying with today's data and that's the what appears to be a problem with the educational literacy standards of Australian students across the board and it looks like we are slipping slightly and there's a problem both with students and literacy and teacher training. Bernie, what's your take on the story that's been revealed today?
RIPOLL:
Well I think it just reinforces what we've been saying for quite some time and that is that we have to readjust. It's a major readjustment of our education system in Australia based on a national approach and based on competing with our neighbours – Competing with those that are closest to us. If our kids are going to compete for the global jobs of the future they have to be able to compete with kids from other countries as well as of course kids here domestically from school to school. That's why we have spent so much time reforming education, improving school facilities, working on teacher improvement and career development and particularly now with the David Gonski Report, looking at a better way of funding schools so that we can lift that standard right across the country. All it say to me this report that's come out today, it just reconfirms certainly my commitment that one of the biggest things that we can ever do in this country is make sure that our kids get a first class education.
AUSTIN:
When will that be turned around? When will we see a turnaround? At the moment we seem to be going backwards slightly.
RIPOLL:
Well I don't know that anyone can tell you when that turnaround will happen Steve but the point with all of these things are, is that you've got to make a beginning point. We are at that beginning point, we've already started. First you need to identify and accept that a problem exists, no point burying your head in the sand. A problem does exist. We've just got to be honest with ourselves. Look, we're still clever, we've still got great kids and great schools and great teachers but we can't just rest at that point and say 'well, we've done everything we can'. We have to keep moving forward, we have to keep working smarter and a little bit harder and I think, you know, we've got to look right across the board in terms of what we deliver to our kids to make sure they get the opportunities of the future. I've got three young kids in school and I know like any other parent you want to make sure that your kids get a really good shot at it. And when you see figures like this, for me it just reaffirms my commitment as to why this is so important to have this education reform. The things that we are trying to do from Government.
AUSTIN:
Steve Ciobo.
CIOBO:
Well Steve, I listened to Bernie and I challenge anyone to disagree with anything Bernie said. I mean it was all the right sounds, all the right noises, the rhetoric was there, you know we our children to compete and all this type of thing. In fact, it was just so full of nothingness that it was entirely consistent with their approach for the past five years. I mean, I'll tell you what these results show. These results show that Aussie kids, these were children test in years 4, who have done their entirety of their schooling under Labor Governments at a State and Federal level are now well behind the level that they need to be. We are I think overall number 27 out of the list of countries. Bear in mind Steve that in this year's Budget, despite all the flowery rhetoric that we just heard, Labor ripped in the MYEFO I should say, the Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, $3.9 billion from education. We saw $16 billion spent on school halls and the odd covered outdoor learning area. We failed to see any meaningful impact when it comes to actually teaching quality on the ground. In addition to that of course we saw Julia Gillard scrap Kevin Rudd's computers in schools program. On every level, the national Labor Government has failed Aussie kids. We are now starting to see that will have real repercussions and that's part of the reason why the Coalition is so obsessed with saying it's not about how many school halls there are, it's about the quality of teaching that is provided, it's about the professional standards of teachers in force. That's what we are focussed on because that's what makes a difference.
AUSTIN:
Bernie Ripoll, in the Gonski Review Plan, what are the key elements of improving teacher education and teacher skills. I saw Angelo Gavrielatos on ABC24 again this morning talking about extra resourcing and funds for teachers, but what was in Gonski to actually lift their sort of teaching standards or a system in improving their own standards? Can you recall? I can't recall off the top of my head I'm sorry.
RIPOLL:
The Gonksi Report made a whole range of really key recommendations. In particular looked at how do we lift the standard of education. There's some pretty simple stuff here. One is that where kids are disadvantaged they are going to have worse outcomes and we've got to lift that standard. So whether it's a socio-economic disadvantage or whether it's a rural/remote disadvantage, whether it's a disability disadvantage you've got to put more money into the schools and more funding into the schools. That will mean that there is either better teachers or more teachers and that is part of lifting the quality and the capacity of teachers to actually deliver a national curriculum to deliver a really strong education platform. I do take some umbrage with what Steve Ciobo's saying. Look, it's not just hollow words and I don't think it's fair and I don't think anyone would agree it's fair to just say this is all just happened in the last five years while Labor has been in Government. That's completely disingenuous. The problem that we've got in our gradually falling standards here is that they have been a long term trend. That's the problem we all need to face up to. I am not going to blame anybody else. What I am going to do is say at some point though you need to make some changes. I know all governments of all types want our kids to have a better education. I know that for a fact. I know Steve does, I know everybody on the Liberal/National Party side does as much as the Labor side does. We might have slightly different plans on how to get there but it does involve more money, it does involve working more closely with teachers and giving them the career opportunities they need as well as trying to lift the standard for kids. How do you lift that standard, how do you get it? Well, you take a really disadvantaged region or school and you help them with funding to make sure you don't have just one teacher struggling in one class so that they've got the support they need. That's what needs to happen. Gonski details all of that in a whole range of areas and we don't have time on-air to go through all of that but it is agreed by just about everybody. It's the way forward.
AUSTIN:
Steve Ciobo, then I'll throw a different angle at both of you.
CIOBO:
Sure, I mean the problem with this is… I am not trying to make this political and say it happened all under Labor. I never said that. What I said was that the children that were tested now in years 4 have done the entirety of their schooling under Labor and don't forget that we've had in Queensland for example, Labor effectively in government for 20 years. Now, my point about this…
AUSTIN:
That's the State's that run education.
CIOBO:
My point about this is Steve, this is not about spending more money. I mean, Labor is spending an obscene amount of money frankly. I mean, the kids that it says is benefiting it's actually putting into debt for the next 20 or 30 years and as you know I have raised that point on a number of occasions. So, Aussie kids are in debt up to their eyeballs thanks to this Labor Government. So it's not about of the amount of money spent, it's about how you spend the money. School halls does not equate to better teaching outcomes. What these results show is how true that is.
AUSTIN:
Can I ask both of you something slightly tangential on this topic? I am sure that both of you – and I've never met any politician of any political colour that didn't want to solve the problems of their portfolio, everyone wants to – is it possible that we are missing other factors here? In other words, it's not just the funding or a teacher standard issue but it's…. Bernie Ripoll made the point that this has been slowly building this problem, but there's things like increased distraction with mobile devices, computers, a whole range of other things that are vying for a child's attention. So there's a whole range of other factors. I've had teachers tell me that things like even diet, you know the fact that kids don't seem to be eating as healthily as they used to, has a key effect on the ability of children to concentrate in school. In other words their brain is starved of the good food it needs to learn properly and to grow for the brain to grow properly. In other words, it's external factors, external of politics in other words. Bernie, do you want to kick off?
RIPOLL:
Absolutely, I think something that has happened over the past 20 years that we have all come to recognise and then we've only just been able to make changes to. For example, we have six States in Australia and they all have a different education system. That means that one of them is not as good as another one of them. So a national curriculum has been a really big long term project that Labor delivered. In Queensland we have seen finally after 100 years, the recognition that we needed to have a prep before year one so that we could match our kids' education standards and time in education with the other States, particularly New South Wales and Victoria. There's been a whole range of changes, particularly in Queensland which is the most de-centralised State in the country for really small remote and rural communities with one-teacher schools that just aren't viable or even in my local community, small schools that just didn't have the capacity to deliver the services. So there's been an amalgamation of schools. There's been a whole range of really big reforms which will be the beginning place for us, including a national curriculum, including some new funding for teachers and career path and career development which recognises what teachers have been saying for a number of years. So Steve, you're right. You're right in saying this is not just a political issue, this has been a long-term problem for Australia where, because of our structural systems around our Federation and the way that States and the Commonwealth operate and the way funding works, and if anyone can explain to you how school funding works, I'll give them a tick myself because I haven't found anyone who can explain it to me so I am not going to explain it to you. Gonski made the best effort so far of trying to de-mystify the funding so we can actually find a better model. That's been the problem not for five years, not even for ten, but for 50 years. This is why this report that has just come out for me just highlights the importance and need for us to keep moving forward on this and making sure that we do spend more money in the right areas. I agree with Steve (inaudible).
AUSTIN:
I am not sure that that was my point, but anyhow Bernie. Steve Ciobo, I'll let you respond and then I'll move on.
CIOBO:
I'd make two points. The first about the external factors you speak of Steve. I think if that was in isolation i.e. only affecting Australia and not other countries around the world, then I would probably support that premise. But I would think that those external influences, change in diets, access to technology, computer games, all that sort of stuff, I would have thought that's a global phenomenon. In fact, I would like to think and I hope this is the case that Aussie kids have a better balance between outdoors and indoors more so than other children around the world. I mean, that's one of the great virtues of living in this country. The second point that I would make, just having listened to Bernie and I've got to say Steve, Bernie, with the greatest respect mate, I just don't think you get it. You just spoke for three or four minutes about all these great successes that you've had at the State level and nationally and yet what these results show is that we are failing Aussie kids. I think it's time that we all woke up and stopped selling all these great reforms as you use those words and actually realise we are doing an injustice to Aussie kids to have our children starting out 27th in the world against our peers. You know, it is a shameful mark frankly, and I don't care what political colour you are, against our educators and against the system because we are effectively tying one hand behind their backs when it comes to competing with other kids around the world.
AUSTIN:
This is 612, ABC Brisbane. Inside Canberra with two Federal MPs from Queensland. Bernie Ripoll, Federal Labor Member for Oxley. Steve Ciobo is the Federal LNP Member for Moncrieff. My name is Steve Austin. It is 25 past 9. I had lunch with these two blokes recently and Steve Ciobo let something slip in the conversation. He like many people gets those chain emails that go around making certain allegations on different topics. There's all sorts of wonderful ones, funny ones, conspiratorial ones and outright barking mad ones. But one of the ones that I thought might be of interest to the listener Steve Ciobo was, given the public interest in asylum seekers, you feel that there is something driving the push to come to Australia for impoverished people from around the world and you think it's the public money that's available to them once they land here and you actually analysed one of these chain emails and did a calculation on what they receive when they land. I wanted to give you the opportunity to lay that out for me if would. Go for your life.
CIOBO:
Well, Steve I mean and I am sure most people would have received this email and there are sort of different versions of it. One talks about it the amount of benefits asylum seekers obtain relative to pensioners. Others just talk about the benefits. I thought I'd just run through the asylum seeker assistance scheme as it's called which is funded by tax payers and administered by the Red Cross. This is for those asylum seekers who have moved into community detention. I think most Australians would find this fairly galling actually. They receive a household goods formation package of up to $9,850. A starter package for food and cleaning supplies, bread, butter, milk, eggs, those kinds of things. That's $100 for singles and up to $250 for families. Baby item packages, mattresses, blankets, towels, etc. up to $750 per baby. Connection set up cost for electricity and telephone, repairs and replacement of property and household items. Income support. A couple get 89 per cent of the Newstart Allowance plus 89 per cent of Centrelink parenting payment which works out to roughly to $586.60 per week. Of course all of their hospital, dental and medical bills are paid for. All pharmaceuticals and optical services, as well as education fees and expenses up to $9,220 for two children in NSW public schools for example and educational expenses up to $2,000 for each unaccompanied minor for things like excursions, music lessons and sports club fees in addition to that mobile phones are provided to unaccompanied minors although individuals pay for their own mobile bill in terms of adults. So,that is an exceptionally generous scheme Steve and this is part of my point that we were discussing over lunch. Which is that on any standard around 90 per cent of the world's population would consider that to be hitting god lotto. I have no doubt at all that's the reason we have seen in excess of 24,000 asylum seekers come to this country. I mean, every single boat of asylum seekers that arrives in Australia costs Australian taxpayers around $16 million. Every single boat and this is why it is just such a massive problem for us.
AUSTIN:
Bernie Ripoll.
RIPOLL:
Well, Steve's right. It is a big problem and that's why we have taken such strong measures. The fact that we have sent back something like 600 Sri Lankans just recently who were deemed almost immediately, not quite, but almost immediately in a very short period of time to not have a claim on asylum to be sent back. People who are trying to play the system, whether it's ours or anyone else's will be sent back unless they have a genuine claim. The reality is we've consistently had universal obligations to asylum seekers whether it's in Australia or other countries and we've met those whether it's this government or previous government, where we've been able to meet those and we do that. The generosity that Steve speaks of is people who are coming over and have absolutely nothing so the choice would be obviously to just drop them in the middle of a town or city and say 'good luck'.
CIOBO:
Well Bernie, they've paid a people smuggler to get here.
RIPOLL:
Look, that may or may not be the case in some circumstances and other circumstances there is a deemed level at which it's tobasic set up. And anyone listening is going to think that's way too generous and look in some cases that may be the case. In others it may not be. So I'm not going to defend that, I'm just going to leave that there. What I'm saying though is that we've got an obligation and we're doing that at the same time that we're doing that we've now got one of the hardest regimes in terms of whether it's Manus Island and Nauru. We've excised the whole Australia in terms of a whole range of legal requirements. We've gone further than any previous government in terms of trying to deal with what is a real problem. It's a real problem, but let's put it in to context. There's something like more than twenty million people globally who are either seeking refugee status or asylum status. They're not all coming to Australia, thank God. And we're putting up as many … We're making sure that entry into this country on those grounds meets our requirements. We have a quota and we have a system and we try to keep to that system, and that's what we're doing. From time to time there will be push and pull factors, we all acknowledge that which make it more and more difficult. Right now the world globally is in turmoil in a range of areas and that does make it harder.
AUSTIN:
I think I'll leave it there gentlemen. You've been generous with your time this year. Bernie Ripoll, thank you very much. Happy Christmas to you Bernie and I'll see you in the New Year.
RIPOLL:
Absolutely. Thank you very much and Happy Christmas to both of you and all your listeners as well.
AUSTIN:
Steve Ciobo. Thank you very much for all of your time this year. Happy Christmas and I'll see you in January.
CIOBO:
Yes, Merry Christmas and Christmas card to you Bernie.
RIPOLL:
Thanks Steve, you too.