Interview - Afternoon Briefing

KARVELAS: Minister Katy Gallagher says that conversations about the rise in threats and abuse following the attack on Helen Haines need to extend to all public-facing workers. But I suppose it still leaves the question: why do you think there is this community-wide increasing anger?

CLARE: PK, can I just start - this is the first time I've had a chance to send a public message of love and support to Helen and Phil and their team. So, if you permit me just to reach out to her and the family and pass on my love to her. Look, I think all of us, whether we're pollies or in the media, are still numb at this, trying to work out, not what happened, but why it happened. I've personally been worried that something like this could happen, but none of us would have, in our worst nightmares, ever thought that it could be Helen, which makes it so hard to understand. In our own lives as politicians, we're taught to do things to keep ourselves safe. You know, I've had to have police stand next to me at polling booths during the election. But you're right to say, and others have said this too, that it's gotten more difficult and more dangerous. And a big part of that, inevitably, is social media that allows what might be a conversation in a pub to be a conversation that everyone can read and encourage some people that might just be angry to do angry and evil things.

KARVELAS: You talk about the increase in the kind of rhetoric that's become more divisive, more angry. Well, we've all observed it, I think, but in terms of tangible changes, there's been some MPs today that have said they're reluctant to listen to police advice, for instance, that says, tell the police where you're going to be because you can't then connect with voters. How do you deal with that tension?

CLARE: You'll never hear me say anything bad about the work that the Federal Police do. They do an incredible job and, in some ways, an impossible job. You know, I think the advice that they're giving us is helping to keep us safe. And in many cases, they're standing between us and the danger, between us and somebody that might want to do us harm. And I'm conscious, as I say this, PK, that it's not just politicians that experience this. I know that the sort of threats that you experience and that other people in the media experience. I don't talk about this often, but over 30 years ago, I was working for John Newman the state MP who was assassinated in NSW, he was shot dead in his driveway by somebody for political reasons. It was part of a political criminal conspiracy. It's not something that you get over, you know, it's something in the back of my mind ever since. It's haunted me. And I guess it'll continue to haunt me for as long as I'm alive. So, it is true to say that Australia is a safer place than most other parts of the world, but we're not immune from political violence. It's happened before in Australia. Shockingly, this has happened to our friend Helen this week and we've always got to think, what more can we do? It's not an easy answer to this question. And as I said, the police have got an almost impossible job here, but it's incumbent on all of us to do a little less of this and a little bit more of this, rather than pointing the finger at others and the sort of the hyper political rhetoric to think, what more can we do to be better at our job? And I know it's a little bit cliche, but to perform our job a little bit more like the way Helen does.

KARVELAS: You mentioned working for an MP 30 years ago where this happened, and I had not heard this story, so I appreciate you sharing it with us. Obviously, that's a pretty traumatic event to go through. No one would have been more traumatised than the family of John Newman, obviously. But that also demonstrates that political violence perhaps has been with us for longer than we, we may be talking about too – right?

CLARE: Yeah, I was with him half an hour before he was killed, said goodbye to him, got home that night. And this is sort of before the internet, really. And then it was broadcast on news that a politician had been shot. And I remember my mum coming into my room. I was doing a uni assignment at the time and saying that a politician's been shot. And yeah, I was out the front of his driveway a little later that night and the police had cordoned it all off. I don't think I slept that night.

KARVELAS: How much has that shaped your own political career and the way that you've gone about your business? Because I think that's a pretty extreme event to have experienced.

CLARE: Yeah. And as you rightly point out, it's John's family that suffered the most. I guess it's just, it reminds me all the time that this is a job that's a privilege to have, but it's a job that sometimes, unfortunately, can be very dangerous. And so, I'm careful, I'm as careful as I possibly can be in the way that I do the job.

KARVELAS: And I think people are very worried about their children as well. MPs have, off the record, told me many times that they're very worried about - their kids get threatened as well. And anyone whose kids get threatened knows that does something to your mind if you feel like you can't keep your family safe. So, is this going to end up a conversation next week when we go to the Parliament, Parliament sitting, about extra security, different maybe perimeters at polling booths at the Federal election? Is that where this is going? Or do you think it needs to take a different direction?

CLARE: I don't know. It's not just about polling booths because, you know, we do our job every single day at the local shops. Sometimes we're there representing the community, talking to people, but sometimes we're just pushing a trolley in Woolies, doing our own job, and people will come up to you and stop you and say, g'day. So, it's not as simple as just, you know, one day every three years. And I'm really conscious, PK, even though I've told you this story, you know, the amount of threats of violence and sexual violence that female politicians get is about a million times more than a person who looks like me cops every day or every year. And I do think we need to focus on what more we can do to - as a message to the community that this is not on and it's got to stop. Because, you know, one angry statement by one person can lead to somebody else deciding that it's okay for them to act violently.

KARVELAS: Well, Jason Clare, it's interesting you mention that, because Katy Gallagher put on the table other workers that deal with violence in their jobs. And I think those of us who have, you know, teachers, nurses in our lives, it piqued my interest because every day I hear a different incident from people who work on the front line. You are the Minister for Education. Female teachers talk about this all the time, the sort of sexualised violence they even hear from students. So, this is a pernicious issue in our community.

CLARE: Yeah. I'll give you two examples. Teachers and principals deal with parents all the time and 99 per cent of parents are fantastic and engaged with the school, but there's always going to be the occasional parent where things escalate, where it can lead to an AVO. New South Wales are putting in place codes of conduct between parents and schools now, something that Victoria's done as well. We're talking in the Parliament at the moment about the way the internet works and how to keep it as a safe place for kids. And we've talked about these nudify apps where you can cut and paste someone's face and put it onto a naked body designed to humiliate them. That's not being used just by young adults against other young adults. It's being used against female school teachers in schools and forcing people to leave the job because of the way they're being bullied and harassed by this sort of technology. So, that's just one example of it. But anyone who's got children who are working at Woolies or Coles will know that every day at the checkout is not fun either.

KARVELAS: No, that's right. I want to go to an announcement that was made today which is significant in Victoria: Victorian State schools will not receive, essentially not receive the hundred per cent of the School Resourcing Standard until 2034. So, this is Gonski being fully realised, but there is a bit of a delay and already there's been a bit of backlash here in Victoria that it's not ‘til 2034. Would you like to see it earlier?

CLARE: I'd like to see it as fast as possible. You know, I'm a product of public schools and proud of it, but I'm also proud of this. PK, I think you and I have talked about this for over four years. David Gonski put in place a formula for how we should fund our schools and no government has ever done it until the Albanese Government. And we've signed long-term agreements now with every state and every territory except Victoria. And we've got the Victorian agreement across the line this week. And it means, just in dollar terms, about an extra $20 billion into public schools over the next 10 years. And that'll make a difference. There are some people out there that say it's just about money. And then there's other people who will say money's not important, it's just about reform, the things that we change in the classroom. The truth is, it's both. It's funding our schools fairly and it's tying that funding to the sort of things that we know work in the classroom. Things like phonics that teach kids to break down words into sounds and learn to read when they're young. Fixing the curriculum, particularly in areas like maths, so that young people get the skills that they need right from the start. And in just over a week, I'll be meeting with Education Ministers about what I've called a digital detox. Any mum and dad out there that have got kids know the impact that screens have on our children. How if you call them for dinner and they're in the bedroom and they don't respond, you'll know how it can sort of turn them into zombies. The attention span impact that it has on them. But we probably thought school was different. Turns out that's not exactly right. We're now getting a bit of evidence that tells us that the more time young people spend behind screens at schools, the more likely their results are to decline. So, I think there's a reckoning coming here. We're seeing other countries around the world take steps here and I think Australia needs to too.

KARVELAS: What model? You look around the world to see best practice. What is best practice? Because, I mean, it's a wicked problem because screens in classrooms are actually a necessary learning tool as well. Obviously not everyone's just on TikTok in class.

CLARE: No, no, no, that's true. And, I'm not talking about burning iPads, but I am saying that they should be used for a purpose and when they're not needed, put to one side. In places like New York and LA, they've just set screen time limits, particularly in primary school, getting it out of the hands of little kids all together. And Victoria and New South Wales are rolling that out from next year. WA's piloting it as well. So, it's the sort of thing I'd like to see other parts of the country look at. And the other bit is AI. You know, AI is going to be this enormously powerful tool to improve productivity in the workplace. But we're now getting a bit of evidence about the impact that AI has on our kids. You know, there's a reason why we don't give children a calculator in prep or in kindergarten. They've got to learn to count before you give them a tool to do it at speed. And China just did a study of 26,000 high school students and they gave them AI and they asked them to use it. Their homework results went up by 18 per cent and their closed book exam results went down by 20 per cent. So, that tells you something, that it was a pretty effective tool at getting better marks with your homework, but they didn't learn as much. And so, there's a bit for us to learn there about how to use and how not to use AI in our schools.

KARVELAS: Minister, thank you so much for coming on the program this afternoon.

CLARE: Thank you. Thanks, Patricia.