Interview - TODAY Show
SYLVIA JEFFREYS: Well, teachers across Victoria are right now preparing to walk off the job in the second strike action in just months. And Education Minister Jason Clare joins me now live from Adelaide. Minister, great to see you and thanks for your time on the morning of the ALP conference, and we'll get to that in a moment, but first of all, this strike in Victoria, what is your message to the unions and to the State Government there this morning?
MINISTER JASON CLARE: Well, I hope they sort it out. You know, teachers do the most important job in the country; I want to see them well paid. The more people get paid, the more people want to do the job. We've seen that in NSW, where the NSW Government has delivered a record pay rise to teachers, and now we've got vacancies in the classroom at 12-year lows. So, that's good. I think the deal that the Victorian government has on the table is a 28% pay rise, which is big. That'd be even bigger than NSW. So, that's great news for teachers and, you know, I'm pretty optimistic that the Victorian Government and the teachers down there will work that out, and I hope they do that quickly because that's what parents want and want to hear.
JEFFREYS: Public education's been chronically underfunded at a federal level for years now. Will that be on the agenda at the conference there today?
CLARE: Well, no Federal Government has ever properly funded public education -
JEFFREYS: So, is now the time to start?
CLARE: Until this government - well, now we're getting it done. Now I've signed agreements, the Prime Minister has signed agreements with every state and territory to fix the funding of our public schools. It's an extra $20 billion dollars over the next 10 years. And that's not a blank cheque; that's tied to real reform to make sure that we're teaching kids how to read and write and count. Things like small group tutoring, so if kids fall behind when they're little, they get put into a small group so they can catch up as well, and so more kids finish school. I'm a kid from public education. I'm damn proud of it. I'm also proud to be the Education Minister that's fixing the funding of our public schools.
JEFFREYS: Ok, moving on, the PM will reportedly promise to expand the cost-of-living measures at the ALP National Conference this week. What's on the agenda there? What can we expect?
CLARE: Well, what we're announcing today is an expansion of Paid Prac. This is financial help for university students while they do their uni degree. There's a lot of degrees now where you've got to do unpaid work, unpaid practical training, you know, teaching students at schools, nursing students in hospitals. Often they've got to give up their part-time job to do it, or they've got to move away from home, head to the regions, and that can make life really tough. Now we already have rolled this out for teaching and nursing students, for midwives and for social work students. And that helps to pay for things like petrol and parking and rent. What we're announcing today is we're expanding that to another 10 professions on the front line of our health service. Jobs like ambos, psychologists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, pharmacists. These are the people who, when you ring triple 000, they come to your rescue or when you hurt yourself, they help you to get back to work; if you have a stroke, you know, they give you, you know, the speech therapy that helps you to find your voice again. They're the front line of our health system, and this will help them to stay at uni and to finish their uni degrees.
JEFFREYS: That's right. And anyone working on the front line deserves our support. There's no doubt about it. It is good news for that cohort of students. But what about everyone else in Australia? What else are you offering on the cost of living? Because One Nation is rising in the polls largely because of that, and voters feel like you're not listening.
CLARE: Well, you know, the truth is we're the best country in the world, but there's a lot of Australians that are doing it tough. We're focused fairly and squarely on the cost of living. That's why we've cut the petrol excise to try and keep petrol prices down while the war is raging overseas. That's why we're rolling out tax cuts. That's why the changes that we've made to increase bulk billing rates are important, so you can see a doctor for free. That's why the changes that we're making to make it easier for young people to buy a house are important. You mentioned One Nation. You know, the truth is that every day they seem to be getting more and more extreme, whether they're talking about domestic violence being a one-way street [two-way street] or the White Australia policy. And I kind of think a lot of good, honest Aussies are looking at and thinking, hang on, I didn't sign up for this. And the truth is that, you know, if you look at the polls, the only way this works out is that if you vote for one of them, Liberal or One Nation, you end up getting both. You end up with a Liberal One Nation Government. And I don't think a lot of Australians want that.
JEFFREYS: Big few days ahead for you there in Adelaide. Minister, we appreciate your time this morning. Thanks for joining us.