Press Conference - Five Dock Public School
SALLY SITOU, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR REID: Good morning, everyone. It’s great to be at Five Dock Public School. It represents one of the very best examples of a public school in our local area, and that’s because they’ve really created a community here. It’s got the oldest continuing running P&C and thank you to the representatives who are here today. A fantastic principal, extraordinary staff and students who love being here. And I’m really excited that we are matching that enthusiasm and passion for public education with the funding that it deserves, and I know that the press gang at Five Dock Public School are going to be eagerly writing a story about what this will mean for their local school. And I’d like to invite the New South Wales State Education Minister, Prue Car.
PRUE CAR, DEPUTY PREMIER OF NEW SOUTH WALES AND MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AND EARLY LEARNING: Thanks, Sally. It’s certainly really exciting to be here at Five Dock to talk about the improvements that we have seen in phonics literacy for our very littlest learners. We have seen a 9-percentage point increase in the number of Year one students that are meeting the expected benchmark in phonics. This is no coincidence. This is because the government has invested in explicit teaching and phonics instruction across New South Wales. It is because we have invested in the teachers that are actually imparting this expert practice that we just saw in a kindergarten and a Year one class, investing in those teachers like never before.
More teachers in the classroom, fewer vacancies, meaning that those relationships between those expert teachers and children are able to grow, and we’ve seen it with our own eyes just then. Here at Five Dock the improvement has been astronomical under the leadership here at Five Dock Public School. Here at Five Dock Public School, they- just over two years ago, only half of Year one students were meeting the benchmark, and now that number is 90 per cent. This is what happens when you have a government that invests in public education, invests in the teachers, given the teachers a historic pay rise, which meant they are staying on, we are getting more of them in the classroom. This is actually the first sign that all of our investment in public education is really coming to fruition because where the rubber hits the road is in student outcomes, and I couldn’t be prouder today to say that our investment in teachers and in public schools is actually starting to improve student outcomes. This is what we need for our future. This is what the parents of New South Wales expect the government to do. For our government, there simply is no more important investment than investing in education because it is the future, it is making sure that New South Wales has the best-skilled, trained workforce for the future.
At the other end of the scale, we see today that we have doubled the number of HSC - of schools that have significantly improved their HSC results. These are schools right across metro and western, north-western, south-western Sydney and in rural and regional New South Wales showing that at both ends of the spectrum, at the very beginning of the literacy journey and at the very end at the HSC, at the pointy end before they go on to tertiary study or to the workforce we’re actually seeing these improvements because of this government’s investment in public education.
JASON CLARE, FEDERAL MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Thanks very much, Prue. This is the best news that I’ve seen in all of my time as Education Minister. I really mean that. The reading wars are over. We know what works, phonics works, and all of the information we’re releasing today is proof of that. And that’s why I want to see what’s happening right here in New South Wales rolled out across the country. Over the last 10 years or so, we’ve seen the number of kids finish high school drop year after year, and now that’s starting to turn around. We’ve also seen attendance rates at schools drop, and that’s turning around as well. We’ve seen a number of people enrolling to become a teacher at uni drop, and that’s turning around as well, and now we’re seeing these great results that tell us what works in the classroom.
I’ll just underline the point that Prue made a moment ago. This isn’t happening by accident. This is happening because of the action that we’re taking, that the New South Wales Government is taking here and the action that governments are taking right across the country. But truth be told, this is just the start. There is so much more work to do, and that’s why just over a year ago, I was glad to be with the Premier and the Deputy Premier to sign an agreement to fix the funding of our public schools here in New South Wales and to do that with every state and territory right across the country. To fix the funding of our public schools and tie that funding to reforms like this because evidence based teaching and a phonics check in Year one when kids are really little, when they’re six, help to identify the children who aren’t on track, who need more help and then provide them with small group tutoring so that they can catch up and keep up and that even more young people finish school. So, this is great news today, the best that I’ve seen in my time as Education Minister. Hopefully, we see more of that in the future.
CHRIS MINNS, PREMIER OF NEW SOUTH WALES: Great to be here this morning with my colleagues the Deputy Premier, the Federal Minister, Sally, and Murat, the Secretary of the Department of Education. These are good results, they’re encouraging results that the reforms that were introduced by the Deputy Premier of New South Wales in schools are working, investing in explicit learning is making a difference for young people, and we know that particularly in Year one and kindergarten children can be educated and meet a benchmark then the rest of their schooling becomes so much easier.
It means that we’re not passing kids up to the next grade not up to - not up to speed with being able to read and therefore as a result like a sort of a wave that doesn’t stop, it means that young people in particular can be behind the eight ball and in some cases find it very difficult to catch up when they hit years four, five and six and then obviously on to high school. We want to make sure kids get the best start, and the best way we can ensure that is to ensure they can read and write in the early years of schooling. Public education can make that difference in New South Wales communities, and it’s doing that every day, and it’s really encouraging to see a nine-percentage point improvement. In practical terms, this means that for Year one kids in 2022, only half the kids met the benchmark, now we’re seeing two-thirds of children meet that benchmark. We want to go even further. We’ve seen the dedicated teachers rolling out the principles. If we can do that at scale in every part of the state and then hopefully nationally, then New South Wales can lead across the country with explicit learning, making a big difference for the next generation as they go about their education.
We will also, with the Minister for Energy, convene a fuel security round table in the next couple of hours with industry participants, government departments, about emergency measures we may need to take in the weeks ahead. I want to make it clear that, as it stands today, we have the supplies on shore to deal with our energy needs, and we are just asking consumers, motorists across the state to be responsible with fuel buying. We know that if you’ve got a business to run, if your fuel tank is empty that you will need to buy petrol, but don’t take more than you need right now. We can manage our fuel supplies on current levels. If we act in a common-sense way with a bit of thought for our neighbours and friends, our other community members, particularly in regional New South Wales. There are, however, practical things that we can be doing.
Most importantly, preparing for the next few weeks when it comes to emergency services as well as diesel fuel for public hospitals and generators, and important civic institutions like that. We’ll also be bringing forward compliance checks for fuel checks, which is a compliance blitz for fuel check run by New South Wales Fair Trading to ensure that there is appropriate and legal distribution of petrol at the retail level, and that enforcement will be taken - will be brought forward a week with double the number of inspectors across New South Wales. We’ll have more to say when we’re around that round table. But obviously, we want to make sure the public knows that we’re taking every step that we can in these extraordinary times to do whatever is possible to protect fuel and energy in our economy. I think we’re all happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: The Energy Minister says that there isn’t a supply issue in New South Wales, but there is a distribution issue. Why is there a distribution all of a sudden- issue in New South Wales all of a sudden?
MINNS: Look, for understandable reasons, and I’m not going to blame any consumers here, if you’re running a business, I can understand why people want to have a supply, particularly if they’re unsure of the weeks ahead, but we are seeing shortages as a result of people buying more than they need, particularly in regional communities. It’s harder to restock those petrol stations if they’ve got more than expected out of the bowsers on any given day. So, we want to be more up-to-date with where there are shortages, particularly in regional New South Wales, so as that distribution companies can feed those areas quicker, and there’s also a general call out. I mean, consumers and government have got a role here to play in being responsible and preparing for the future. But that can only happen if you buy what you need, not more than you need right now.
JOURNALIST: Premier, with the round table, what actually do you hope to get out of today? Is it a solid sort of plan for the next few weeks in terms of, or is it you’re building contingencies depending on what happens; what’s it look like?
MINNS: Largely the second part, building in contingencies with a time line based on the length of the conflict in the Persian Gulf, which at this point we don’t have control over and are unsure of, but if we’re confident with the supplies as they currently stand, but any responsible government would be preparing for the future.
JOURNALIST: What timeline is the government working on at the moment, you know, do you think you have weeks or months in terms of how long this disruption will last?
MINNS: I don’t know. I genuinely don’t know. We have two things, firstly, supply on shore as a result of the Federal Government taking decisions, the Federal Energy Minister taking decisions to have extra supply on shore. That seems in retrospect like a salient and important decision. And also, we’ve got other distribution access points for fuel, which I’m sure energy markets are looking at now.
JOURNALIST: Premier, just on that school bullying, over the weekend, the government announced a new code of conduct. I mean, as you can’t force parents to sign it, and will it actually work?
MINNS: We believe it will because most parents are responsible and they want a - they want a schooling environment where their kid and someone else’s child is protected in the school environment and I think that leadership from parents is as important as from teachers and the government, and in many ways we can get cultural change and a better schooling environment if parents lean in to these changes and that’s why I think this is an important reform, but the Deputy Premier might want to speak to it too.
CAR: Yeah, I mean, we will be really working with school communities to make sure that parents understand the need to acknowledge this on a yearly basis from next year. The vast majority of parents will welcome this, I think. Parents across New South Wales do tell us that they’re really concerned about ensuring that classrooms are settled, playgrounds are settled, so their children can be safe and also that their own children can be ready to learn. So, we don’t anticipate there will be a widespread problem with parents acknowledging this. But where we may have to remind people we will because we make no apologies of having high expectations for our students at school as we do as we expect for them to have high expectations when they leave school in to the workforce this is pretty ordinary when you go to Woolies there are signs up saying, you know, this is the way you have to behave and so what we’re saying to our students is, this is the expectation of how you behave as a public school student, mum and dad have had a look at it and if you fall outside of these expectations there’s going to be consequences.
JOURNALIST: It’s been almost two years since schools that they were able to suspend more children, you’ve had lots of interventions regarding bullying, has any of it worked?
CAR: Well, one of the first things we did was actually take away the disastrous behaviour policy the previous government had in place, which made it harder for principals to suspend students who persisted this behaviour. Now, no principal drives to work every day and wants to suspend children. But sometimes that is the option. That is the best option to keep that classroom settled so that other children can learn. The code of conduct is a step beyond that, that will work hand in glove with the behaviour policy, the suspension and expulsions policy. We’ll be doing everything possible to stamp out bullying to make sure that our schools are full of children that understand the expectations, behaviour-wise, and we make no apologies for that. We have rolled out explicit teaching when it comes to academic outcomes in New South Wales. This is explicit teaching of behaviour, and we will keep doing that because we expect a certain level of behaviour from our students, as we expect from parents and teachers. Everyone involved in a public-school community must behave in a certain type of way because this is a place of learning where we prepare our children for life.
JOURNALIST: Premier, two staff members from DCJ have been suspended over [indistinct] while a review was being conducted. Do you expect more action to take place?
MINNS: I can’t speak to that. I mean obviously the Department is in a situation to handle that, but the government has acknowledged, as it the Minister [indistinct], the right decision with their welfare and interests, so that didn’t happen on this occasion, that’s why they’ve taken this action. Staff members have been stood down, and there’s a formal investigation.
JOURNALIST: Just on that, I mean there’s obviously been a case of [indistinct] children, in particular, are you aware of any more cases and should there actually be a review of the living arrangements [indistinct]?
MINNS: I’m not aware of any more, but obviously, the case managers that look at their individuals’ cases nearly constantly, and we need to make sure that we’re employing enough who are in the system that can monitor the circumstances relating to children. I would expect these specific circumstances are not replicated anywhere else in the state in any other circumstances. I’m sure the department feels the same way because self-evidently there’s two staff members stood down and have launched an investigation. It wouldn’t be good enough here, and we need to do far better.
JOURNALIST: Premier, have you –
JOURNALIST: Back on fuel Premier, we spoke last week I think, about [indistinct] may be available. What actual state powers do you have if things get really dire to essentially, you know, take control and guarantee supply to those critical [indistinct]?
MINNS: We have options available to us in those circumstances. I don’t want to speculate about them yet because I do think sequencing of this is important, and ultimately, the public would expect us to take steps if we’re in a dire situation. We’re not there yet, and this is really about getting ready for the weeks ahead, given we don’t know what the geopolitical conflict situation in the Persian Gulf will be or when it will be solved or stopped or ended.
JOURNALIST: And has there been any suggestion that you’re aware of that the closure of the Great Western Highway has had any impact on the fuel supplies in regional areas?
MINNS: I don’t think it’s had an impact because I know RMS have got major operations on the alternative route ensuring that the distribution of fuel, but also other goods and services, particularly primary industries, aren’t interrupted. So, no, I don’t think it has been affected by that.
JOURNALIST: Premier, have you -
JOURNALIST: Is New South Wales in a position worse than other states, better than other states? Why is New South Wales doing a fuel excise by itself? It just feels like this is a federal issue?
MINNS: Well, I mean, we think everyone has got a responsibility here. We don’t want to – I mean, I think out of an abundance of caution, I think it’s important that we are stepping up and looking at the alternatives. And the weeks ahead. But I can’t speak for other states. We’re not in any worse a situation. Most of the east and most energy is brought from the same place; we’re just refining it.
JOURNALIST: Premier, have you reviewed the CCTV footage from the City of Sydney over the last month’s protest, and if so, it shows the way that the riots sort of commenced, and do you think that the police acted accordingly in response to that?
MINNS: I think it’s too early to say that the CCTV footage is the sole or only, the reason for why there was conflict on Sydney streets. Way too early for that. But there is an independent investigation into it. What I would say, however, is it shouldn’t have come to that. New South Wales – I don’t want it forgotten that New South Wales police asked the protest organisers to do what every other protest has done in the subsequent weeks, and that is have it at Hyde Park with a distance and a buffer between the mourning in Darling Harbour and the Marxist group that run that protest organisation said we’re not going to do that. We want to have a conflict in Town Hall. So, I don’t think you can put it down to a single event on a combustible night. [Indistinct] and I think the organiser for [indistinct] what the black caucus did, what the Invasion Day protesters did, what those who have kept, who are campaigning and protesting against the regime in Iran have done and that is have a protest, not in the distant boondocks of Sydney in New South Wales but in the heart of the city at Hyde Park [indistinct] essential reason there was a conflict in the first place.
JOURNALIST: Premier, -
JOURNALIST: Premier, what is your role in demonising these protesters; I mean, you just called them Marxist, and you’re pitting them against – are you trying to create a distinction between good protesters that you like and bad protesters and then justifying that role in terms of police heavy-handedness, using words such as riot and conflict?
MINNS: It’s a heavily loaded question, and I reject its premise, but you can’t have it both ways. You asked me for my views, and I give them, and then you criticise me for it. Anyway, any other questions?
JOURNALIST: Premier –
JOURNALIST: You mentioned on the fuel – you mentioned [indistinct] do you – expect how many more –
MINNS: I should have them at the summit, and I’ll report back to you.
JOURNALIST: And are you concerned about the fact that we only have 30 days left of petrol in Australia?
MINNS: Well, I mean, look, it’s vastly better situation than what we were in, and fuel resilience [indistinct] is one that is always going to be an issue for governments. It’s an issue for economies as big as China, for example, I mean we’ve got fuel reserves slightly longer than Australians but not years’ worth. I think we’ve got a bit over 100 days so I mean this is a global supply, it affects every jurisdiction, every market, even if you’ve got an abundance of fuel and your energy is self-sufficient like the United States is particularly as it relates to petrol it’s a fungible product so it’s going to affect the prices at the bowser even if though they’ve got enough domestic supply and they’re not going to run out. A point here is, this affects every jurisdiction in every part of the world, and I think we’ve got to be forewarned and forearmed in the event it goes on.
JOURNALIST: Premier, Friday night at the Biennale launch, DJ Haram gets up there, and she praised martyrs and legends, “long with the resistance.” There’s more than a million dollars of New South Wales Government money funding this. How concerned are you that that sort of rhetoric is going to be espoused throughout the three-month run time of the festival, and is the New South Wales Government actually willing to do anything to ensure it’s not used as a platform for that rhetoric to be spread for that lengthy period of time?
MINNS: Well, I think that DJ went even further that some of the comments that you’ve quoted this morning. So, look, I don’t understand. It’s very distressing that in a jurisdiction and a city that’s had the worst terrorism event we’ve ever had directed at Sydney’s Jewish population that we would as a community have to deal with that kind of horrid rhetoric. I find it distressing. I don’t know why cultural institutions put themselves in this situation. It may well be the case they had no idea that the DJ was going to say that. But ultimately, it’s a DJ, and I mean, I think we’ve got to be in a situation where someone from outside our community comes in and tries to rip us apart with that kind of commentary, or rhetoric. Having said that, I’ve said previously that in my view getting into a cycle where we threaten to pull art and cultural funding has the perversely opposite view, opposite effect I should say. What ends up happening is you shine a spotlight on the person who is responsible for saying it. And it draws more attention, not less. So, I don’t want to use it as a cudgel. We expect cultural and arts institutions to use taxpayer funds to represent every member of our community and not be a platform for hate, and I expect that in the, if they ask for future funding, that’s exactly what our institutions will ask of them.
JOURNALIST: Minister Clare – just about the Iranian women soccer players. How disappointed are you that five of the seven players now have rejected asylum and are going back to Iran?
CLARE: Well, I don’t think disappointed is the word I would use. I’m proud of the country that we are, that we offered these young women the choice. That’s what makes Australia the best country in the world. We offered them the choice if they wanted to stay here in Australia, we offered them humanitarian visas. But ultimately it is their choice if they wanted to take up that offer or not. Some have chosen not to. That’s the difference between Australia and Iran.
JOURNALIST: Are you aware of whether any of the women have actually received threats to their families?
CLARE: No, I don’t have any details.
JOURNALIST: And what [indistinct] under huge cost of living pressures now facing another interest rate hike?
CLARE: Well, I’m not going to pre-empt any decision by the Reserve Bank, whether it’s this week or any other week, but the Australian Government understands the cost-of-living pressures that all Australians are facing. And it’s the top priority of the Australian Government to help Australians with these cost-of-living pressures.
JOURNALIST: Also, the United States has asked for help from the international community in the Strait of Hormuz. Has the government been asked for assistance there, and would you consider sending it?
CLARE: I don’t have any detail in that regard. But you would be aware of the actions the Australian Government has taken to help with the defence of the UAE.
JOURNALIST: And Minister, in your electorate, there is a large Lebanese population. Can you talk to maybe the concerns of the constituents who have maybe approached you about the war expanding to Lebanon, with Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon and Beirut?
CLARE: I’ve talked to them now, for many, many years, my community in the western suburbs of Sydney have been very affected by events in the Middle East, and that continues to this day. A lot of people in my community have friends and family who live in Lebanon, who are affected by this, but also, there are many Australians who are holidaying and currently in Lebanon as well, might have difficulty in getting home. That’s why the Prime Minister has indicated to people where there is an opportunity to return home, please return home. That’s why DFAT has also issued a do-not-travel alert.
JOURNALIST: So why join the war in the Middle East, and inflame the situation, then what it already is by being one of the few Western countries to send arms?
CLARE: Well, I dispute the way that you phrased that, but what I would say is that what we are doing there in the UAE is helping to protect Australian citizens in the UAE.
JOURNALIST: So, - [Indistinct]
CLARE: [Indistinct] Wedge tail aeroplane to the UAE, and that’s designed to help identify drones that might be attacking the UAE. This is intended with the defensive weapons that we’re providing to the UAE to help protect the innocent civilians who live in the UAE, from any type of drone or missile attack from Iran.
MINNS: Okay, thanks everybody.