Press conference - Rockhampton, QLD

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Well, it’s absolutely fantastic to be back in Rocky and awesome to be here with my great mate JP and Nick Klomp, the fantastic Vice-Chancellor of CQU. This is a great example of partnership with the three of us all working together in the interests of our kids, in particular kids here in Rockhampton. Last year we worked together to fix the funding of schools here in Queensland, and this year we’re working on this. You might remember that I was here in March last year, where we announced the Federal Government would contribute $80 dollars million to this project to help it come to life. Today’s the next step. 

Today we’re on the site that we’re acquiring to build this academy. And this is a place where kids in Rockhampton can get the skills they need to think about becoming a doctor or a nurse or an ambulance officer, working in all of the different health professions. Starting in Year 10 and in Year 11 and in Year 12, this will provide a pathway for them to go up the hill to university and become the doctors and the nurses and the ambos that we need here in Rockhampton and right across the regions. 

The truth is we need more health professionals right across Australia, but we need them in the regions more than anywhere else. And JP and I were just talking a minute ago – the other truth is that if you study in the regions, you're more likely to stay in the regions. So we want kids who go to high school here to be able to go to university here and get the skills that they need to stay here and work here. And that’s why this is important. 

About 50 per cent of young adults today have a uni degree, but in Rocky it’s less than half that. This will help to change all of that. So will the legislation that’s in the Parliament right now. Next week in Canberra the Senate will consider some legislation that’s designed really to kick the doors of our universities open wider so that more kids, particularly kids from poor backgrounds and kids from the regions, get a crack at uni and get more support when they’re at uni to get through uni. 

We know that for a lot of kids, particularly from poorer backgrounds, they’re more likely to drop out in year one than others kids, and so this legislation that’s in the parliament is designed to give them more academic support in that early part of uni so that they don’t just start a degree, but they finish it as well. We think that will mean somewhere up to about a quarter of a billion dollars in more funding for Central Queensland University over the next 10 years. So that’s a good thing that will help more kids in the regions, more kids in places like Rocky get the opportunity that they deserve.

Mate, I’ll hand over to you. 

JOHN-PAUL LANGBROEK MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AND THE ARTS, QUEENSLAND: Sure. Well, thank you, Jason. It’s great to be here again in Rockhampton, Central Queensland, for another landmark announcement. Last week here for turning the sod with Donna Kirkland, and of course I’m here today with Nigel Hutton and Brendan Kelly as well, as well as Professor Nick Klomp. Local MPs, last week Gracemere High School

turning the sod, and here we are now at CQU with a landmark announcement for Central Queensland, which is our new health academy, which will supplement the other academies that we have in the southeast. But in this case, as you’ve heard from Jason Clare, locals who want to get into any of these health professions – doctors, nurses, up to 35 different professions, and we know that in Central Queensland there’s a great demand for locals to be able to do these courses. I’ve seen it at North Rockhampton High, I’ve seen it at Yeppoon State High School, where we’ve got passionate teachers encouraging students to do VET in schools, to get Cert IIs and Cert IIIs that have led to real jobs before they even get to university. 

And to be here with Professor Nick Klomp to see what’s happening at CQU, which is something I was very proud to do last time I was Minister for Education over a decade ago, to bring together the theoretical aspects of university with the practical aspects of TAFE, merging for our first dual sector university, is something we’re very proud of that we think really applied a lot to and continues to apply practically here in Central Queensland. 

So, it’s a wonderful day for the people of Central Queensland. It will be even better in January 2028 when the academy opens with its first intake of up to 50 students in Year 10 who will be preparing for years 11 and 12 where they’ll do the International Baccalaureate, but there’ll also graduate with an ATAR. 

So this is what delivery looks like, something that we promised in the election campaign for our local candidates that this was something that we knew the local region was crying out for – more ability for students to be able to do their university training here, which, as you’ve heard from Jason Clare, means that they’re more likely to come back or stay here to provide these much-needed services in Central Queensland. 

So, it’s a red-letter day for Central Queensland, and I’m so proud to be here. And I really want to acknowledge the significant contribution of Jason Clare and the Commonwealth Government and then the partnership with Central Queensland University as well, which is seeing this land transferred from the state to – from CQU to the state and then it will come into the Department of Education.

Happy to answer questions about that after we hear from Professor Nick Klomp. But great to be here today, and I know that our local MPs and the residents of Central Queensland, the citizens, will be very happy and hopefully aspiring for their children to get into medicine and many of these associated courses – occupational therapy, physio – many of which are already offered at the university but it’s going to be an easier pathway for students who will not then have to put up with those challenges that we’ve already heard from the federal minister about the challenges of getting to university if you’re first in family and you’re in a completely different environment and you don’t have the support, and you don’t have the financial means. That’s something that helped me when I did dentistry all those years ago, and it’s something we need to consider. And I really want to thank the Federal Government for their consideration in this regard. 

So great to be here. I’ll come back and answer questions after Professor Klomp. 

PROFESSOR NICK KLOMP VICE-CHANCELLOR AND PRESIDENT, CENTRAL QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY: Thanks, JP. Well, the two ministers have covered it all. For me, this is all about partnerships and about building a workforce. And you know in regions across Australia it’s so hard to attract and retain that professional workforce, not least in Central Queensland. So, the opportunity to attract, retain and get qualified many more students, many more graduates in the health sciences is an opportunity too good to refuse. 

And I’ve got to give credit – the Federal Government through Jason Clare has stood up and said forget the politics, this is what is really important for Central Queensland. And JP through the Department of Education in the State of Queensland and our local members behind me in Donna and Nigel and Glen, recognising that this is so important for the region. You get the workforce; more people are likely to stay. You’re supporting the local folk. 

So, clearly, it’s great for the region, and what an opportunity for students coming through Queensland Academy of Health Sciences. For the university, it’s also a great opportunity, an opportunity for us to work really closely in partnership adjacent to the university. So, yes, it creates the pathway so students can go, get into their physiotherapy degrees and nursing degrees and paramedicines and medicine degrees with credit, having done a couple of subjects and being exposed to university. That’s terrific. But there’s all these other opportunities as well. We can be working in collaboration for teaching. We can be designing research for the emerging education technologies and various other things. We can work with the schools through that research. Initial [Indistinct] training let’s see what we can do to improve that again and again by working with an advanced academy like this. 

And, of course, then there’s professional development for all the current teachers to be able to work with the exports in education through the university as well. If you were designing something, you’d put all those together and say let’s get one solution, and that’s what we’ve done. I’m absolutely delighted that we can announce that next stage and have it ready in 18 months or something. JP, that’s really exciting. Well done, everyone. Thank you. 

LANGBROEK: Right, who would you like? 

JOURNALIST: We’ll get the Federal Minister up first, if that’s all right. Just some questions from Canberra regarding the tobacco exercise. 

CLARE: Excise. 

JOURNALIST: Excise, sorry. Do you think it’s working? 

CLARE: I’ll refer you to what the Treasurer said this morning. I think he was up on radio talking about this. It’s a complicated issue. You know, from our point of view in education, just if I could sort of segue to where it sort of hits the road for us as Education Ministers, we’ve seen over the last few years the challenge of vapes in schools, in particular, the fact that I think about 90 per cent of vape stores are within a one-kilometre distance of our schools. That’s why we’ve taken the action that we have to ban all the different fancy flavours and the crackdown on vape stores, because it’s not just that they’re close to our kids, but we see – and teachers will tell you this – the impact of vape and vape withdrawal on kids in the classroom. 

When I was at school it was people smoking in the dunnies; it’s different today. And we see the real-life impact of it in terms of kids’ behaviour in the classroom. Those reforms are making a big difference as, by the way, is getting rid of mobile phones out of schools. Ask any teacher or principal about the impact of getting phones out of kids’ hands at schools right across the country and they’ll tell you that kids are more focused in the classroom and, by the way, they’re also having more fun in the playground now because instead of looking at their phone, like most adults do all the time, they’re playing with their mates.

JOURNALIST: What do you make of the Coalition’s plan to reduce the tobacco tax by 80 per cent?

CLARE: It’s really the same question with the same answer. 

JOURNALIST: On a bit of a different topic, you’ve had a fair bit to do with defence over the years, Minister of Defence Materiel, Foreign affairs, justice. We’ve had a few veterans standing up today saying that the Labor Government doesn’t care about them due to the cost cut with allied health. What do you say to that? 

CLARE: I think any patriotic Australian knows just how important our serving men and women are and our Australian veterans. I was at Box Hill State School [Depot Hill State School] this morning where I told the little boys and girls that my grandma was born here in Rockhampton. When she was about 18, she went up to Townsville to work in the Women’s Auxiliary Corps. That’s where she met a bloke named Jack Clare. Jack Clare had a bomb basically ripping him in half in Sanananda. He got stitched back together again and fell in love with that woman called Rona Jean Campbell, and they moved to Sydney and set up a life together. You know, he quit the army after World War II, ran a business for a little while and then decided, “No, no, I want to serve again.” And he went to Vietnam, twice. So, no one needs to tell me or remind me how important service to our country is, whether it’s him, whether it’s my other grandfather who was a prisoner of war of the Nazis in World War II or whether it’s my great-grandfather Jack Price, who fought at Gallipoli. I get it. I understand it. Not just because I’ve served in those roles as a Minister but because of what my grandfathers and what my great-grandfather did. 

JOURNALIST: Just to go back to that tobacco, the Opposition says tobacco consumption has risen 30 per cent between 2021 and ’25. That’s despite the excise continuing to rise. Does the government acknowledge that the current approach is not working as it was intended to? 

CLARE: Again, I’ll give you the same answer. If you look at the words, the Treasurer used this morning, I think he pointed to how serious this is, the great challenge that it confronts and the law-and-order work that’s happening at a national and at a state and territory level. 

JOURNALIST: On a different topic, yesterday the Nationals leader, Matt Canavan, took aim at what he described as the feminisation of the school curriculum, suggesting there should be more male teachers. What’s your reaction to that? 

CLARE: I agree – we want more male teachers. We want more male role models in our schools. You bet. I think probably about 25 per cent of teachers are blokes at the moment, and the more we can get, the better. I’d make the general point that this is, for me, just simply about respect. We want our kids to grow up respecting their mum and dad, we want our kids at school to respect the teacher at the front of the classroom. We want boys to be able to know that they’ve got to respect girls and vice versa. We want kids to respect kids of different colours and different religions and different backgrounds. Teaching boys to respect girls isn’t woke, right? It’s just common decency. And I reckon, you know, all of us, all education ministers across the country, would say that the teachers are the heroes that do a really hard, complicated job and they play a really, really important role in helping to make sure that they don’t just build the skills of our kids to read and write but they build character. Kids that are going to grow up to be good adults. 

The bad guys here are the big tech companies. They’re the ones poisoning our kids, right, with algorithms that are just shovelling shit into their heads. Sorry about the language, but that’s what algorithms do. It is about money through algorithms selling advertising. And who are the victims of this? It’s the kids in our country. I reckon if we’re going to zero in on this we need to focus on it. 

JOURNALIST: Just another question from Brisbane: will the government’s change to the private health rebate for those over 65 clog up the public health system and impact the wider community? 

CLARE: On that one I’d refer you to Mark Butler, the Health Minister. 

JOURNALIST: Just on the new health science academy, great news obviously for local students in Rocky. Are there any provisions to get kids from out west in those small towns that really need doctors here? 

CLARE: You can answer that, mate. 

LANGBROEK: Well, look, we want students from around regional Queensland in this region to be encouraged to think that they’re going to be able to come to a health academy in their local region. So of course, we’ll be making sure that we work with those high schools, many of which I’ve been to in far-flung parts of our state, to encourage them, whether they’re at the Blackwater State High School, whether they’re at areas around here that we know have got great provision at the moment but not necessarily in the health that we’re offering here today in terms of these health professions.

So we’ll always be looking, as we are with our teachers, at providing the incentives for our teachers to go to places, but also for ways that we can encourage our students to be able to attend the academy. 

CLARE: And, Nick, are you able to sort of paint a picture of the work the university does right up and down the coast in terms of training medical professionals? 

KLOMP: Yeah, Central Queensland University is one of the most geographically spread universities – of any university in Australia. We’ve got students from over a thousand postcodes. They come from all sorts of places, but our heart is in Central Queensland. And so, we recognise that by attracting them here and getting them placements all around the regions, we just did the sums for the last 10 years – around 70 per cent of the students that come here and train here start their careers here. So, we started our medical program with the University of Queensland where we trained all these students here, total medical program here in Central Queensland in Rockhampton and in Bundaberg. We’re in our fourth year now, so a couple more years and those medical students will be coming out. That’s just one. 

Then there’s hundreds of nurses, paramedicine, all our ambos, all or allied health – physiotherapy, occupational therapy, you’ll be seeing speech therapy students in a moment. We’re desperate for all that workforce. And the more we can train them in the regions and the more we can attract them, even through schools and saying, “I’m getting a taste for this, and this is something that I’d like to do a career in,” that is exciting, because if we train them here, you know that a whole stack of them stay here. And that’s what starts changing the real problem of our health workforce and our general workforce in the regions. These are real solutions rather than just talking about it. 

LANGBROEK: Can I also point out that some of the opportunities that the students will have here and currently do in our high schools is using our Queensland Virtual Academy. So sometimes in some of the smaller schools – I was recently at Mount Morgan State High School, one of our earliest high schools – and when you get very small cohorts in the senior years wanting to do particular subjects, we’ve developed the Queensland Virtual Academy so that students can be studying. I was in Roma State High – at Roma State High a couple of months ago. We’ve got a couple of students who are studying physics via the virtual academy trying to make sure that no matter where you are in Queensland you’re going to get a world-class education, and that will lead to those students being able to enrol here at our academy here in years 10, 11 and 12.