Transcript - Press conference

JACKIE VAUGHAN, PRINCIPAL: It’s my great pleasure to host this event today. I understand this is very positive news for our Education Directorate, and I’d like to pass on over to David, who will introduce everyone else. Thank you so much for being here. 

DAVID SMITH, MEMBER FOR BEAN: Thanks, Jackie. And great schools need great principals, and Jackie is just one of many great principals we have right across not just here but across the ACT. And I guess at the heart of every great Labor government is education. It’s always been one of the foundation pieces. So, it’s great to be here on a day where two great Labor governments are working together to make a really special additional investment into education. 

So I’m with my colleague Minister for Education Jason Clare, and with my ACT colleague Minister for Education Yvette Berry, who have already delivered so much for education right across the Territory - investments into TAFE, what we’re seeing with the reduction in student debt and now today is a great day for announcements about investments into public education delivering on our – I guess, our commitment to all students that every student deserves the opportunity to go to a great school and get a great education. So without any further ado, I would like to hand over to my colleague Jason Clare. 

JASON CLARE, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Thanks, Dave, and thanks to my good friend Yvette Berry, the education minister for the ACT. Today is a great day for public education in the ACT. Today the ACT becomes the fourth state or territory to sign on to the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, so they become the fourth state or territory in the country to get extra funding for our public schools. And that’s what this is all about. 

That extra funding will start to flow in just over a month’s time – from January of next year. And this money isn’t a blank cheque; this is money that will be tied to real and practical reforms, reforms that, in particular, will help children who fall behind when they’re little at school to catch up and to keep up and to help more young people finish high school. 

I’ve often spoken about the fact that what worries me most as Education Minister is that at the moment the number of young people in public high schools finishing high school is dropping from 83 per cent to 73 per cent over the last eight years. And we live in a world today where we need more people to finish high school and then go on to TAFE or to university. And so this extra funding is important to close the funding gap, but so is what we spend this money on, what we invest it in to make sure that we close the education gap in this country and get more young people, particularly young people from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds, the opportunity that only education can provide. 

This funding will be linked to the sort of things that Yvette has led in her literacy review here in the ACT, things like phonics check and a numeracy check for children when they’re really little before they do that first NAPLAN exam in year 3, we’re talking in year 1, so we can identify children who might already be falling behind. 

And then the funding will be linked to the sort of things that can help those children who are falling behind, things like catch-up tutoring. You know, we know that if you get a child who is falling behind out after a classroom of 25 or 30, put them in a class of three or four, then they can learn as much in six months as you normally learn in 12 months. In other words, they catch up. So they’re the sorts of things that this funding will be tied to, will be linked to, to help more young people who fall behind to catch up and to keep up and help more young people finish school. 

It's all part of building a better and a fairer education system in this country. I’m so proud to be here today with you, Yvette, and sign the ACT on to this important agreement. Over to you. 

YVETTE BERRY, ACT MINISTER FOR EDUCATION: Thanks, Jason. Thanks very much, everyone. I particularly want to acknowledge and thank Jackie for welcoming us to Evelyn Scott School this morning, and Jason and David for being part of this exciting announcement today. 260 million over 10 years is nothing to be sneezed at, and so we’re really excited to be part of this announcement today to make sure that our public schools in the ACT continue to be some of the best-funded schools in the country. 

The ACT is unique in that space – we already fund well above the resourcing standard. So the ACT – the funding that we provide is 89 per cent. Under the student resourcing standard funding agreements with the Federal Government state and territory governments fund 80 periods of their schools and the Federal Government funds 20 per cent of the schools’ funding. And we’ve always been above that, and we always thought that we should be acknowledged and rewarded for the work that we’ve been doing supporting our public schools here in the ACT. 

The funding that is part of this agreement that Jason Clare and myself have signed today will go towards implementing Strong Foundations, which is work that came about from an expert panel to make changes in our schools that needed traditional support to introduce and implement literacy and numeracy across our system. So, we’ve already started phasing in our year 1 phonics test, trialling it at 30 schools, and then once the numeracy test becomes available, we’ll start rolling that out as well. 

Importantly, we know that we need to support our teachers to implement this program of work. Some teachers are well ahead of the game and won’t need as much support as some other teachers who will need additional and significant support. We want to make sure that we give them the tools that they need to be able to implement this program of works, so we’ve provided $700,000 just last week in grants to our public schools to be able to purchase the tools that they need to be able to deliver good literacy and numeracy education across our school system. 

We’re really excited, as I said, to be part of this announcement today. Our public schools we believe are the best in the country. We have the best-paid teachers, and we know that we can continue to make sure that every child, regardless of their background or circumstances, gets the best possible education in our public school system. 

Jason talked about some of the things that are included in the agreement – the year 1 phonetics and numeracy test is one of those things. Making sure that we get inclusion right and that it’s meaningful for young people across our schools is part of what we’re signing up to in this agreement. Supporting our teachers as well and making sure that they get everything that they need to be able to hone their craft and deliver the best possible literacy and numeracy education in some of the most conducive schools in the country. 

I’m happy to leave it there and hand over to anyone else you would like to talk to. 

JOURNALIST: Just while you’re there, you said you were – you know, it’s nothing to be [indistinct] but were you hoping for more? Is that why it took you so long to sign on? 

BERRY: That’s why we held back from signing the agreement because we did think we should get more. And so today is an example of where the Federal Labor Government and the ACT government were able to work together and come to this agreement today. So we’re really proud that we’ve gotten here to this point. Yes, we were a little bit worried because it’s a bit late in the day, but know the funding is going to start flowing from January next year. And we think we were right to wait and hold out and work with the Federal Government on a better plan for our public schools here in the ACT. 

JOURNALIST: What did you achieve by holding out? 

BERRY: More funding. 

JOURNALIST: How much? 

BERRY: 2.5 per cent being spread over the first two years and then another five and 10 years. So it’s about an additional $35 million. 

JOURNALIST: Could you have held out longer, do you think? 

BERRY: I think I was cutting it pretty fine. And some states and territories have already signed on to the agreement. The agreement also comes with a no disadvantage, so if other states and territories achieve more, then we’ll be able to be part of that as well. 

JOURNALIST: How much of this funding will go towards things like teacher recruitment, retention - which is at the core of some of the issues that we see in public schools? 

BERRY: So, the funding that this will go to is specifically to implement the review that was recommended by the expert panel. So, making sure we introduce and implement the literacy and numeracy review reforms in our schools. And we’ve started that with the announcement that I made last week – the $700,000 for tools, literacy and numeracy tools, for teachers to use and supporting new teachers in the first induction next term and existing teachers to make sure that they’ve got the most up-to-date teaching and learning methods and the tools that they need. 

JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] this morning [indistinct] that the Canberra needed 200 more [indistinct]. Is that in line with your [indistinct]? Does that sound right to you? 

BERRY: Two hundred more teachers now? 

JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] 

BERRY: Look, I’m not sure that we have those kinds of vacancies. Where we do have vacancies is more in those specialist areas like language teachers, maths and science teachers. Those are the areas that we’ve focused on. But we have a continuous recruitment program to encourage people to come and work in our public schools here in the ACT. We have the best pay in the country, and we want to make sure that our teachers are supported as best we can so that not only new teachers want to come and work here but we get to retain some of our older and more experienced teachers. 

JOURNALIST: Minister, if Ms Berry had held out for longer, would you have come back to the table and offered more, do you think? 

CLARE: What we’ve done is we’ve accelerated funding for the ACT. And so what Yvette has extracted out of me is exactly the same deal that I signed with WA and with Tasmania. It means that Federal funding for public schools in the ACT gets to that 22 and a half per cent level by the 1st of January 2026, so in just over 12 months’ time. So that’s the deal that we’ve done with WA. That’s the deal that we’ve done with Tasmania. And Yvette legitimately said to me, “I want that deal too.” So that’s what we’ve signed up to today. 

JOURNALIST: Is that the deal on the table for states which haven’t signed up yet? 

CLARE: What we’ve said to the other states is that if we’re going to get this done – and I want to get this done, I want to finish the job that David Gonski started and fund our public schools properly – if we’re going to get this done, it’s going to require teamwork. It means the Commonwealth Government chipping more money into our public schools and it means the states chipping in more money to our public schools as well. So there’s a bill in the Federal Parliament right now – it’s in the Senate, their debate on it will kick off in the Senate in just a few hours’ time – that allows me to provides this extra funding to the ACT. It lifts the cap at 20 per cent and allows us to provide more funding to public schools right across the country. 

And the deal that I’m offering the states right across the country is that the Commonwealth lifts its funding to 22 and a half per cent and the states lift their funding to 77 and a half per cent and that we get it done. We get that full funding that David Gonski talked about. WA signed up. Tasmania has signed up. The ACT was already there at more than 77 and a half per cent. Now the Commonwealth is there at 22 and a half per cent. We’ve done something special for the Northern Territory because the Northern Territory is a special case. It needs a massive injection of extra funding if we’re really going to turn things around there. We’re doubling Commonwealth funding to the Northern Territory that will get them to that 100 per cent level by 2029. But I’m continuing to work with other jurisdictions so we can get this job done. 

JOURNALIST: Why couldn’t you go to 25 per cent, which is what some people are calling for? 

CLARE: Because we’ve got $16 billion of funding on the table to get this job done, but it can’t be the Commonwealth doing it on its own. It’s got to be the states and the territories and the Commonwealth Government working together. And if WA can chip in more and if Tasmania can chip in more and if the Northern Territory can chip in more – and that’s what they’re doing too – then I think that all states and territories can chip in more and we can get this done. 

JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] yes to Ms Berry about staffing numbers, I mean, for the ACT this will be a bit of a coup. It might attract more teachers perhaps. But to get out of this situation where all the states are robbing Peter to pay Paul in a continuous circle, is there more of a place for the Commonwealth in retaining and retraining teachers? 

CLARE: We play a key role here too. Obviously state and territory governments employ teachers, but we know that it’s a national challenge to make sure that we’ve got the teachers we need in our classroom. And we know how important teachers are. If there’s no teacher in the classroom, there’s no results in the classroom and there’s fewer people that are going to finish high school. The teacher is everything. That’s why the first thing that I did when I got this job is go back to my old primary school and give Mrs Fry a hug. She taught me when I was in year 1; she’s still there changing lives at Cabramatta Public School now. 

So, what can the Commonwealth Government do? We’ve brought back the old Commonwealth teacher scholarships that used to exist in the 70s where we provide up to $40,000 to help you through university and then you’re bonded to go and work in a public school for up to four years to return that investment into our schools and into our children’s lives. 

We’re also – if it passes through the Parliament this week – going to introduce for the first time paid prac. Now, that means financial support for teaching students while they come here to school and get their practical training before they become a teacher. They’re just some examples of what the Commonwealth can do. But we’re also working with the states and territories on a national teacher workforce plan to make sure that we build our workforce up and retain the teachers we’ve got. Half of that is pay. Yvette talked about the pay that teachers receive here in the ACT. New South Wales just signed a cracking deal recently as well. Northern Territory did as well. But that’s not the only thing that’s on teachers’ minds. If you vox pop them I think they’ll probably tell you workload is also an issue that worries them. They signed up to be a teacher to teach children, not to do paperwork. Getting the balance right there is important. 

And then at the end of the day, it’s about a little bit of respect. It doesn’t cost anything but means everything. If you survey teachers today, only 30 per cent of them will tell you that they feel like they’re valued and respected by our local community. Do the same survey in Singapore it’s about 70 per cent. And there’s a line out the door of people who want to be a teacher in Singapore. That’s what the Be That Teacher campaign that we kicked off last year that Yvette helped to fund was all about – reminding us all just how important our teachers are. 

I just ask you for a second: think back to when you were five years old. Now, can you remember your first teacher’s name? Can’t remember very much from when we were little, but we remember that, don’t we? And that’s just a reminder about how important our teachers are. 

JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] as you know struggling financially. Are you concerned about the impact of the international student cap policy on those – 

BERRY: That might actually be more in Jason Clare’s – 

CLARE: I can come back and do international students 

JOURNALIST: Yeah, do you have anything to say on that? 

BERRY: Look, of course we’re – you know, we want to make sure our universities and survive and thrive and provide people in our communities opportunities to expand and build on careers. And we’re constantly working closely in the ACT with all our universities, with the ANU and the University of Canberra, and we’ll continue to do that again, with the Federal Government, on the impacts of the changes that they make and the decisions that they make globally here on the ground. We’ll continue to work with the Federal Government. But there is a change happening in our universities right now, and you can see that across the board. And so it will be a challenging time. We’ll make sure that we support people who are employed by the universities, in particular, to make sure that they’re being supported through what is a significant transition. A number of jobs being lost at both University of Canberra and the ANU. And, look, you know, we’re constantly meeting with them to make sure that we can support them where we can. But these are national institutions. A lot of the decisions that are made that impact them are made Federally, not here in the ACT. 

JOURNALIST: I have one more: I’m just wondering what is the Department of Education doing about students who misbehave on public transport after the issues of the bus driver [indistinct]? 

BERRY: On Friday, yeah, thanks for that. So we’ve been working really closely with Transport Canberra and our education system and our schools to put a public message out to our school communities, our students and our teachers about what is respectful behaviour that we expect on our buses and in our community. And I should say that it’s not just young people who are disrespectful to frontline workers, including buses. We hear it from teachers as well, the kind of behaviour that they have to – that they experience in school. Frontline workers like retail workers and especially more recently the issues with the bus drivers last week. A really challenging situation, a societal issue that we – excuse me – that education can’t solve on its own. But we’re certainly doing our part to make sure that our students, anybody in our school communities that engages with us is respectful to bus drivers when they’re using public transport in the ACT. 

JOURNALIST: Minister, just on the international – sorry, the other Minister, excuse me. On the international student caps, Jane Hume has said regional and private universities weren’t consulted. Did you consult them?

CLARE: Yes. She’s wrong. In fact, regional universities wrote to me and asked for this legislation – 16 of them. And obviously, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. More concerningly is the Liberal Party don’t seem to know what they’re talking about here. Australians woke up this morning and must have scratched their head and thought “what the hell is going on inside the Liberal Party? What’s going on inside Peter Dutton’s head?”

Earlier this year Peter Dutton made the most important speech that you get to make as an Opposition Leader – the Budget Reply Speech – where he said that he supported a cap on the number of international students coming into the country every year. And now he says he’s going to vote against the very same thing. Doing that just – it just destroys his credibility. How can you trust anything that Peter Dutton says when he now says he’s going to vote against what he said was so important only six months ago? 

You ask about Jane Hume. Jane Hume is now saying that they don’t even know if they support caps at all. So you’ve got Peter Dutton on the one hand who has lied to the Australian people. You’ve got Jane Hume on the other who is confused and not sure what is going on. You’ve got an Opposition that is lying and is confused. They’re hardly ready to govern the country. 

JOURNALIST: How would the caps affect regional and city-based campuses differently? Are the caps the same? Is the limit the same, or is that a different – 

CLARE: Let’s just be very clear about what the bill is that’s in the Parliament right now. The legislation in the Parliament gives the power to the government to set a cap on the number of international students that come into the country in any given year. Full stop. So you can set that at 100,000, 200,000 or zero. This is what Peter Dutton said he wanted, and now he’s voting against it. This is why Australian people are thinking, “how can I trust this guy on anything if he’s going to vote against the very thing that he said he wanted to do”. 

JOURNALIST: But also, how would it affect regional and city-based campuses differently? 

CLARE: The legislation allows you to set different caps for different campuses if you want. We have outlined a national number at 270,000 for each year –

JOURNALIST: So, it’s at the government’s discretion – sorry, just to be clear, it’s at the government’s discretion what the cap is for different universities? 

CLARE: Correct. So, it’s creating the power for the Government to cap the number of international students in any given year. And the numbers that we have proposed for next year would reduce the total number of international students at the big metro universities and increase the number at regional universities significantly. This is why I say Jane Hume obviously doesn’t know what she’s talking about. You’ve got a confused Shadow Minister and a lying Opposition Leader. These people are not ready to govern the country. 

JOURNALIST: They say the cap is too high – 270,000. Would you consider bringing it down? 

CLARE: Remember how I responded to your last question. This is legislation that gives the government of the day the power to cap the number of international students. If they win the next election, they could set it at zero if they want to. They say they support a cap. Now they’re opposing it. That tells me that this Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, is more interested in playing politics rather than the national interest. We need somebody who wants to be the Prime Minister of this country to act in the interests of Australians, not in their own political interest. And I want more Aussies to go to university. Obviously, Peter Dutton wants more students from overseas to go to university. 

JOURNALIST: How will you compensate universities like the ANU who will lose revenue out of this? 

CLARE: The staff changes at the ANU are not related to international students; they’re related to other things. What I’ve said in answer to questions is that if the bill doesn’t go through, then Ministerial Direction 107, which is a de facto cap which operates at the moment, will continue to operate. 

JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] as you said is a blunt instrument. 

CLARE: It is a blunt instrument. But I make no apology for the fact that we’re committed to bringing migration back to roughly pre-pandemic levels. The capping of international student numbers is a key part of doing that. 

JOURNALIST: There is a suggestion that the universities are being used as a political football in the immigration debate. What do you think of that suggestion? 

CLARE: 70 per cent of Australians want us to do this. 70 per cent of Australians when surveyed say that the Australian government should have the power to cap the number of international students that come here every year. That’s what this legislation does. That’s what Peter Dutton said he supported. Now he’s proven himself a liar to the Australian people. 

JOURNALIST: On that, some universities like the ANU supply a lot of the combination [indistinct]. Has that been taken into account? 

CLARE: Yes, it has. As part of the power that we’re establishing in this legislation what we’re saying is if universities want to enrol more students they’ll have to build more housing for international and domestic students. I think, Lucy, you’ve got a question on the phone? 

JOURNALIST: Thank you. Minister, a parliamentary inquiry has stopped short of backing your social media ban for under 16s. Do you think the government should reconsider its position? 

CLARE: No, I don’t. And I don’t think Australian parents want us to reconsider it either. Yvette and I know through the work that we’ve done together with other Education Ministers across the country that already the ban on mobile phones in schools is working. Earlier this year the ACT restricted the use of mobile phones in schools. So did public schools right across the country. And the impact has been phenomenal and surprising for a lot of Education Ministers. We’re seeing kids more focused in the classroom and also kids having more fun in the playground. Instead of doing what us adults tend to do – which one adult is doing right now; head down, looking at the phone maybe doing scrolling on Instagram – kids have got their heads up and they’re playing with their friends, they’re running around the playground again. 

But when the bell rings and the phone comes back, you can see it. If you drive past the local bus stop, the kids coming home after school, they’ve got their hands on their phones again, back into that cesspit of social media and back into the bullying and belittling and all the bad stuff that comes with it. The stuff is toxic, and that’s why parents say they want their kids to get out of it. It’s why when I visit high schools most young people at high school tell us, “I’d prefer it if we didn’t have access to this as well.” And that’s why the Prime Minister consulted with state and territory leaders to come up with a recommendation for National Cabinet that it be set at a minimum age of 16. And we’ll introduce legislation to make that happen. 

JOURNALIST: What do you make of concerns that there are ways, simpler ways, to make social media safe for one? And the concern, secondly, that you’re just delaying young people getting online and you’re not actually [indistinct] media giants to make their platforms safer? 

CLARE: I disagree with that. I’d invite you to talk to Michelle Rowland, Minister for Communications, on the details of your question. But this is putting the acid on the social media companies. They’re the ones who have to assure themselves that the person on their platform is aged 16 or over, and they’re the ones that are going to have to prove their game if they want young people on their platform. 

JOURNALIST: Are we any further with the governance review and what that will look like as it kicks off next month? 

CLARE: That kicks off next month. I don’t have anything to add at the moment. 

JOURNALIST: And the [indistinct] of Canberra has said that even if the international student cap doesn’t happen it won’t fix their [indistinct] at all. Is the Federal Government going to be offering any financial compensation to universities? 

CLARE: No compensation, but, as I said a couple of times, before the end of the year I hope to be able to make an announcement on the details of the Australian tertiary before the end of the year I hope to make an announcement on the details of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission. That will play a key role as a steward in the reform of higher education over the next decade but also make some announcements about managed funding growth for universities over the next decade and the introduction of needs-based funding to provide more support for students who need it the most at university. 

We know, just like I talked a moment ago, about young people not finishing high school at the rate that we need them to, they’re more often than not young people with disadvantaged backgrounds. I talked about young people falling behind at primary school. They are more often than not children from disadvantaged backgrounds. You can see the same thing in early education – the children who need early education the most are the ones who are the least likely to be there – children from disadvantaged backgrounds. And the same story rings true at university. Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are the children or the adults in this case who are the least likely to finish a university degree. So needs-based funding, just like we’re doing here, the David Gonski model of needs-based funding, extra funding for the students who need it most, is something that we want to roll out in our universities as well. And I hope to have more to say about that before the end of the year. 

JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] to students but the universities don’t have the money to hire the staff and run their facilities. What good is it to give [indistinct] kids some cash to go there? 

CLARE: The managed growth funding is about support for universities as well. So it is all part of one package. I want more people to get a crack at going to university. The Universities Accord report that I released at the start of this year tells us that at the moment about three in five people in the workforce have a uni degree or a TAFE qualification. Three in five. And that by the middle of this decade, we’ll need a decade where about four in five people have got a uni degree or a TAFE qualification. And what that report tells us is that we’re not going to do that unless we break down that invisible barrier that stops a lot of young people, particularly from poor families, from our outer suburbs and from regional Australia, from getting a crack at going to university and succeeding when they get there. That’s what the Universities Accord reforms are all about. And you’ll see more of that in the announcements that I’ll make over the next few months. Thanks very much.