LEON BYNER: You might’ve woken up to 5AA news this morning with Tony Pilkington and the gang and thought, ‘Oh, who says that our child care is the third worst early learning in the developed world?’ How would we be less than countries like, let’s say, Mexico? Couldn’t be possible. Well, let’s talk to the Minister that knows all about this ‘cause it’s her portfolio, Julia Gillard. Julia Gillard, thanks for your time.
JULIA GILLARD: Good morning, Leon.
LEON BYNER: There are three child care issues. The first of which, was it surprising to you to when you woke up today to find that a report on child care puts us, Australia, below Mexico, Slovenia and Portugal?
JULIA GILLARD: Unfortunately, Leon, I wasn’t surprised because we’ve had other international report cards that also give us a bad report and put us near the bottom of the class. I mean, under the former government, the Federal Government just didn’t engage in these issues and we regularly came last or second last in the OECD for investment in early childhood education. We’ve acted to change that. It was one of our big platforms of the 2007 election and we have struck a deal to ensure that there’s universal preschool around the country; that every child, no matter what setting they’re cared for in, whether they’re at home and go to a standalone kinder or in child care, get the benefit of early learning programs—which are just so important to them getting on well at school.
LEON BYNER: Now, are we to assume that there will be some child care centres built in South Australia? Because you’ve … in a policy document, and you’ve said it recently, that any of the ABC Centres who failed and some have already been shut, it’s the intention of the Federal Government to build centres in some of those places.
JULIA GILLARD: We went to the last election with a policy to build 260 centres in areas that needed extra child care. Obviously since, we’ve had this huge ABC Learning mess land on our laps and with the receiver we’ve been working through it to try and fix this big mess. Amongst the things that we’re been working on, there are now 241 centres, centres right around the country, where the receiver has said under the ABC Learning model they’re not viable. But we believe that there will be particularly community-based organisations and local councils who say ‘we want to get involved with those centres’. So we’re going through that process now. Obviously in delivering on our promise for 260 new centres, we’re talking about areas that have critical shortages of child care.
LEON BYNER: Don’t you find it significant, Julia, that the failed centres are only those that were operated for a profit?
JULIA GILLARD: Look, I have been really critical of the sort of policies of the former government that let the market rip. We ended up with this huge business, ABC Learning, and of course it’s now gone bust and caused a problem for mums and dads most importantly, for the employees there and obviously a problem for us as the Federal Government to work through to support mums and dads and employees through the process. Now, I do recognise that there are people around the country who do run child care centres on a for-profit basis and do a good job and do a sustainable job and their child care centres are going to be here this year, next year, five years time, 10 years time, because they’re doing a great job at it.
LEON BYNER: Is there not time for a debate though, Julia? Because in primary and secondary education and correct me if I’m wrong here both the Coalition and the Labor Party have been clear that people should never make money out of primary or secondary education and there are good reasons for that. Why do we not include child care in the same model?
JULIA GILLARD: You’re right, Leon. Education, school education is very precious to us and it’s not a money making business in this country. The pattern of child care has obviously grown up differently with different models. One of the things we are keen to achieve with this 241 new centres–sorry, not new centres, the 241 centres that ABC Learning has said aren’t viable and we’re working through potential new futures for them. What we are keen to achieve with that 241 is greater diversity in our child care system, which is why we’re looking to, not exclusively, but we are looking to community-based organisations and local governments to work with us on that process. And the heartening thing is when we asked for expressions of interest and the receiver started collecting expressions of interest, there were community-based organisations and local governments right around the country who said ‘Yep, we want to be there working with you on this’.
LEON BYNER: Are State governments going to be asked to financially put in?
JULIA GILLARD: No, they’re not. The Federal Government stepped forward to fix the ABC Learning problem. We do, as a Federal Government, highly subsidise child care, around $2.5 billion each year is spent on subsidising child care. I want to stress that not one cent of the money that we’re putting in now is going to the owners or operators of ABC Learning. The money the Government is making available is to support centres to continue and particularly to support these 241 centres to continue until 31 March next year so we’ve got some more time to work through their potential future.
LEON BYNER: Julia, just one other point on the Education Revolution which is all part of what happens after what we’ve discussed today. Are you ready for a fight with particularly curriculum people in various states who will have a problem with the notion of that our children, in an educational sense, need to lift our standards and to be competitive?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, Leon, I’m prepared to have a debate. I wouldn’t want to use the word ‘fight’ but I’m prepared to have a debate and to ensure that we lift educational standards right around this country. I mean, we’ve got to make sure that every child in this country goes to a good school and gets a great education. And I think as nation we should be distressed when we see international statistics that tell us that our kids are standing still when the rest of the world is sprinting forward in standards. And I think we should be particularly distressed when we see that the kids that don’t get a good education in Australia today are disproportionately kids who come from poor backgrounds.
I mean, I think Australians are good-hearted people and they don’t want to think that this is a nation that is leaving poor kids behind and we can make a difference to that. We’re the adults, it’s our job. They’re the children. We’re supposed to be doing the right thing by them. So, as adults we’ve got to move heaven and earth to be lifting quality in every school and our new transparency measures are about that; our more than billion investment in disadvantaged schools is about that; and our more than half a billion dollar investment in teacher quality is about that.
LEON BYNER: What’s your observation of this peculiar idea that’s come out of Queensland that red ink should not be used to correct children’s mistakes because it’s too confrontational and aggressive?
JULIA GILLARD: [laughs] Well look, I haven’t seen that report Leon. But…
LEON BYNER: I’m quoting you accurately the description of those who purport to think this is way to go.
JULIA GILLARD: Right. Well, I don’t think that the colour of the ink is really, is really the big issue. I think what’s really the big issue is having schools and education that means kids do learn. They do get great education in literacy and numeracy. They know how to read and write and count and do maths and all of those things. And once you’ve got those foundation stones—you know, a really great ground in literacy and numeracy—then of course the world of higher learning is open to you. But if you never learn to read and you never learn to write and you never learn to spell and you never learn to add and subtract and do all of the rest of the manipulation with numbers, then the rest of learning is always going to be a mystery to you and that’s just tragic.
LEON BYNER: Julia, Merry Christmas.
JULIA GILLARD: To you, Leon and I’ll be celebrating it in Adelaide.
LEON BYNER: Julia Gillard, just talking there about child care on 1395 Adelaide’s 5AA.
ENDS