STEVE CANNANE:
Julia Gillard, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Education joins us now. Thanks a lot for talking to us.
JULIA GILLARD:
Good morning.
STEVE CANNANE:
Before we get to education, let’s talk about industrial relations. You and the Treasurer have in the past couple of days called for the unions to show restraint when it comes to wage claims to help combat inflation. Given you spent the whole election saying you were trying to relieve the pressure on working families, how do you think those working families might feel now when they hear you calling for restraint on pay increases?
JULIA GILLARD:
I think working families understand that inflation is a threat. That inflation puts pressure on interest rates. And obviously working families who are paying off a mortgage are keenly watching interest rates.
We’ve inherited a high inflation environment. The Treasurer is making it absolutely clear that we need to be fighting inflation. The Government is going to do through by leading by example and having a very restrained budget in May. So for working families, the balance here is for all of us to be doing what we can to deal with the problem of inflation. Clearly, wage inflation would feed into a further inflation cycle and that benefits no one.
We’ve specifically designed our industrial relations policy so that it can fight wage inflation. It’s a decentralised system and in a decentralised system you do fight wage inflation because wage outcomes are about productivity for the individual business.
STEVE CANNANE:
Politicians rarely show restraint themselves when it comes to wage increases. Federal MPs last year got a pay rise of 6.7 per cent, which is well above the CPI. Should you guys be tightening your belts as well?
JULIA GILLARD:
This Government will be leading by example in the May budget. We are saying that everybody’s got to take part in fighting inflation. It’s clear from what the Treasurer’s said that we have inherited from the former government a high inflation environment and we should all be doing our bit.
STEVE CANNANE:
OK. So the next time the Greens put a bill before Parliament to not vote in favour of pay increases for politicians, you’ll be voting with them I take it?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well, pay increases for politicians are dealt with by the Remuneration Tribunal. Obviously I would be saying to everybody that we need to be showing restraint in the current high inflation environment. This is the problem we have inherited from the previous government…
STEVE CANNANE:
I thought you ended the blame game, Julia Gillard?
JULIA GILLARD:
Sorry?
STEVE CANNANE:
I thought you’d ended the blame game, seems like you’re blaming the previous government for the economic situation at the moment.
JULIA GILLARD:
It’s just a matter of fact. As Wayne Swan clearly showed yesterday we’ve got the inflationary pressures from the previous government – that’s just a factual statement. If you track the build up of inflationary pressures, that’s perfectly clear…
STEVE CANNANE:
OK…
JULIA GILLARD:
We know from the Reserve Bank warnings; we’ve had the Reserve Bank warning consistently that we were going to face inflation pressures unless we got on with developing skills and developing infrastructure. Now all those things are on the record. Clearly in developing our policies we heard those warnings and that’s why we promised the Education Revolution, skills development and why we’re also in the business of developing better infrastructure for the nation.
STEVE CANNANE:
It’s being reported today that there are plans afoot of plans for a uniform national industrial relations system by 2010 when it comes to State and Federal awards. Why would that be a better system than what we’ve got now?
JULIA GILLARD:
Labor promised in April last year that if elected as the national government we would create a uniform system for the private sector. The reason we made that promise back in April is, at the moment if you are developing a small business – you might be a sole trader who has come up with a good idea and you put on your first employee - you’re quite likely to be bound by the State industrial relations laws. Then as you get bigger, you might incorporate a company - then you become bound by Federal industrial relations laws.
Now often people on that journey of building a business don’t even realise that they have gone over the dividing line and now the regulation that impacts on their business is different. It would obviously make sense that whatever stage of development your business is at the same law applies to you. And that’s why we committed last April to building a national system for the private sector.
STEVE CANNANE:
We’re talking to Julia Gillard this morning on summer breakfast, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Education. Julia Gillard, school begins next week in most parts of the country. What will your Education Revolution do for those who need an Education Revolution more than anyone else – Indigenous kids in remote communities?
JULIA GILLARD:
We’ve made a set of promises on Indigenous education. I’ve been working with my colleague Jenny Macklin on that. We want to make sure we’re getting better literacy and numeracy outcomes as well as directly investing into schools…
STEVE CANNANE:
Well specifically about numeracy and literacy, in some of the remote communities the levels there are two to three years below other kids of the same age groups in the big cities. What will you be specifically doing about that?
JULIA GILLARD:
There is an accelerated literacy program that has been getting good results in Indigenous schools. We’re obviously keen to see that program developed further and spread further. We understand that Indigenous children can’t end up with equal education outcomes if they don’t get the foundation stones and literacy and numeracy are certainly those foundation stones.
STEVE CANNANE:
I think you’re talking there about the MULTILIT program. Will you be increasing funding to that to get that into those communities?
JULIA GILLARD:
The accelerated literacy program is a slightly different program from the MULITLIT program but the aims are all the same, they’re accelerated learning programs. And they’re very important to ensuring there is literacy development for Indigenous children.
STEVE CANNANE:
And you’ll be…
JULIA GILLARD:
Can I say the Education Revolution of course is for schools right around the country. And we’ve been very clear that it’s about additional investment into schools. We’ve got a big suite of policies to deliver. We’ve got our policies about computers to deliver and the delivery of that will start in the first six months of this year. We’ve got a policy about trades in schools to deliver and we will be looking to deliver that very quickly as well…
STEVE CANNANE:
Well let’s talk about the funding of…
JULIA GILLARD:
…We are working with our State colleagues to invest in education across the board and that’s why we’ve got the COAG working group coming together and saying, what is it, what else, beyond the policy commitments we’ve made do we need to do to ensure we’ve got a world class education system for the future.
STEVE CANNANE:
OK, on that issue of funding across the board, across the schools: a report commissioned by the Education Ministers Council found public school funding needs to be boosted by $2.9 billion a year to meet national standards. How much will you be putting directly into public schools this year to make up that shortfall?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well the current funding agreement for schools is still in place. We are negotiating – or will be negotiating – with our State and Territory colleagues through the COAG working group and resources for schools in the future. The clear findings of this report are that State and Territories and the Federal government need to work together if we are truly to improve education.
The clearest finding from this report is that the blame game that was played between the former Federal government and State and Territory governments has cost dearly. It just doesn’t work. Everybody gets bogged down. We want to make sure that rather than being bogged down, people are around the table, working it through. Working it through to improve for schools in the future and certainly to improve resources for the future.
STEVE CANNANE:
You’ve criticised the previous government’s education policy there, but you yourself have copied the private school funding policy from the Howard Government. And your own department has suggested that some private schools should have their funding cut. Why won’t you do that and transfer the money to schools that really need them?
JULIA GILLARD:
What we’ve said publicly is we’re about building on what is there. We have said schools need certainty in funding. We have consequently have said that we will use the SES funding model and that schools will not lose resources.
We want every school to have good resources. We’re not in the business of taking resources away from any school. But we are in the business of building on what is there now and that’s why we’ve committed to big programs of investment in schools. Whether it be computers, whether it be trades training centres, they’re all big investment programs. And we’ve committed to working with our State and Territory colleagues to get agreements around the future funding of schools, building on those commitments.
STEVE CANNANE:
That SES funding formula you refer to does not take into account what facilities a school has or what fees are charged by the organisations running the schools and has a ‘no losers’ policy so that schools don’t receive less money than in the past. Do you think that is a system, a system that is going to be in place for at least four years now – do you think that is a system that delivers money to where it’s needed?
JULIA GILLARD:
We’ve committed to the current system. The current system is about assessing the background, the social and economic status of children in schools. Obviously we have that data for the private sector. We don’t have all of that information for State schools. One of the clear findings of the report you refer to is that we need better information and better transparency right across the system.
We’ve given very clear commitments about maintaining the funding system, about ensuring that schools get what they’re expecting to get. We’re in the business of providing certainty to schools. But having done that, we’ve also made it very clear that we are going to be delivering additional investments to schools…
STEVE CANNANE:
Julia, sorry, if I could just interrupt there – you talk about the importance of certainty, but I know when you made your first speech to Parliament, certainty was not the issue you were passionate about when it came to education. You compared the local State schools in your electorate with exclusive private schools in Kooyong and Higgins. Saying this massive discrepancy would be lessened if we as a nation were prepared to seriously tackle the inequality of opportunity that exists in our education system and create a high-class State school system. It seems hard to reconcile what you’re saying now about the importance of certainty with what you were saying back then about the importance of equal opportunity.
JULIA GILLARD:
I think it’s perfectly easy to reconcile. I want every child in this nation to have a world class education. To do that, we’ve got to build on what is there now. It’s not about taking away from anyone – it’s about building for everyone to make sure that everyone has the opportunity of a world class education.
STEVE CANNANE:
OK on another issue related to private school funding. Last year Kevin Rudd described the Exclusive Brethren as an extremist cult that breaks up families. But you’re due to fund the Exclusive Brethren schools by up to $10 million this year. Do you feel comfortable about that?
JULIA GILLARD:
I feel comfortable about making sure that every child in the country - whatever sort of school they attend - gets a world class education. Obviously parents will make choices, people will sometimes not agree with some of those choices. But the perspective we’re looking at here is the perspective of the child involved. Every child deserves to be in a quality school and getting a world class education
STEVE CANNANE:
Julia Gillard, thanks a lot for talking to us this morning.
JULIA GILLARD:
Thank you.
STEVE CANNANE: