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Education, Employment and Workplace Relations portfolio

The Hon Julia Gillard MP

Minister for Education. Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations

Minister for Social Inclusion. Deputy Prime Minister

18 April, 2008

Transcript

Radio Interview 2UE, 7am Thursday, 17 April 2008

Prime Minister's idea for 2020 Summit

MIKE CARLTON:

 Is this the Prime Minister just coming up with a bright idea off the top of his head or has he thought it through?

JULIA GILLARD:

 It is building on a policy direction we’ve already got established. We took to the last election a pretty big promise about making sure every four year old in the country could have access to pre-school for fifteen hours a week and we did that because we saw all of the research from around the world which really clearly tells you that what happens in those early years just defines peoples life’s chances so the more you can look after and invest in our youngest children the better for our community overall. The Prime Minister last night has built on that policy direction but taken it to a bigger stage and this is the idea of one-stop- shops, of community hubs which have all of your childcare services available; health services, parental support and the like.

MIKE CARLTON:

 This would be your job would it, you as Minister for Education, it comes under your hat?

JULIA GILLARD:

 Well it would be under my hat but obviously working very closely with the Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon because the early health services that we run for children whether it be immunization or whether it be maternal/child health checks they obviously come under health. And it would require cooperation with our State and Territory colleagues and with local government as well because some of these services are actually in the province of local government in some parts of the country.

SANDY ALOISI:

 So where would the staff come from, you can’t have childcare people, you’d have to have pre-school teachers and you’d have to have nurses I would imagine, would that be the case?

JULIA GILLARD:

Yes, I think you would need all of those staff. You’d probably need some social workers, maybe some community development workers as well and if you were working in communities with high migrant communities you might need some workers that have got language skills for the communities that resided nearby. We need to invest overall in education and training. We know we are short of nurses, we are short of childcare workers, we are short of the educators. Obviously the government is investing in extra places to try and make sure our society has enough of these very precious workers but to realize the Prime Minister’s vision we would obviously need further investment. But I suspect that there are a lot of Australians who would see a vision as grand as this and would think that was something they do want to be part of in their working life, that they’d like to spend all or part of their working lives in these centres basically helping the next generation along.

SANDY ALOISI:

 But have you costed this Minister, is it something we can afford?

MIKE CARLTON

: Billions.

JULIA GILLARD:

 Well the Prime Minister last night made it clear that it was not a costed proposal at this stage, its an idea for the 2020 Summit. And the 2020 Summit is all about picking the brains of the best and brightest across the country to see what are the big things that we want to achieve for 2020 and then working backwards to what are the things we need to be doing now to realize that vision.

MIKE CARLTON:

 Alright. Do you see private enterprise running them, I mean would you put out tenders 200 childcare centres here by five years, would you tender for it?

JULIA GILLARD:

 Well the Prime Minister has left it open for there to be private sector involvement. If we look around the country now, in the childcare area obviously we’ve got great community based centres we also have great centres that are run by private providers. So we’ve got a mix there now and I imagine that in real life, in this grander vision, the mix would continue.

SANDY ALOISI:

 Is it practical though? You made an election promise to build more than 250 child care centres across the country, have any started at all?

JULIA GILLARD:

 The money for that is coming in the May Budget so it will be available in the financial year that starts on the first of July. We’ve nominated more than thirty sites and when the money is available then we will start making the arrangements to get the building and construction done. I think everybody understands that when you’re building a house or whether you are building a childcare centre, actually putting bricks and mortar together takes a bit of time but once the money is there from the May Budget then we will be entering arrangements to get the first more than 30 centre built where we have got nominated sites.

MIKE CARLTON:

 Alright. This 2020 idea, with the deepest respect of course, but are you sure its not a bit of the old Bob Hawke ‘no child will live in poverty in the year 2000’?

JULIA GILLARD:

 I think it’s a grand vision but it’s a concrete vision. If we look round the world, other countries are investing in this early childhood education area. They recognize that it makes a big difference and overall it’s a practical vision because you know, you can spend dollars investing in the health and welfare of small children or you can wait for some of them to have problems in life…

MIKE CARLTON:

 And then try and fix it, yeah.

JULIA GILLARD:

 Yes, and end up spending more on welfare or even worse, money on prison cells down the track.

MIKE CARLTON:

 Yeah.

JULIA GILLARD:

 Because the research is just so powerful that if we can get those early years right then the likelihood of people going on to live long successful, happy lives engaged in the world of work with personal support groups, that is much more likely and conversely if we don’t invest in those early years then tragically some kids do go off the rails and you know, are headed to a lifetime of welfare dependency or perhaps something even a bit worse.

MIKE CARLTON:

 Good point. Thanks very much for your time.

JULIA GILLARD:

 Thank you.

MIKE CARLTON:

Good to talk to you, thank you kindly. Julia Gillard, the Deputy Prime Minister there wearing her hat as Education Minister.

ENDS

 
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