I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet, and I pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
It is such a great pleasure to be joining you on Public Education Day – and to celebrate what is one of the most potent forces for good that we have.
All Australians can proudly point to public education as one of our great strengths as a nation.
A quality education system that is available to everyone regardless of their postcode, their wealth, faith or ethnicity.
An education system that is an intrinsic and transformative part of our social fabric.
An education system that does so much to ensure that our cherished values of equality and the fair go are also our day-to-day reality.
All of this stands on the shoulders of generations of your members.
Hardworking, dedicated educators who have slogged hard through the terms, through the years, all of them working to make sure that holding open the doors of opportunity is not a lofty ideal, but a lived reality – and an Australian tradition.
On election night two years ago, one of the priorities I outlined was to widen the doors of opportunity.
Nothing holds those doors open like education. That is something that has sat in the forefront of my mind all my life.
I want it to be possible for everyone to be lifted by education the way that I and my great colleague Jason Clare were.
Even as I say that, I can picture the faces of every teacher, lecturer and tutor who helped me along the way.
Educators who didn’t just make me able to see a bigger world, but gave me the gift of understanding how it worked – then carefully and patiently taught me how to find my way in it.
Education gave me possibility. Education opened my eyes to my own potential, then gave me what I needed to fulfil it.
My formal education came to an end some time ago, but its glow still reaches out from the past to brighten my present.
And education is what puts the glow into the future.
When it comes to a Future Made in Australia – the future that will allow our nation to stand proudly and firmly on its own feet in a shifting world – there is no greater building block than education.
And the great heart of that building block is public education.
Whether it’s tapping into new energy, making things here, or moving up the value chain, a Future Made in Australia depends on what education makes possible.
The skilled workforce, the research and development, the science, and the creativity of our people.
One of our duties as a government is to add to that building block, to keep enhancing it and making it stronger. It won’t come as news to anyone in this room that there is much work to be done.
There is no job in the world more important than being a teacher.
Yet we don't have enough of them.
We have a teacher workforce crisis that has been a decade in the making.
And the problem isn’t just recruiting teachers, it’s keeping them in the classroom.
I applaud Prue Car – Deputy Premier and Minister for Education and Early Education – for the work she and the State Government have done to boost teachers’ pay.
Another challenge is workload, and for teachers that is something that spreads well beyond the hours marked out by the school bell.
That is why we are working together on ways to reduce workload through the Teacher Workload Reduction Fund.
Then there’s respect. I was glad to have had the chance add my voice to the Be That Teacher campaign.
As Education Minister Jason Clare put it, it’s fundamentally about changing the way our country thinks of our teachers, and the way our teachers think the country regards them.
Just as we’re working to make it better to be a teacher, we’re making it easier to become one.
For the first time in a long time, the Government is rolling out Commonwealth Teaching Scholarships worth up to $40,000 each.
That $40,000 comes with an important string attached. You have to commit to working in a public school for up to four years.
We are also establishing a Commonwealth Prac Payment to support student teachers and others, who are undertaking the workplace placements that are such a crucial and mandatory part of their studies.
However, that work is unpaid – and many students have to do it for weeks at a time. Sometimes they’re commuting far from home. It can mean having to give up the part-time work that has sustained them through their studies.
It’s an expensive double whammy – and it means too many students aren’t finishing their degrees. Dreams are left unrealised, potential left unfulfilled, callings left unfollowed.
And critically, it leaves teacher shortages unaddressed.
If we are to have a future made here in this country, we must have more young Australians studying to become teachers.
We cannot afford to leave unpaid prac standing as a barrier between them and their dream job.
They need the experience – and Australia needs them.
The Commonwealth Prac Payment will provide $319.50 per week to around 68,000 eligible higher education students and 5000 vocational education students during their clinical and professional placement periods.
What guides my Government is a very straightforward imperative: to shape the future rather than let it shape us.
We are investing in more university places, and making it easier for young Australians in the suburbs and the regions to get a degree.
We’re backing the aspiration of Australian students and graduates by wiping $3 billion off HECS and other HELP debts.
We’re also fixing the student loan system, so that it is simpler and fairer into the future.
We do it because Labor Governments understand that higher education is about changing lives, not a lifetime of debt.
We have some of the best universities in the world. That so many students across the world want to come study here is understandable.
It’s good for the economy, but we recognise it also puts pressure on housing, especially for renters.
That’s why we’re going to make the system more sustainable for everyone.
So that if a university want to bring in more international students – they have to build more student accommodation.
Universities will continue to benefit from student demand – provided they contribute to housing supply.
I’d like to speak now about another priority. Put simply: We need to fund our public schools properly.
That is why my Government is working with the states and territories who run public schools to get all schools to their full and fair funding level.
We have put $16 billion in additional funding for public schools on the table – this would be the biggest ever increase in Commonwealth funding to public schools.
And Jason Clare is working hard to reach agreement with the States to reach 100 per cent of the School Resource Standard. It is not an easy process but we are hopeful of a positive outcome.
There is much to be proud of in our public education system.
However, we can’t ignore the hard fact that the number of our children finishing high school is going backwards. Especially in our public schools.
In just seven years – seven years that included the seismic disruption of Covid, home schooling and all the rest of it – we have seen the figure slide from 83 per cent to 74 per cent. We have to arrest this slide, then turn it around.
Education is the single most powerful weapon we have against disadvantage.
And it’s the single best investment we can make in our nation’s future.
Invest wisely and it doesn’t take long to see the results. TAFE is a prime example.
In 2022 we made a commitment to delivering 180,000 fee-free TAFE places to train, retrain and upskill Australian workers.
I’m pleased to say we kept the commitment. I’m even more pleased to say that the 180,000 target has been reached and comprehensively exceeded.
Last year, more than 350,000 Australians took up the opportunity of fee-free TAFE and enrolled.
We’re rolling out another 320,000 places from this year.
This helps to address the skills shortages that act as such a handbrake on the economy and everything that a strong economy makes possible while at the same time making it easier for young Australians to carve a path into a fulfilling career.
We’re certainly hoping more will choose a career in early childhood education.
Early childhood educators and carers deserve more than just our gratitude and our praise, no matter how richly it is deserved.
That is why my Government has made raising wages in the child care sector a priority.
As Treasurer Jim Chalmers said last week as he handed down the Budget, the provision we’re making for a pay increase will help recruit and retain more early childhood educators, giving more Australian children the best start we can.
There is a process in the Fair Work Commission currently underway examining gender under-valuation of wages, including in the ECEC sector.
When we know the result of this Commission process – hopefully soon – we will move on our commitment to early childhood educators.
It will be a critical step in delivering our ambition of universal early childhood education and care.
Like universal health and universal superannuation – both proud Labor legacies – this will be another pillar that strengthens Australia.
They are powerful pillars, but we cannot take them for granted. Each must carefully tended and strengthened, and that is something that continually informs our decision-making.
When it comes to the pillar of health, we cannot be bystanders watching as vaping addiction consumes a new generation – like smoking did decades ago.
That’s why we’re working to stamp out vaping – particularly among young Australians – and we’re doing it through stronger legislation, enforcement, education and support.
Another way we can improve the quality of life for our children is tackling the reality of social media.
I know I’m not the only one who is relieved it didn’t exist in my school days.
The challenge of what social media has become – and the often overwhelming proportions it can take on in a child’s life – has to be tackled.
My Government will provide resourcing to conduct a pilot of age assurance technology to protect children from harmful content, like pornography and other age-restricted online services.
Last week’s Budget contained funding for a new pilot that will be part of a suite of interventions aimed at curbing easy access to damaging material by children and young people, and tackling extreme misogyny online.
The pilot will identify available age assurance products to protect children from online harm, and test their efficacy, including in relation to privacy and security.
The outcomes will inform the existing work of Australia’s eSafety Commissioner under the Online Safety Act – including through the development of industry codes or standards – to reduce children’s exposure to age-inappropriate material.
As we do so, we are reminding the social media giants of their own serious responsibilities.
Of course, responsibility is something that belongs to all of us.
It’s too easy – and far too common – for society to look at the health risks of vaping or the dark side of social media and say these are problems should solve.
These aren’t challenges that begin and end at the classroom door. They are whole-of-society challenges that we need to work together to address.
We can’t rely on school rules, we need a comprehensive approach.
After all, teachers already have the most important job there is.
We’re also working more broadly to improve things for working Australians, teachers very much among them.
We’ve been steadily closing workplace loopholes.
That includes ending the concept of a forced permanent casual.
And we stopped unpaid, unreasonable overtime for workers by legislating the Right to Disconnect.
Because if you’re not being paid 24 hours a day, you shouldn’t have to be on call 24 hours a day.
We’ve taken the gender pay gap to a record low, while the participation rate has reached historic highs.
All 55 recommendations of the Respect@Work report are being implemented.
We’ve taken new action on pay equity and pay transparency.
These are just some of the changes that have seen Australia climb from 43rd in the Global Gender Gap rankings to 26th.
It’s real progress – but we need to keep making progress. And that is the spirit with which last week’s Budget was imbued.
Our Budget was about the two things that have driven our Government for two years:
Making our future here in Australia – a future that involves working towards a net zero economy and ensuring our country takes its rightful place as a renewable energy superpower.
It’s important for us now, and even more important for our children and their children.
And it was about helping people with their cost of living.
Last week’s Budget was a Budget for all Australians.
Every household gets $300 off their power bill.
And, from July 1, every taxpayer gets a tax cut. All 13.6 million taxpayers will get a tax cut.
And for 84 per cent of taxpayers, and 90 per cent of women, a bigger tax cut than they would have under the previous government.
This is about rewarding the hard work of people like our teachers.
And it’s about embracing the spirit of fairness embodied by the membership of the AEU.
It’s not a spirit Peter Dutton identifies with.
Our nation’s teachers suffer the distinction of being one of the groups that Peter Dutton only mentions when he’s attacking them.
When most of us look to our educators – from early childhood through to tertiary – we see a diverse, hardworking group guiding forward our children and our young adults.
We see people of dedication, talent and stamina working to making that door of opportunity even bigger. Working to make a difference.
Peter Dutton, on the other hand, sees a group he’s ready to scapegoat every time they aren’t on his same bleak, negative wavelength.
I’d encourage him to get out of his grim little echo chamber, park his anger for a few minutes, and take a look at the Be That Teacher campaign.
I’d like him to be reacquainted with the reality of who you are, and the equally great breadth of what it is you do.
One of the truly special memories you can have as an adult is the teacher – or teachers – who made a difference in your life.
The teachers who inspired you. The teachers who showed you that obstacles can be overcome, and that the challenges you face can also hold opportunities.
The teachers who opened more of the world to you, and helped you find and grow your inner world along the way.
The teachers who flicked that switch for you and turned on the lights.
What a remarkable effect to be able to have.
Multiply it over and over again, across suburbs, towns, cities and regions, and it all adds up to something extraordinarily powerful.
It’s a power that can be described in so many words, but is best captured in just two: Public education.
Two words that sum up the work and dedication of so very many people.
Thank you for the invitation on this important day.