PM: [AUDIO BREAK] visit a large number of schools and whenever I go to those schools I meet Australians who are truly inspiring, teachers who are making an incredible difference in the lives of young Australians and parents who are supporting their children through their learning, including when children have disabilities, parents who are really support their child even when the going can be very, very tough.
I've talked to those parents, I've seen those children, and as a Government we have acted to support their learning. We've almost doubled the amount of money going to Australian schools, so that money has made a difference for children in every school including children with a disability. We've invested in early intervention, firstly for children with autism and we have broadened that program so it can now provide a better start and early intervention for children with a range of other disabilities as they move into school.
But I'm also very convinced, from having visited schools, that there is unmet need out there, and there are times when a parent's choice about where they'd like their child to go to school is limited because the school they'd most like to go to can't cater for their child because of their child's disability. And we know that this can add up to difficulties for kids for the rest of their lives. Too few children with disability finish Year 12 and too few go on to be adults who have a job in the workforce.
So, today I am very pleased that I'm here with Premier O'Farrell, able to announce that we will be investing $200 million more in supporting children with disabilities in Australian schools. This money will be made available over the next two school years.
Premier O'Farrell has been the first Premier to sign up to the national partnership agreement to deliver these funds and I thank him for that. What it will mean in New South Wales is $48 million more for government schools, and we will be working with non-government schools including the Catholic sector and they will get additional funds of $15 million.
Now, these funds can be used flexibly by schools to make a difference to children with disability. They can be used to support things like new technical aids, because there's so much remarkable technology out there that can help a child with a disability more fully participate in learning. The money can also be used for additional staff support, and specialist support like speech therapy and occupational therapy that assists children.
I hope that this money will make a real difference and I am sure that it will, and I hope, too, that it will help relieve some of the pressure which is on the shoulders of parents who have children with disabilities because they do feel that pressure.
We do have a package of benefits to make a difference for families with school-aged children, including our investment in the Education Tax Refund to help with the costs of getting kids to school - so keep your receipts as you go about spending that money in the lead up to school going back, because you can use it to make a difference at tax time.
And this year we will be delivering extra family payments for families with teenagers to help with the costs of teenagers and help with keeping those kids in school to the end of Year 12 or an equivalent qualification.
All of this is about helping families through, but it's also part of a vision of Australia as a high-wage, high-skills society. I want us as a nation to win in this century, which will be characterised by rapid economic growth in Asia. This can be a century of real opportunities for us, we can win as a nation in this century, but in order to do that we've got to win the education race as well, we've got to make sure we're always improving quality in education, we've been very focused on doing that and we are making a difference to quality in education.
But at the same time our competitors are continuing to invest and improve the quality of their school systems, and four out of the five top-performing school systems in the world now are in countries in our region. So, we've got to keep running this race to improve education quality. It's about every child in every school, including every child that has a disability, and we want to better support them.
I'll turn now to the Premier for some remarks.
PREMIER O'FARRELL: Thank you, Prime Minister.
Look, can I say I'm delighted that New South Wales is the first State to be signing up to this new national partnership focussed on the needs of those students and families who live with disabilities.
90,000 students with disabilities will be enrolled in New South Wales public schools this year. 80 per cent of those students will be in mainstream schools, both country, regional and urban schools, and Prime Minister I can assure you that this funding, this $48 million, will make a difference to the education that they get.
This scheme I think is very cleverly designed to enable States to focus on their particular needs, there is flexibility, and certainly in New South Wales one of our key focus is on the teacher skills because as more and more students with disabilities have entered the education system, have in particular entered mainstream schooling, we need to ensure that teachers have those skills that are required to ensure that those students' abilities are developed, and that's what it is all about - every student has abilities and the task of education is to develop those abilities to the fullest.
Our schools are entrusted, but teachers are asked to ensure that a student, whether disabled or otherwise, is able to develop their full potential because that is the one way that in this century and in the next we can continue to succeed as a nation, and can continue to develop ourselves in this country. So Prime Minister, thank you for this new national partnership. Can I assure you that families of students with disabilities across this State will be grateful for the recognition of the Federal Government. We're determined to ensure that this funding is applied sensibly off the back of a trial that's been going on in the Illawarra for the past couple of years about how best to support the students with disabilities in classrooms, but at the end of the day it all costs money, this is another great example of cooperative federalism - cooperative federalism where the Federal Government and the State Government joins together to provide critical services to people across States like New South Wales, and across the nation in the case of the Prime Minister.
So, I'm pleased to be here, pleased that New South Wales is the first to sign up and pleased that we'll be getting this funding over the next two years.
PM: We're happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, does this in any way pre-empt the Gonski review? Does it somehow, does it indicate that Gonski may overlook public schools because public schools do carry the weight of kids with disabilities?
PM: Not at all. In fact, quite the reverse. The reason we've decided to make these resources available now is there is unmet need now. The reason we've decided to roll them out over two school years is that's the balance of the current funding period for school education.
When we release the Gonski review, of course it will be talking about the future of funding arrangements for school education beyond the current funding period. So, I'm not going to pre-empt what is in Gonski, but we have decided to make a real difference now, joining to other initiatives that have been rolled out for students with disabilities but making a difference in the two years that are in this school funding period.
JOURNALIST: And Premier will you be rolling out the Illawarra trial across the state?
O'FARRELL: The Minister for Education, Adrian Piccoli, will be detailing shortly how specifically this funding will be spent, but it will be spent off the back of what has been a very enlightening trial across the Illawarra and the south-east region of the Department of Education.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, Christopher Pyne says (inaudible) Australian kids behind, he said you've done too much funding on bricks and mortar and not enough of numeracy and literacy (inaudible) what's your response?
PM: Well, this is the Federal Opposition all over - just relentless negativity.
Let's go through some of the facts. When we came to office in 2007, education reform had been neglected in this country for a decade. That is showing in the results that our children are turning in in international testing. When international testing happens, it happens when kids are 15 years old, so how well they're going to go in those tests is determined by all the years they've been in school up until that point, and unfortunately education reform was neglected for a decade.
Whilst education reform was being neglected here, countries in our region were investing to get ahead, countries like Korea, countries like Singapore investing to get ahead and they have got ahead of us in international testing.
When we came to Government in 2007, we started a major reform journey in education about every child in every school lifting standards. That has included new national curriculum which is being rolled out; it's included transparency through My School so everyone can see how their child's school is going; it's included investments in disadvantaged schools because unfortunately it's often the poor kids who get left behind and don't succeed in education; it's included investments in literacy and numeracy, because if you don't get those foundation skills then the rest of education is going to pass you by; it's included investments in teacher quality because we recognise there's nothing more important than the quality of the teacher standing in front of the classroom to a child's education, so we've been investing in teacher quality and giving teachers rewards, the best teachers, for going to schools that need them the most, we're bringing the best and brightest into teaching through initiatives like Teach for Australia.
We're also, of course, in the time of the global financial crisis invested in school buildings, and that investment made a difference to Australian jobs. The Opposition did want to turn its back on Australian jobs and see 200,000 Australians out of work. We invested to support Australian jobs, but when we made that decision we decided that there was nowhere more important in this country to invest than in Australian schools, and when you go to schools now school capital matters, teachers want to teach in a different way today. It means they need flexible spaces, modern spaces, different spaces and that's what the Building the Education Revolution program has provided.
In contrast, the only thing I ever hear from the Opposition about education is saying no to the Government's changes and talking about cutbacks.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, regarding the talks on immigration, they've broken down again. What can you as the Prime Minister do to end the stalemate?
PM: Well, I want to be very clear about the course of discussions that we've had with the Opposition.
Firstly, they asked us to put a proposal - and we did. Then they asked us to put it in writing - and we did. Then they asked us to include Nauru - and we did. And to all of that the Opposition has just said no.
Well, as Prime Minister I want to be very, very clear: it's not good enough to just say no when people are drowning at sea. That's not a good enough response from the Opposition. The Opposition should reconsider its reckless negativity in this area.
And I also want to say this: I will not join with Tony Abbott in a plan that would put at risk the lives of Australian personnel. I won't agree to a plan to put young Navy officers at risk of losing their lives in waters to our north. What Mr Abbott has outlined is a plan to put Australian lives at risk and I'll never agree with that.
JOURNALIST: Do you that Tony Abbott (inaudible)
PM: That's a question you'd have to put to Mr Abbott.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you've put education today in the long-term context of competitiveness, but there's a more pressing issue now as shown yesterday with Toyota, high dollar punished (inaudible) what's your response to that?
PM: Well, as I think is well-known, my home is actually in Altona in Melbourne's west, and you can pretty easily walk from my place to where the Toyota factory is, so I've been very saddened to hear about these announced redundancies today.
I know the Toyota factory well, obviously in my electorate and Melbourne's west, we're home to lots and lots of families that rely on Toyota for their living, that's where mum or dad work. So, for the 350 workers involved this is very, very difficult news and we will be doing everything we can to work with them and support them to get a new opportunity and new job.
For the car industry overall, the car industry in this country employs 46,000. It supports the jobs of more than 200,000 others. It's the backbone of manufacturing, and manufacturing employs a million Australians.
There's pressure on manufacturing now because of the high Australian dollar and also because there are confidence and volatility issues in the world economy. We understand that and that's why we are working with the car industry and with manufacturing overall to deal with these days of pressure.
But as a Labor Government we will always be focused on Australian jobs and manufacturing jobs. It's not good enough in this time of global change and in this time of change in our own economy, when we see this pressure from the high Australian dollar, to just say no to jobs in manufacturing. And I think it's incredibility disappointing that Mr Abbott is saying no to those jobs, he's threatening them with a cutback in assistance to the automotive industry, he's putting those jobs at risk. We are working with the car companies to hold those jobs in Australia.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, are you happy that Australian taxpayers (inaudible) foot the bill (inaudible)
PM: This is the normal protocol and we abided by it.
[QUESTIONS TO PREMIER O'FARRELL ON OTHER MATTERS]
PM: Perhaps before we go we should just say, both Premier O'Farrell and I, weather predictions for the north coast of New South Wales are for very solid rain and for king tides, so we'll be working together and monitoring that very closely to see if assistance is required. But in the meantime, having seen what we saw over last summer, I did want to say to everybody listen to your warnings, stay in touch and please keep yourself safe.
Thank you.