Canberra
PM: It's fantastic to be here at Latham Primary School and I am joined by the Minister for School Education Peter Garrett.
This is a great day for Australian education. It is the launch of this year's version of My School.
The fifth time that people have been able to jump online and have a look at the performance of their child's school.
I well remember as Education Minister determining that we should create My School, and I did so because I wanted parents to have more information than they had ever had before about the performance of their child's school.
I have told the story before but it pays to tell it again.
I was absolutely astounded when I became Minister for Education that no-one in the nation could tell you which were the most disadvantaged schools in the country, which schools were underperforming, which were the best schools in the country.
It continues to astound me that the former Government didn't care enough about the quality of children's education to even bother assembling that data.
It was a big fight to get that data assembled and to get it up and out for parents to look at.
Here we are five years on and My School is more powerful than it has ever been before.
It is giving you more information than people have ever had before.
Now it is giving you five years of information and that means that we can show the improvement over time in what schools are doing.
We can show the growth they are bringing in children's education because children are tested every two years and with five years of information you can show the change in children over time.
It is bringing you information too about the financial resources in school. And information as well about the kind of kids in school: the backgrounds of the children who come to school, the advantages and disadvantages that they bring to school.
This information is powerful - who is in school, how they are achieving, what resources are being brought to the task of their education.
This is the information the nation needs to have as we work to improve education for every child in every school.
What we are also releasing today, and what is transparent to people from My School, is the results that are being achieved in our National Partnership Schools.
Now unfortunately My School is telling us that there are still too many kids who get left behind and don't attain the benchmarks that they should in literacy and numeracy.
But what My School is also telling us is in our National Partnership Schools, where we have brought a powerful combination of new resources and new methods to make a difference - a difference is being made.
Put simply, kids are getting a better education.
I think the best way I can tell that story is to point to the example of this school, of Latham primary school.
And where we are standing here today, this school is a literacy and numeracy National Partnership School.
Let's have look at what has been achieved here through these extra resources, coupled with the best teaching methods - and we have just seen those on display.
We have seen a drop in year three students who struggle with reading of 21 percentage points.
A remarkable statistic, a great achievement in this school and that kind of achievement is being replicated in many National Partnership Schools around the country.
Even more impressive, at the year five level we have seen huge changes in both reading and numeracy in this school.
In 2008, just under half of this school's year five students were at or below the national minimum standard in reading and in numeracy.
Now we know just 10 per cent of the kids in year five are below the minimum standard, at or below in numeracy, and only six per cent are at or below in reading.
That is an incredible transformation in this school.
It is an incredible transformation in the lives of the children that are being taught here.
So this is a good day for education and it is showing you what we want to achieve around the country through our National Plan for School Improvement, combined with new resources so that the great combination of the best teaching with real resources can make a difference in the lives of our children.
MINISTER GARRETT: My School is a powerful tool. It means that schools and parents have got more information than ever before about student progress.
And it is a success story in education and I want to commend the Prime Minister for her leadership in making sure that school communities right around Australia now have this information at their fingertips.
This year's My School has three important new features. It is the school by school NAPLAN results that we are now starting to see.
It is cumulative information about the financial resources that schools have at their disposal, and there is additional information as well about vocational learning.
As we continue to improve My School over time, more information will come onto this site to provide parents, teachers and the school community with additional information about both schools and how kids are travelling.
Five million unique visitors, and we are starting to see in the tracking opportunities that schools have the potential for focused interventions to make sure that kids get on a solid pathway for learning.
I was particularly pleased to see that in the investment in National Partnerships in literacy and numeracy we are seeing improvements greater than the national average in those schools that we supported in National Partnerships in year three literacy for example, and in year five numeracy
They are really good results and the reason is this - the schools that have received the National Partnership investment have some of the most disadvantaged students in them and the work that is required to bring those students up to national minimum standards is intense and difficult work.
And we are starting to see it succeed and that is a great result for us.
As well as that we are seeing good and positive results in our low socioeconomic National Partnerships, particularly with Indigenous education; a big challenge where we have closing the gap targets and where much more needs to be done, but we are again seeing improvements proportionally by young Indigenous students, particularly in the areas of literacy.
So this is a great day for education and importantly when we visit a school like this school, Latham Public School, we can see the focused effort by teachers that the Prime Minister referred to, with the results and improvements in literacy that these young students are achieving.
We want to see this happen in every school in the country under our National Plan for School Improvement, and having the data and the information available so we can shine a spotlight on how schools are doing as we are able to do through My School, makes that possible.
JOURNALIST: The additional information about how schools are travelling, what is that additional information. Can you elaborate on that?
PM: What is new in this version of My School? We might bring Barry in just on this if you want the absolute details. Barry who has been leading our My School efforts since we first started, so congratulations to you.
Do you want to go through the technical differences in this version from last time?
PROFESSOR BARRY MCGAW: The biggest change actually is more data and more data available with analyses of the kind we introduced last year starting to show trends where you can see for every school the fair comparison with other schools with similar students, how this school is tracking, compared with those schools.
We actually do this very carefully by, in a school like this, taking those students who are in year three and those students in who are in year five - but only those who are in this school on both occasions.
So that we can get a good measure of what it is that this school is doing with its students and then compare that with its other comparison schools, but also now compare it with students in the nation as a whole who started exactly where this school's student started.
That is a very important growth comparison.
What has this school achieved from year three to year five compared with what has been achieved with other students in the country who started exactly where they are.
It is those powerful analyses that will give schools a capacity to see the effects of what it is they are doing.
And then to talk to other schools that are doing better because they can identify those schools on the site.
And there is a set of conversations that can open up, and I know are opening up, across state boundaries even between schools that can see other schools from which they can learn lessons.
PM: If I can just hop in there. This is the kind of stuff that could only be achieved over time.
When we first put My School up, yes it was a snapshot at that period in time but now we have done the five years, you can get a genuine look at the growth in knowledge and capacity that schools are bringing to children.
And that is such an important comparator, rather than just having the snapshot in time.
JOURNALIST: Putting aside the National Partnerships, across the board which areas have seen improvement, which areas have seen a downward trend this year, have there been also some negative signs?
PM: As I think we made very clear when we did the Closing the Gap statement, there are some signs in the 2012 results in relation to Indigenous children where we are still analysing it and want to do better.
One possibility for the falling away in those results is we are actually, in some places, getting more kids into school and so they have got a further journey to travel in their education.
But that of course did trouble us and we were very explicit about that when we did the Closing the Gap statement.
I will turn to Minister Garrett for comments too.
MINISTER GARRETT: Look, I think the thing to say here as well is that whilst we are seeing improvement across domains we still have big gaps in education performance between students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and those from higher socioeconomic backgrounds.
And if we look at the international comparators we can see that the performance of equivalent countries either in our region or in the OECD is exceeding ours.
What today's data tells us is that the investments we have made in the National Partnerships has worked.
It tells us that it is hard work to lift the education performance in literacy and numeracy from kids from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and Australia has a diverse education system and we have many kids particularly in the western suburbs cities like Sydney and Melbourne who come without much first English language under their belt.
But what it also tells us that we can see where schools are doing well and how they are applying themselves.
As both the Prime Minister and Barry McGaw have said, that is a powerful driver of school improvement nationwide.
JOURNALIST: Can I ask about media policy?
PM: We will just see if there are any other education questions.
JOURNALIST: Have you had any direct talks yet with the new Victorian Premier about Gonski? And how confident are you of being able to convince him that there won't be any school in Victoria that goes backwards, that you might be able to get him on board?
PM: I haven't had the opportunity to have direct talks with the new Premier.
We did exchange courtesy messages when he became Premier, and I certainly saw with interest the words that he spoke to the media over the course of the weekend.
I have respected the fact that the new Premier would have a lot to do and be getting all of the briefings and getting familiar with all of the material.
What I can certainly assure the new Premier in Victoria, and right around the country, is we have been very explicit that no school will lose a dollar as a result of our school funding reforms.
And that there is a lot to look forward to as we bring more resources combined with strategies for school improvement to make a real difference in the lives of kids, just like a difference is being made here.
And in terms of parents and their children, of course there is nothing more important to a parent than whether or not their son or their daughter is going to succeed at school and get a great start in life.
So, vital to parents to have this information and to see us improve every child's education in every school.
But vital to the nation too, because as Minister Garrett says very clearly, we cannot be a high skill, high wage nation in the future if our standards in schools fall behind the rest of the world.
It is not possible to have a high skill, high wage economy if your school standards are slipping behind.
And when we say slipping behind, of course that it is in a race where not everybody's static and we are going backwards; everybody is running forward and if you don't run as fast as everybody else then you are comparatively behind.
That is the challenge; winning the education race so that we can win the jobs and opportunity and prosperity that can come with our future in this region of the world.
Which is why when we're standing here, we are focused on the future of the economy as well as being focused on each child, each very precious child, and whether or not she or he learns to read and write and count.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just on Gonski. Has the Government finalised its funding model yet and do you plan to present it to the states before the COAG meeting?
PM: We are in very detailed discussions between officials. Obviously there is a lot of information and a lot of work that has been done and is continuing.
I will, at the forthcoming COAG meeting, be saying to my state and territory colleagues that for the future of our country we have got to get this done.
JOURNALIST: On media policy Prime Minister - a question in two really. Is this a campaign to tame News Limited? It's pretty obvious from the papers this morning they see it that way and it probably hasn't worked thus far.
Secondly, relaxing the 75 per cent reach regulation, wouldn't that just lead to further concentration of broadcast media?
PM: I am happy to take your question and explain what the Government's policies and plans actually are.
And I think it is somewhat ironic that these questions of free speech are being canvassed today, because I remember very well when I started putting My School together as Minister for Education, that there were a lot of loud voices that were saying you can't trust the media with this information; if you put My School up, then it will be misused, schools will be blamed and shamed and targeted and victimised.
And I was always a great believer that if we gave this information to the community and the media, it would inform a rich debate.
And I think the evidence is in, that overwhelmingly, whilst I haven't agreed with every education story in the last five years and you wouldn't have expected me to, but overwhelmingly this information has informed a richer debate.
So I think that example from me shows that I am passionately committed to free speech, passionately committed to free speech, and also committed to a diversity of voices.
I think both are essential underpinnings of our democracy.
Which brings us to what the Government is actually doing.
What Government is actually doing is supporting self-regulation of print; self-regulation models that people come together in press councils and form.
The Government is not directly regulating in any way the activities of journalists.
The Government is not taking away from individual journalists the benefit of shield laws; that is simply not true.
The only thing the Government is saying is when media organisations come together to create a press council, to create a self-regulation model, that that self-regulation model should come up to certain standards.
And when it comes up to certain standards, the news organisations participating in that press council, get the benefit of the exemption under the Privacy Act.
So once again I stress that it's about news organisations, not individual journalists.
It's about self-regulation and it's about freedom of speech.
To do a comparison, there is actually a Government regulator for television stations and radio, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, and I don't hear anybody ever say that that in any way constrains freedom of speech in our TV stations or on our radio stations.
Indeed anybody who has looked at the media over the last 12 months, two years, I think would be laughed at if they suggested in any way that the existence of that Government regulator had constrained what is broadcast on news services or what is talked about on radio.
What is proposed in relation to print is much, much less than that; much, much less.
It is a self-regulation model and with self-regulation model that acquits certain standards then the exemption from the Privacy Act flows to news organisations.
What is also proposed is if there is a further consolidation in our media industry, that it be looked at by a public interest advocate to look at the diversity of voices in our media industry.
Not looked at by government but looked at by someone who is independent to take a view about what it means for diversity of media.
And just to give you a sense about the media in our nation today, in Australia, we have got two newspaper companies which deliver their services online understandably in the modern age.
They take 86 per cent of the Australian market.
If we looked at the top two newspaper companies in the US, they only take 14 per cent of the market.
In a smaller market like Canada, so comparable to us but smaller than the US, the top two newspapers take up 54 per cent of the Canadian market.
So there is a degree of concentration.
In the 1950s, there were 15 national or metro newspapers and they were owned by ten different individuals or companies in Australia.
Now we have 11 national or metro newspapers with only three owners.
Even with the advent of the Internet, and so many people get their information that way now, eight out of the nine most popular news media websites are owned or run by traditional media organisations.
Now what does that all mean?
Well I think it means that it would be appropriate, should there be further consolidation in our media industry, for someone independent of government to make an assessment about what this means for the diversity of voices in our democracy and in our debate.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Not a decision taken by government, not a decision made by government; made independently of government.
On the 75 per cent rule, there appears to be some diversity of views by media organisations about whether abolition of this rule is a good thing or a bad thing.
I don't want to make a statement about that.
What I am concerned about personally, is I do think that it is important that in regional areas of our country, to the extent possible given market dynamics, we see newsrooms providing regional news.
Now I think we have got to be common sense about this.
News organisations, private corporations, they need to make money or they can't employ people obviously.
They go out of business if they don't make money.
But, I think within the ambit of having organisations that are sustainable in what is a difficult economic environment in a world of change for media organisations, there is community concern about regional news and whether or not, if you live in a regional town in our nation, as well as hearing the news from the capital city and the news from Canberra, you can hear some of your news locally.
And those things have been very important during times of natural disaster and the like.
Which is why we thought it was appropriate that that proposal go before a parliamentary inquiry.
It can be the subject of relatively quick inquiry and report but that really is a matter for the parliamentary committee to work through.
I think it is a discrete question that could be looked at.
And then we have got a number of other questions that we'll ask the same parliamentary inquiry to look at.
JOURNALIST: Do you think media ownership at the moment is too concentrated?
PM: No, I'm just giving you a snapshot of the current facts.
JOURNALIST: The snapshot that you've given would suggest you perhaps think it is too concentrated and how do these reforms actually change that?
PM: They don't. The facts I have given you are the facts. There is no proposal from Government to change anything relating to current media arrangements in terms of ownership.
I have given you a snapshot of the facts and I have posed the question, given those facts clearly reveal we have quite a concentrated industry when we compare ourselves to comparable nations.
Canada is a pretty comparable nation; comparable in terms of population, a population our size spread across a vast land mass, we've actually got some very keen comparisons too in the nature of our economy.
So when we see that degree of concentration now, which is a fact and no-one is suggesting it be changed, I think it is appropriate that if there is to be further consolidation, that someone independent of Government ask and answer the question, ‘What does this mean for diversity of voices in our democracy?'
Full stop, nothing more.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what do you think of the front page of the newspaper referring to or relating Stephen Conroy to Stalin? Do you think that is too much?
PM: I'm going to leave that to the judgment of others. As you would see from the package I have outlined, our focus is not on Government bringing standards to news organisations to the extent that that has been appearing anywhere in the media today, that is wrong.
Our focus is on freedom of the press and self-regulation that meets appropriate standards.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the privacy provisions in this Act, surely that is the thin end of the wedge and that is the stick with which you can threaten media organisations if self-regulation doesn't measure up to standard.
Doesn't that mean that you're the first non-war Prime Minister to crack down on, to curtail the freedom of the press?
PM: That is absolute nonsense, Sid. Absolute nonsense. The media industry says to me that they believe in self-regulation, well tick, so do I.
If you're going to have self-regulation, then it seems to me it should be self-regulation that works.
I don't know if the media industry is suggesting you should have self-regulation that fails.
So if the media industry is saying they should have self-regulation that works, I agree with that too, that is good.
So we, I think, then need to ensure that there are models of self-regulation that work. And we know that with the current patterns of self-regulation, we have had media organisations come in and out of press councils to take one example.
What is being suggested here is media self-regulates, the self-regulation needs to come up to a standard, that is not an individual standard for a media company, it is not a standard that's specified for what X or Y or Z media companies should be.
It is a standard for the operation of the council, the self-regulation. The press council created or any press council created should come up to this standard in its workings.
And if it comes up to this standard in its workings and its workings happen absolutely independently of Government with no influence, if it comes up to this standard in its workings, then people get the benefit of the privacy exemption and that benefit flows to the news organisations.
This is not the shield laws which protect individual journalists.
So when you say you, I would have absolutely nothing to do with it and neither I should.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, who sets the standards, the Government?
PM: No, the independently appointed public interest advocate sets the standards away from-
JOURNALIST: Who appoints the advocate?
PM: We would in line with the best of what I referred to as the Nolan principles; we would appoint that person in consultation with the Opposition.
JOURNALIST: Does that give the Government control over the advocate?
PM: If you were going to pursue that then you would have to pursue the argument that the Government controls the judiciary because we appoint judges.
I don't hear that argument routinely pursued in our democracy and neither it should be, because there is no evidence, no evidence, anywhere, that despite the fact that we appoint High Court judges, which we do, that we somehow get beneficial decisions from them.
If anything, the life of this Government would show we have gone to the High Court and come back a few times with a bit of a bloody nose.
So we've appointed High Court judges, they act responsibly completely independently of Government.
I think it is possible to appoint someone of integrity and good faith who acts independently of Government, the way our judges do and to give maximum rigour to the appointment, we would go to the maximum extent of the known principles, called the Nolan principles, where you consult the Opposition about the appointment.
JOURNALIST: But you do appoint judges, the High Court is a bench of judges and there are dissenting views. This is one individual who will have incredible powers.
What sort of apparatus will there be there and also oversight of this individual's decision-making?
PM: I think you are over-egging it to be frank.
What this individual will do is set the standards for the way in which a press council should work.
So they might go to things like - and this is entirely a matter for them so I am just floating ideas here, this is in no way binding on the person.
When they are appointed they might well say something entirely different.
But they would go to things like how much notice an organisation would need to give to leave a press council because if you're going to self-regulate, then it is not very good practice if a media organisation that thinks it might be about to get an adverse decision pulls out of the organisation before the decision is made.
Adverse decision not made by Government, not made by the public interest advocate, made by the press council.
So simple things like that, that ensure a self-regulation model has got some rigour about it.
Remember the standards are not standards for journalists, they are not standards for newspapers, they are not standards for media organisations, they are standards for the operation of the press council or any press council.
JOURNALIST: Can you give us an example of self-regulation where it hasn't worked?
PM: Well, I think when you look across - I am not pursuing a personal case here so you would need to ask people who have taken up something with the press council and who have thought that there wasn't a satisfactory dealing with it.
I think you would be aware that because there obviously have been some concerns in the past about the operation of the press council, that there has been a move over the last few years to increasing rigour in the press council.
I think that is a good thing and media organisations have participated in that, presumably because they thought there needed to be change.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you mentioned judges before, about how the Government doesn't interfere in the operation of judges, but there is a Westminster tradition that Government doesn't interfere in the operation of judges.
There is no Westminster tradition that says that the Government can't sack a public servant or a department head. And also isn't there a Westminster tradition of freedom of the press and isn't this measure potentially undermining that?
PM: Absolutely not, no. Government every day appoints people to statutory positions where they have independence and where their tenure is guaranteed apart from very limited circumstances like being convicted of a criminal offence or becoming bankrupt.
You would be aware of the many, many pieces of legislation that create statutory office holders of that nation, in our political system, our system of government and have done so over the ages, nothing to do with this Government.
You could go right back, any Government you want to name.
People like the head of the ACCC. Is anybody seriously suggesting, it is seriously being contended by anyone that when Government has made appointments of that nature that somehow the people involved haven't been fully professional and fully independent?
Can anybody sustain a case against the current head of the ACCC or past heads of the ACCC? That is just one example.
But if that is being done, right and well over time by Governments of different persuasions, appointing people into the job, it seems to logically follow to me that of course this can be done well and in order to do it well there would be consultation with the Opposition.
So if there was a slightest whiff of political controversy about the nature of the appointment, then I am very sure indeed that all of you here would report that uphill and down dale and it would become exercising your absolutely untrammelled freedom of the press and that would become a very big political issue and a very big political crisis.
JOURNALIST: Members of your backbench and frontbench today have expressed concerns about the protesters in Question Time yesterday.
I think every one of them this morning was really pointing the finger of blame at Tony Abbott for creating this culture, whereby protesters can call out from the galleries. Do you agree with that?
PM: I think Mr Abbott has made it his business as Leader of the Opposition to be recklessly negative and to bring into Australian politics the tactics of the Tea Party in the United States of America.
That is what the people's revolt and his call for it was all about.
He wanted to create a culture where abusing Parliament, heaping abuse on Parliament, being disrespectful towards Parliament was viewed as standard practice each and every day.
Well if you go out and create that culture it is unsurprising that some people then reflect and mimic that culture.
JOURNALIST: Darren Chester yesterday said he's tired of the public (inaudible) on you, and wants it to stop. Are you tired of it yourself?
PM: I am not going to get into a debate about what people say about me.
At the end of the day, I don't care and people can make their judgments about the people who say those things.
JOURNALIST: Can I ask about tweeting in Parliament? Anna Burke could potentially restrict politicians from tweeting during Question Time, what is your reaction to that?
PM: So you will be taking that up as a freedom for the media issue presumably, given it's the issue of the day.
Look, I don't want to prejudge a statement that the Speaker may or may not make today.
I was not physically present in the Parliament yesterday when this issue was canvassed post Question Time.
I understand from reading today's media that she may make a statement today, but she's an independent Speaker and that is entirely a matter for her.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, on the budget, Barclays Australia forecast a $20 billion deficit for this financial year compared to the $1 billion surplus you forecast last year.
Should we, in the updated budget in two months' time, expect a blow-out of that magnitude?
PM: I don't want to disappointment you but you will see the updated budget in two months' time, in two months' time.
Thanks very much.