PRIME MINISTER
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING, MP
RESPONSE TO CIVICS EXPERT GROUP REPORT, 6 JUNE 1995
Thank you for your invitation to address this conference today. Your
discussions concern matters of great importance to Australia, and I am as
grateful for your interest in them as I am for the invitation.
That we set in train the process which has led to this investment in Civics
Education gives me great satisfaction. From the Government's point of view
it has been a special project: and it is one which has already produced
considerable rewards.
The big returns will come later of course: but to have received a report of
such quality from the Civics Expert Group and so promptly, and to have
generated such interest, activity and good-will has made this a particularly
gratifying initiative.
Sometimes in politics at least in the politics of reform you strike a seam
immediately. I have no doubt that we have struck one with Civics Education.
The response is proof of an urgent need better still, the report and your
presence here, proves that we have the capacity to deal with it.
One hundred years ago, the Australian people were engaged in a debate of
great moment. Whether the peoples of six separate colonies could find within
themselves the courage and confidence to come together as one nation one
indissoluble Federal Commonwealth.
These Australians were also engaged with the worst drought in Australia's
history, the worst depression, the most traumatic strikes and lockouts and
the usual business of living. They nevertheless found that it was possible to
cope with these oppressive circumstances and still carry out their democratic
responsibilities.
Their general education levels were much lower than those of today's
Australians: their means of personal advancement were much more limited.
The imperatives of daily life were at least as demanding. Yet they made a
decision about the future of Australia. They made a responsible political
decision, an informed decision what we would call these days, a visionary
decision. While their political leaders attended conventions to thrash out their
differences and frame a federated Australia, around the continent ordinary
Australians talked about it in their homes and work places, in the pub and at
the races.
And when the referendum was put to them, they voted for the " one
indissoluble Commonwealth" of Australia.
From where we now stand one hundred years later that appears to have been
a most enlightened decision. What is more, on the basis of evidence which
the Civics Expert Group has discovered, we are justified in wondering
whether, with all their educational advantages and opportunities, our own
generation of Australians know as much about the virtues of democracy and
the potential of Australia as those of the 1890s. I suspect they don't.
That is not a reflection on Australians, but on our education systems. It may
also be a comment on the modern condition. There is no doubt that in
Australia, as elsewhere in the developed world, many people, especially
young people, are alienated from their political system and from their past.
We have to correct this. Governments alone cannot put meaning and
purpose into the lives of the young but they can help. They can certainly help
create the conditions in which faith might flourish. If you teach history well
you can help young people believe that they have a part in the nation's story.
If you teach politics well you can help them to feel engaged. You can help
them to feel that they have influence. We can help young people and
migrants discover their attachment to this country and its traditions, and give
them hope about its future and theirs. We can help them see that in the
fulfilment of their hopes lies the hope of the country.
Before the Civics Expert Group attempted to set down what Australians
should know about our system of government, they sought to find out what
Australians already know.
The results of the Group's research are distressing. Of the Australians
interviewed: Only 19% showed any understanding of the effect of federation on
Australia's system of government.
Only 18% displayed any understanding of the content of the Constitution
Only 40% could correctly recall the names of both federal houses of
parliament. Only 24% knew that the Senate represents the States.
Only 28% perceived judicial independence.
And only 33% felt reasonably informed about the rights and
responsibilities of Australian citizens.
It is clear that the archive of civic knowledge is close to empty.
And it would seem that our education systems are doing very little to re-fill it.
I have been told about a survey in Victoria which reveals that the number of
Year Twelve students studying Australian history has fallen from 42 per cent
in 1972 to 6 per cent in 1993 and it is still falling. The same sort of pattern
reveals itself in the numbers studying politics.
Now, I probably don't have to tell this audience that we are currently engaged
in a much more modest undertaking than that of our predecessors one
hundred years ago. We are not creating a nation and writing a constitution
for it. We want no more than to persuade Australians that their head of state,
and the head of state they bequeath to the Australians of the twenty first
century, should be an Australian.
Remarkably enough, there are some in positions of political leadership who
find themselves unable to share this ambition or support us in our efforts.
This is making a relatively simple step a more complicated one and I
sometimes think we should give thanks that these people were not our
leaders in the 1890s.
By contrast we can give thanks to Stuart Maclntyre, Susan Pascoe, Ken
Boston and all those people gathered here who want to see Australian
democracy advance. Who want to see our young people learn enough about
Australia's history, traditions, values and institutions to feel that they have a
stake in our future and can play a part in shaping it.
The report of the Civics Expert Group, Whereas the People, may yet prove to
be the means by which we find the way to engage them.
As I said when I first received it, this Report is a credit to its authors.
It is also an invitation to Australian governments, and a challenge to the
Australian people.
In responding to Whereas the People I think we should set ourselves a
national goal. Not one that will be easily measured, admittedly; but one
which, if we come close to achieving it, will pay obvious dividends. I think we
should dedicate ourselves to seeing that by the end of the century the
Australian people know as much about their country and are no less engaged
in its political life than their counterparts a century ago.
A comprehensive civics and citizenship education program is the best start
we can have.
We can give young Australians a knowledge of their past and a sense of
where they belong in the story. We can tell them about the gift of Australian
democracy and how it should be defended. We can imbue them with a faith
in the core values of Australia not a conformist ideology, but an awareness
of the principles of freedom and tolerance which are still emerging in our
community. If we can do this we can help to keep ownership of the Australian political
system with the Australian people. We can keep the democracy alive and
that old value of egalitarianism functioning and with new meaning, with
women and new migrants and Aboriginal Australians included in the ethos
that used to keep them out.
Let me tell you the Government regards Civics Education as one of its major
initiatives. In a tight budget we have provided $ 25 million for a civics and
citizenship education program in line with the expert group's
recommendation. The program spans all formal education sectors and the
broader community.
The centrepiece is $ 20.26 million for a program of Civics Education in
Schools, to be administered in close cooperation with State and Territory
Governments. The Expert Group said that schools are the key to this undertaking. The
Government agrees.
It should be an essential part of each child's education to learn about the
privileges and responsibilities of being Australian.
That does not mean an exercise in ideology, but lessons in democracy and
history. Civics, properly taught, is no more political than Maths or English or
Woodwork. And it is just as fundamental; in a society like ours it is just as
important.
The Government does not pretend that it will be easy to create an effective
schools civics program. As the Expert Group reminded us, other programs
have withered on the vine.
The challenge for the Curriculum Corporation is to develop a program which
is practical, comprehensive and engaging. It will have to look to the new
media for assistance and we welcome that.
But there will never be a substitute for good teaching, and the $ 5.2 million we
are spending on the professional development of teachers of Civics is
essential. It must all be a cooperative effort. School education is primarily
the responsibility of the States and Territories, and we look forward to
working with them.
The Government will also be providing $ 2.4 million over four years to produce
materials on civics for citizenship applicants and to develop voluntary civics
and citizenship education courses for those who want to become Australian
citizens. There is also $ 2.3 million for community education initiatives, to be
administered by a committee with expertise in Australian culture, heritage and
government. Let me close these brief remarks by thanking all those who have contributed
to the Expert Group's report, this conference and what we might now
reasonably call a civics movement.
I said that I have the feeling we have struck a seam: there is no doubt about
the need for civics education, and equally no doubt that both educators and
parents want to meet that demand.
The Expert Group consulted widely and consultation will be a feature of the
Government's civics program. For more than three months we have taken
submissions on the findings of the Expert Group. Almost all of them have
been supportive.
My colleague, the Minister for Employment Education and Training, has
briefed all State and Territory Education Ministers on the Government's
package. And we now propose a series of consultations, of which this forum
is the first, to bring other key groups into the planning process.
This is a large investment in our children, our democracy and our future.
And I thank you all for contributing to it.
Most of the reward is in the giving. But posterity will bequeath a small one
too. As the Australians of the twenty first century look back on the 1990s they
will see that a democratic spirit was alive and well in Australia as it had been
a century before.
And it is not unreasonable to think that, like us when we look back on the
1890s, they might draw a bit of inspiration from it and be grateful that we
invested in Civics Education.