Subjects: possible protests at World Economic Forum; school funding
E&OE................................
JOURNALIST:
Are you concerned about the recruitment of children to protest outside the World Economic Forum?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I am and I think all responsible Australians will utterly condemn that and there's a very heavy responsibility on education authorities, both government and independent, to ensure that the efforts of political agitators to involve school students in protests do not succeed. Most Australians think that school students should be at school during school hours and not involved in political protests. That's not in any way denying the importance of an understanding of political debate as part of the school curriculum. But there is plenty of time after school to be involved in those activities and I think the idea of school students as young as 14 being recruited for these activities is something that Australians right across the political spectrum will energetically reject. And I hope that the Victorian education authorities see to it that schools do not cooperate in any way in promoting the recruitment of their students.
JOURNALIST:
What would be your message to parents of these protestors?
PRIME MINISTER:
Make sure that your children are not sucked into them. Parents have a responsibility but so do schools and so do governments because governments run the bulk of the schools and school communities have a responsibility. This is just an insidious attempt by in many cases people who want to involve, for their own purposes, students rather than legitimately promoting debate and differences of expression within the community.
JOURNALIST:
More broadly how concerned are you at some of the tactics and objects of the s11 protestors?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Michael I support lawful protests and lawful dissent. I always have, it's part of the democratic way. But when you're dealing with underage school children you have some kind of pastoral responsibility as a government and as a community to see that they're not exploited and that's why I'm against it. More generally people have a right providing they're not violent and providing they don't stop the rest of the community going about their business, I accept the right of people to legitimately protest. I thought the violence employed in Seattle was abominable. It achieved nothing other than to disgust a lot of people. Governments will never be deterred by violent behaviour. They will only be influenced by reasoned debate and reasoned argument. There's a World Economic Forum here in Melbourne. It's designed to promote intelligent debate on economic development. If people have different points of view they should participate in the forum and put them in the proper fashion. To the extent that that occurs then that's wholly to be welcomed and wholly legitimate and it's something that I hope is the attitude that people who disagree with the current economic approaches take.
JOURNALIST:
[Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't comment about security matters.
JOURNALIST:
Labor and the Democrats indicated overnight that they'd like to amend your draft bill, and the independent schools have said this morning that if that were to happen it would disrupt planning for next year. Is the government going to fight..?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am concerned and one of the reasons I'm concerned is that the whole purpose of those changes was to get more government funding into the lower income independent schools. I mean it's counterproductive what the Dems and the Labor Party are talking about. If they delay it they'll be hurting the poorer independent schools. They won't be hurting what they choose to call the so-called elite independent schools. I think it's just a silly a petulant response on their behalf. The original reaction of people was very favourable and I think they should go back and reexamine what they're intending to do.
I mean we are in favour of choice, we are in favour of a fair go for people in government schools and a fair go for people in the great variety of independent schools. And I repeat the changes that we're making to the funding formula will advantage the more poorly resourced independent schools, not the reverse which the Labor Party and the Dems seem to be implying.
JOURNALIST:
You spoke in the speech a lot about the importance of teaching as a profession. Last week you received the Batterham report urging some more attention to increasing science teaching. How concerned are you about that and what sort of response is the government planning?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Michael it's an important part of the forward horizon as far as the government is concerned and as far as the community is concerned. Teaching is an important profession and it's a very honourable one and it's got a very important place in the future of Australia. The great bulk of teachers of course are employed outside the control of the federal government except in a very indirect funding sense. As far as the report is concerned we'll be giving a response towards the end of the year to the Innovation Summit and a number of other things. And I have studied fairly closely what he's had to say. He's a person who's doing a great job as the chief scientist and I value his advice particularly through the Prime Minister's Science and Engineering Council.
JOURNALIST:
Are you concerned that the weakness of the Australian dollar will, the current weakness will boost up inflation?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't talk about the value of the dollar.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't talk about the value of the dollar.
JOURNALIST:
.Melbourne Grammar is one of the beneficiaries, a direct beneficiary of that bill. It actually will receive $1.3 million...
PRIME MINISTER:
You have to look at the total package and you will find that in aggregate there is a shift of resources to the less endowed independent schools.
[Ends]