ALOISI: The Prime Minister is on the line. Good morning Prime Minister.
PM: Good morning. Thanks for having me on the program.
CARLTON: Thank You. Who's your toughest opponent, the entrenched teaching unions or the State Governments that are supported by them?
PM: Well look, I hope good sense prevails with all of this because what's the starting point: How do you provide the best quality education in schools for Australia's kids? That's what got to be the starting point and what we are saying is, as the Australian Government, we are prepared to significantly increase our funding to the States and Territories for quality education, quality teaching and for funding for our most disadvantaged schools. But we are not going to do so as a blank cheque, we are going to do so on the basis of conditions attached.
Now the opposition to this I'm sure will come from multiple quarters and I'm sure some of the unions may be unhappy with this, but it think this is absolutely necessary to invest more in our kids, in our teachers for the future but to make sure that there are conditions attached. And that's about boosting the quality of school education.
CARLTON: The teaching unions though have opposed every educational reform since the invention of chalk and blackboards haven't they? They are going to give you a big fight on this one?
PM: Well there maybe a bit of argy bargy on the way through, I think that's fair to say Mike. But I think its time to do this. I notice the Liberals were saying that they had come up with some of these ideas in the past. Well that's terrific, 12 years in Government, 24 reports on boosting quality education in our schools and quality teaching, not much to show for it in terms of real action.
I think its time to get on with this and we are prepared to have an argument if that's necessary because I think tough decisions are necessary for the long term. You can't simply allow our kids to be in schools which are consistently underperforming. We have got to do something about that.
Our teachers are our greatest asset, and what we are trying to do here is how do you provide greater rewards and incentives for our best teachers to stay into the system? How do you provide more incentives and rewards for our best university graduates to go into teaching? And how do we make sure that our schools are properly reporting to parents and to students and to the wider community about how they are going.
ALOISI: John Hatzistergos who is the acting Education Minister in NSW says he doesn't support funding tied to reporting on schools. So, if states continue to say to you we don't like the idea, will you just overrule them?
PM: Well what I said yesterday at the National Press Club when I released this is that we prepared to boost funding, boost funding significantly, but it won't be a blank cheque. And so its a matter for States and Territories whether they want to take the boosted funding or not. That's what is on the line here.
CARLTON: In other words, toe the line or you don't get the money?
PM: That's getting close to it Mike.
CARLTON: I thought it might be
ALOISI: That might be actually on the money. What about the Teacher's Federation Prime Minister, here in NSW, it also says your just adding school-watch to FuelWatch and grocery-watch and nothing more will come of it?
PM: Well you know something, I'd say to our good friends in the Teacher's Federation of New South Wales, it's time to get with the 21st century. And on this stuff, these are important reforms. You see, people have talked about this for far too long, which is how do we properly reward our teachers? How do we properly encourage our best university graduates to become teachers? How do we properly empower our school principals and our school leaders to make the decision within schools to boost their performance, particularly the education outcomes for the kids? And how do we do that in a practical way which links extra funding with increasingly transparent reporting on how those go? That's what it's about.
CARLTON: Okay, but don't you run the danger of comparing apples with oranges? I mean let's take Killara High School on Sydney's North Shore. Leafy, affluent they speak one language, English and they speak it very well. They do extraordinarily well. Another school in Sydney's Western suburbs are battling, kids speak 23 different languages, parents hard working but having trouble making ends meet. How do you compare the performance of those two schools?
PM: Well Mike, obviously, and I can fully understand why you chose not to watch my address to the National Press Club.
CARLTON:I was absorbed with every golden word, Prime Minister.
PM: I'm sure you had more entertaining things to do and I can understand that. But I actually addressed this head on.
You can either have what we describe as crude league tables, and I use the example of looking at a elite school on Sydney's north shore versus a school in outer suburban Australia or in regional and rural Australia, which has got a different set of challenges.
So therefore what do you do about that? A couple of things. First of all make sure that each school in itself has a proper reporting benchmark and framework for the performance that its got to make and improve against its local conditions, that's the first thing.
Secondly, we think it's right that schools with similar challenges, if you like a similar social economic profile around the country, are in time compared with each other. For example a school that you referred to in western Sydney which has got 26 languages or 62 languages in the playground, and a whole bunch of families who are out there working hard and some really struggling hard. Well, we understand fully that they are quite different to some schools which are in more fortuitous economic circumstances. We should be able to compare those schools which are in western Sydney with other schools which have a got a similar socio economic profile.
And finally, what parents want is in a particular geographical area, just say within a wider suburban area, they would like to be able to know how one school is going against the other and we think that's a fair thing too.
These are where we want to go to, not crude league tables which compare Geelong Grammar down in Melbourne with Nambour High which is where I went to.
CARLTON: Fine school Prime Minister, fine school. Produced you and the Treasurer, it can't have been all bad.
PM: No, it was a great school, but its got a different set of, shall we say ‘challenges', than Geelong Grammar.
But we are therefore moving towards a system where you can compare more effectively apples with apples. And we take the point you can't compare apples with oranges and that's what crude league tables were all about.
ALOISI: Can I ask a question Prime Minister, not related to this but when I mentioned the Teachers Federation, talking about adding school-watch to FuelWatch and grocery-watch.
Keeping the Teacher's Federation out of it, is there are perception do you think among Australians that your Government was elected to help us get out of some tough economic times and that not a lot has been done other than several reviews?
PM: Well the Government has been in office now for a little less than nine months and what we are dealing with is the overhang of a fair bit of inaction for the previous 12 years.
But let me tell you on the question of the economy, what we have been wrestling with is the fact that when we took over Government we had inflation running at 16 year highs, we had 10 interest rates rises under Mr Costello and Mr Howard in a row, giving us the second highest interest rates in the western world, that's what we took over nine months ago.
Since then, we have brought down one Budget and as our best preparation for the future, we've done two things. A $22 billion budget surplus to give us a buffer in uncertain global economic times, and secondly, delivered on our pre-election tax cuts for working families as well as ensure that we increased the child care tax rebate from 30 per cent to 50 per cent, as well as introduce an education tax refund for working families and an initial payment of an extra $7.5 billion for pensioners, carers and those on the disability support pension.
ALOISI: But people are still doing it tough out there?
PM: Absolutely, absolutely - and I understand that full well. Which is why in the case of pensioners for example, for the first time in a decade we are having a root and branch look at how the pension is put together and how payments to pensioners in the future can be put onto a more secure footing.
CARLTON: When are you going to get an answer? I mean there's a proposal this morning for raising the single pension rate, which is real battle, are you gonna do that?
PM: Is it a real battle, and that's one of the things we are specifically looking it in the context of the Henry Commission of Review on the future of tax, income support and retirement incomes including the pension. And, for example -
CARLTON: Yeah, but reform of the entire tax system is a large job. Sticking up the pension is a little easier isn't it? Couldn't you do something about that?
PM: Well we are talking these things in stages, and that's why the Henry Review itself is not due for a full report back until the end of 2009. But in the case of its report back on pensions we've asked them to come back as of February next year which is about six months away.
ALOISI: And will a decision be made soon after? I have a vested interest. I have a elderly parents both of who have said to me if one of them goes the single persons pension is just too small for them to live on.
PM: Well, we hear that message loud and clear. And can I say, having been in Government for nine months, looking at a system which wants touched fundamentally for 12 years, and costs of living pressure didn't suddenly materialise in the last nine months, this has been ratcheting up for a long, long time and therefore we are determined to act in this area,.
But we are going to do so in a proper and considered way because the total amount of monies which the Commonwealth spends each year on pensions runs to the tens of billions of dollars, and therefore we have got to make sure we get it right.
CARLTON: Are you going to have a real battle getting your programs through this new Senate?
PM: Well, it's matter for the Liberals in the Senate really. We are in uncertain global economic times. Therefore, we believe that the right course of action is to make sure that we have a robust Budget surplus going into the future because we need that buffer for the future.
What the Liberals have done is basically go into the completely irresponsible mode of saying that what they intend to do is to pull billions and billions of dollars out of the surplus.
The worst thing you can do in the globally uncertain times that we face is to take action like that because what it does is, it actually puts upward pressure on inflation and upward pressure on interest rates and the Libs gave us 10 interest rate rises in a row. We are trying to turn things around and this is absolutely irresponsible for them to do in the pursuit of short term politics.
ALOISI: Okay Prime Minister. Thank you for your time this morning.
PM: Thanks for having us on the program.
CARLTON: Thanks very much indeed.