STANLEY: The Prime Minister joins us in the studio for the first time in 2010. Prime Minister, good morning.
PM: Good morning. Thanks for having me on the program.
ALOISI: Nice of you to come here. The My School website, it crashed several times yesterday. I notice the Deputy Prime Minister said it was because of the unprecedented demand. Do you think it's because have really been thirsting for this kind of knowledge?
PM: I think that's true, and Julia's absolutely right. I think they planned it for one million, 1.7 million, visitors. By mid-afternoon, Julia told me we had 4.5 million hits. Obviously, that's a bigger number than individual visitors because an individual visitor will go to the website a couple of times. That's fine, but it's huge. If you've a population of 21 million people, that is a lot of people looking at this, and that's because parents want to know how their school's performing. You only get once chance at the education of your kid, and therefore you want to make sure that you've got the best being provided in your school.
ALOISI: Parents are happy, but clearly teachers are not. What do you think about the fact they're probably going to take some sort of action to show the Government how unhappy they are?
PM: Well unions will do what unions will do. We think we've got this absolutely right. That is, that parents have a legitimate interest in knowing how they're school is performing on reading, on writing, on grammar, on spelling, this basic stuff. And we've been crying out, I think, as school communities, for this for years and years and years and years and now it's happening.
The point you raised before is, let's just say you find that from the My School website that you've got a problem with your school, that it's got a low score when it comes to literacy, a low score with numeracy - rather than just getting upset about it, what can you do about it? That's the key question here.
The good thing about the My School website - it gives you a tool for understanding what's going right and what's going wrong with your school community or with the performance of your school. But what we've done also is allocated $2 billion to assist disadvantaged schools right across the country with specific interventions possible for literacy and numeracy programs tailored on individual schools, so it's not just 'here's an identification of the problem' and there's nothing then to deal with the problem. What Julia will roll out during the course of this year is a response to the individual circumstances which are presented, and that's as it should be.
STANLEY: Have you looked at your school, your old schools?
PM: I've looked at Nambour High in Queensland.
STANLEY: How did it come up?
PM: There are a few challenges there at Nambour High. Mind you, there were a few challenges back when I went to school there, too. It's a school of about 1,300 or 1,400 kids in regional Queensland. I went to Eumundi Primary School. We had 100 kids there, it's got 300 kids now, it's got a few challenges as well. But if I was on the P&C of either of those schools today, I would be grateful for the information, because it enables you to see how you are performing relative to schools like yours around the country and around the state, and secondly what then therefore need to do to lift your grade.
STANLEY: Yeah, because later in the website's going to changed so more of the information will be out. We'll know more about how much money is going in to private schools in particular. Isn't that going to add to the pressure, where some of these private schools charging huge fees, getting a lot of money from the Federal Government and not producing any better results than comprehensive schools down the road?
PM: And what a wonderful thing transparency is, when we have all this stuff out there. I mean, the test is common across Year 3, Year 5, Year 7, Year 9 across the country and we get to find out what's happening in individual schools of a similar socio-economic background on the one hand, and factoring in how much money is going to those school as well, from the Federal Government, from the State Government and then from private sources. So the next version of My School will add this new, additional piece of information - how much money is going to that school.
STANLEY: Won't that lead to the argument that too much money from the Federal Government is going into private schools, certainly the big private schools?
PM: I reckon where we're going to end up with this is, we're going to have a situation where every school community can wrestle with their own challenges, work out their own solutions and we the Government, will be creative partners with them in their individual circumstances. It's all about being locally accountable to parents, to your local school community. I think that's fantastic.
It's the first building block to what we've called now for some years the education revolution - investing in the quantity of money in improving our schools, like this huge school modernisation program we've got running across the country at the moment, $16 billion investment in new libraries, in new language centres, new science centres. That's one thing.
Improving the quality of our education is equally important. I notice though, the Liberal education spokesman has described the thing today as a complete failure, a white elephant, a failure, and does nothing that's useful. I assume therefore, the Liberals say that they would scrap this thing. I reckon this is a huge step forward. We are all about holding local schools accountable for their performance. I would have though that's the smart way to go for Australia's future.
ALOISI: Does it concern you that the Sydney Morning Herald has published comparative data today on the schools? It's had a look at the website, pulled out the schools that are doing well, pulled out the schools, perhaps, that are not doing as well. Does that worry you, that some schools might be pilloried if they're not performing as well as others?
PM: I'm all for transparency, and here in New South Wales there's been this extraordinary debate in the State Parliament over whether, in fact, media outlets should be able to produce this information. I can't, for the life of me, understand why the state Liberals would side with the Greens and the local teachers' union to block full transparency. You're putting less information out there for the public. I just don't get it.
From our point of view, the more publicity about schools performances, the better. We've got to be fair about it, because teachers in different parts of the state, different parts of the city, have got local challenges. But you know something? We've got to get with the future. One chance to educate your kids - and his is all about getting that transparency right, performance right, boosting the basics and then supporting those school communities with challenges, with real resources to make a difference.
STANLEY: Prime Minister, a lot of criticism of you in the last six weeks or so that since you came -
PM: How unusual.
STANLEY: Since you came back from Copenhagen you haven't said a lot about climate change and the ETS, so what is your position now? Are you sticking by the legislation you had in the parliament, or are you prepared to compromise with the Greens or others to get something happening on climate change?
PM: Our position's absolutely clear cut. I am partly surprised by the question. We haven't changed and we're not for changing. First of all, we accept the science of climate change. It's happening. Secondly, Australia is the hottest and driest continent, or one of them, on Earth - must act, because our fundamental interests are at stake.
And thirdly, our way of dealing with it is through an emissions trading scheme, a carbon pollution reduction scheme, and that legislation will be re-introduced to the parliament.
STANLEY: To deal with it you've got to get the numbers in the Senate.
PM: Sure
STANLEY: You'll never get 'em.
PM: But let's see, when we put this legislation into the parliament, let's see how the other mob respond. Mr Abbott has had five different positions on the emissions trading scheme. In his book that he wrote only a year ago, this is a book, he said he actually thought that the emissions trading scheme was the most cost-effective way to go. Now he's going to oppose it fully, he says. Then we have Mr Turnbull, who says he'll be crossing the floor, some Liberal senators may cross the floor. Let's see how this turns out. But our position is clear.
STANLEY: So Ross Garnaut's proposal, the proposal of the Greens, you're not prepared to look at that yet?
PM: Look, we have always said that with any political party we will have good faith discussions and negotiations about trying to get stuff through the Parliament, but we did that last year. We got Mr Turnbull on side, we got more than half the Coalition on side, and then what do they do? They roll the leader. So this is a pretty volatile old party. And remember, your question about us is what's our position on climate change? Very clear cut -
STANLEY: Oh, I know what your position is, but you've got to get the numbers, though, that's the thing.
PM: Well, I've just said we have a clear policy. We have legislation to put our emissions trading scheme through. Mr Howard, Mr Costello, Mr Turnbull, all backed it, and Mr Abbott, prior to becoming leader, backed it. And now we have Mr Abbott who says, to use his own language, that climate change is "absolute crap". There's a pretty clear distinction here.
ALOISI: Speaking of Mr Abbott, he's copped a fair bit of criticism this week over the interview he gave to the Woman's Weekly where he described what sort of advice he'd give to his daughters regarding sex before marriage. Do you agree with him?
PM: Absolutely not, my view is that these are entirely personal matters, and therefore young people should make their own informed choices. That's always been our view, and in young people making their own choices about their own, you know, sex lives, that's just a matter for them. They can seek counsel from their parents, seek counsel from their friends, the people they respect, but this is a choice. It is an important choice which people make in their lives, but it's a very personal choice.
STANLEY: Because my reading of the story was he simply said he'd tell his daughters not to undertake sex for the first time lightly. Well, isn't that the advice you'd give your daughters?
PM: You know something? When I say these are personal matters, it means I'm not in the business of providing public advice to anybody, including my kids - public advice, that is. So, Mr Abbott, he can answer for himself. I'm just saying I have a different approach. These are personal matters, and as Prime Minister of the country, my job is to provide leadership on climate change, leadership on the national economy, leadership on health and hospitals reform. That's where I think political leadership should be, rather than in the business of providing public positions on these personal, moral questions.
ALOISI: Just quickly, we had your partner in crime here last week, Rhys Muldoon, talking about how you collaborated on the new book together.
PM: I don't have any partners in crime.
ALOISI: What was that like? Was that fun?
PM: It was, actually. It was a lot of fun. It was Rhys' idea, so I can't claim any originality. And he said 'why don't we do a kids' book about the animals?', and so I asked Jasper and Abby how they felt about it and -
STANLEY: They responded?
PM: They responded.
ALOISI: Should we be worried that the Prime Minister is speaking to some animals and they're responding?
STANLEY: I'm worried?
PM: Well, I was going to give you the response.
ALOISI: Please
PM: Two taps yes, one tap no with the front paw. It's like Mr Ed. Remember Mr Ed?
ALOISI: I do remember Mr Ed.
STANELY: I do remember Mr Ed.
PM: It's been a lot of fun, but the money's all going to a children's centre for health research and I think it's good. It's been on sale. Go to your nearest bookstore - Jasper and Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle. 26 pages, illustrations are good, and I 'gotta say that Rhys is the creative inspiration for this. I'm just the also-ran.
ALOISI: I love that, the Prime Minister doing an ad.
STANLEY: Could you do some more for us? Actually, I want to hear you. You just said them over there, you've got lots of partners in crime. Are there any others you'd like to tell us about?
PM: Not on this particular interview, no.
STANLEY: Another time. Come in and take some calls.
PM: If you've got an investigative section, perhaps.
ALOISI: Any time, any time.
STANLEY: Thank you.
PM: It's been good to be on the program.
ALOISI: Thank you, Prime Minister. Look forward to speaking to you again.
PM: Thank you.