PETER GARRETT MINISTER FOR EDUCATION : MR FACING BOTH WAYS 23 sEPTEMBER 2010

AUSTRALIAN COUNCIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

PRESS RELEASE 398

PETER GARRETT, THE NEW MINISTER FOR EDUCATION:

MR FACING BOTH WAYS?

23 September 2010

The appointment of Peter Garrett as Federal Minister for Schools was the culmination of an interesting election result for supporters of public education. For the first time for decades, their votes did not put in power an ALP government that would sell out public education to the sectarian school interest. On the contrary, their votes have placed that government on a knife edge.

Yet, what did Julia Gillard do? Appoint Peter Garrett, a minister with an extraordinarily compromised track record in the portfolio of his passion, namely the Environment – as Minister for schools. DOGS note that education is not his major interest, there is no evidence of a commitment to public education, and he is Minister for Schools, not Education.

So here we have a government with few if any commitments to few if any policies, looking over the shoulder at possible interest groups they are too timid to offend. Well, perhaps Julia and Peter should start looking at the public school vote that left them for the Greens in the last election.

Peter Garrett spent his childhood in Wahroonga, the oldest of three boys who all attended Barker College. His father died while he was still at school and his mother died in a fire at the family home during his university years.

He has three daughters who attended public schools at the primary, but private schools at the secondary level. So there is little or no evidence of commitment to the public system of education.

He first entered the federal parliament in October 2004 and was re-elected at the 2010 election for Kingsford Smith, New South Wales. He was sworn into his new portfolio, as Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth on 14 September 2010.

His appointment was met with a level of disbelief by the mainstream media. But it was the change of name of his portfolio from’’ Education to ‘Schools’’ which caused the greatest concern.

In his previous portfolio there was a long record of back flips. These can be listed as follows:

· ^ "PM - Peter Garrett back flips on Pine Gap". Abc.net.au. http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1129238.htm. Retrieved 2010-06-25.

· ^ Heywood, Lachlan. "Power Beats Passion", The Courier-Mail. 12 December 2006.

· ^ The Daily Telegraph 1 April 2007: Garrett denies selling out beliefs. Retrieved 15 April 2007.

· ^ "Politics is a team sport". Eureka Street. http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=3575. Retrieved 2010-06-25.

· ^ "Brown sees red over Garrett 'sell out' - National". smh.com.au. 2006-11-29. http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/brown-sees-red-over-garrett-sell-out/2006/11/29/1164476260282.html. Retrieved 2010-06-25.

· ^ ALP (10 December 2006). "Shadow Ministry 10 December 2006" (PDF). Labor eHerald. http://eherald.alp.org.au/download/now/shadow_ministry.pdf. Retrieved 15 December 2007.

· ^ "Garrett pathetic over pulp mill: Howard". The Sydney Morning Herald. 9 October 2007. http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Garrett-pathetic-over-pulp-mill-Howard/2007/10/09/1191695881328.html. Retrieved 5 November 2007.

On his appointment on 12 September 2010 he merely reiterated Julia Gillard’s pre-election spin as follows:

I'm delighted to be appointed Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth in the Gillard Government.

Labor has a proud record of investment and substantial reform in education and I will pursue our agenda with relish as we continue to deliver the National Curriculum, Performance Pay for teachers, and empower local schools by giving principals, parents and each school community a greater say in how their local school is run.

I am eternally optimistic about the potential of our young people and am excited that my new role will give me an opportunity to broaden that experience and work, including through the Australian Youth Forum.

To date he has been tight-lipped on the School Funding Review, refusing to speculate about the outcome or the controversial socio-economic status (SES) model or the underfunding of public education which the Labor Government has extended until at least 2010 while it reviews the arrangement. (Sydney Morning Herald September 17, 2010).In an ABC interview he has refused to say whether he thought private and public schools were getting a fair deal.

"Our goal is to make every school a great school," he told ABC Radio.

"To make sure that the funding that is delivered enables students to get the best possible education that they can, irrespective of what sort of schooling system they are in."

The Review is due to be completed towards the end of next year.

So, with the Labor Government on a knife edge, beholden to the Greens who attracted a large public school vote, Gillard and Garrett play with spin and symbols.

Even conservative forces have realised that it was a bad sign for Julia Gillard to announce her cabinet without mention of the word ‘education’. She has Chris Evans as Minister for Jobs, Skills and Workplace Relations, Peter Garrett as Minister for Schools, Early Childhood and Youth, and Kim Carr as Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science. So research didn't rate a mention, either. Ross Gittens from the Sydney Morning Herald 22 September picked up on the significance of this move. He wrote

This from the party that promised an Education Revolution? This from the woman responsible for advancing that revolution during Labor's first term?....

One of the big questions for Gillard's new term is: does she still believe in anything apart from whatever it takes to get re-elected? Labor's apparent lack of convictions and the courage to fight for them - whether under Kevin Rudd or Gillard - was a big part of the explanation for its poor showing in the election. Not only did it fail to attract the swinging voters, but many in its heartland turned away in disillusionment.

If Labor and its leader can't rediscover some values, I don't fancy their chances at the next election. If they have any sense they'll stop portraying themselves as a pale imitation of the Liberals…

Overseas, economists are abuzz over the discovery that technological change is hollowing out the structure of occupations in developed countries. There are more unskilled jobs at the bottom and a lot more very high-skilled professional and management jobs at the top, but computerisation means there are fewer jobs in the middle: salespeople, bank clerks, secretaries, machine operators and factory supervisors.

This should come as no surprise to us. Mark Cully, now of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research in Adelaide, showed the existence of this phenomenon in Australia almost a decade ago.

Again the answer is obvious: more emphasis on raising the level of educational attainment among our young people (with more scope for middle-aged workers to return to the education system for additional training).

So far, I've been conforming to the modern, economics-obsessed fashion of emphasising the utilitarian dimension of education: education as a handmaiden to commerce, education meeting the needs of business (and increasingly taking its marching orders from business people).

As we've seen, it's all true: education is a key to greater material prosperity. But we're already prosperous, and it's entirely appropriate for a prosperous nation to devote a fair bit of its treasure to education and research, to finding out more and more about how humans, their world and their universe work. In other words, education should be seen not just as a means, but also as an end in itself.

One of the great characteristics of the human animal is its insatiable curiosity. Just as George Mallory's best explanation of why he wanted to climb Everest was ''because it's there'', so we need no better justification for the pursuit of education and knowledge than that we just want to know.

Education increases life satisfaction. It opens minds to the wonders of science and glories of history and culture. We learn about ourselves and about others, which makes us more tolerant of people different to us (including boat people).

All this, I suspect, is why the vice-chancellors were so disturbed to find the word education replaced by ''skills'' and no mention of ''research''. It's a pity they didn't have the courage to spell it out: we believe in knowledge for its own sake.

Symbolism is important because it affects the way people think and act. Symbolism is particularly important to politicians because it influences people's perceptions, and pollies know that, with voters, perceptions are often more real than the reality.

That's why it was such a bad sign for Julia Gillard to announce her cabinet - initially, at least - without mention of the word ''education''. She had Chris Evans as Minister for Jobs, Skills and Workplace Relations, Peter Garrett as Minister for Schools, Early Childhood and Youth, and Kim Carr as Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science. So research didn't rate a mention, either.

This from the party that promised an Education Revolution? This from the woman responsible for advancing that revolution during Labor's first term?

Turns out we were meant to know that ''skills'' was a reference to universities as well as tech colleges. No wonder the academics complained. And no wonder Gillard quickly saw the wisdom of restoring the E-word to prominence.

Ross Gittins is economics editor. Sydney Morning Herald 22 September 2010