Mr SLIPPER —My question is addressed to the outstanding Minister for Schools, Vocational Education and Training. Minister, given the widespread concern among parents in my electorate of Fisher and elsewhere about literacy standards, what are the critical steps that must be taken to ensure that every child is reading and writing by the end of year 3? What support is there for the implementation of these steps?

Dr KEMP —I thank the honourable member for Fisher for his question. He has made me very clearly aware of the concern of parents in his electorate about literacy standards. The first mission of schools in this country is to teach young children how to read and write. The improvement of literacy levels is not a question of money; it is a question of will. To ensure that every child—

Mr McClelland —You have cut their funding.

Dr KEMP —Well, you never had any will. That was the great difficulty on the other side of the House over the last 13 years. We all know the commitment of the Labor Party to low literacy standards because that was their record and it is the record they currently seek to defend.

To ensure that every child in this country can read and write by grade 3, there are a number of critical steps which need to be taken. Firstly, there needs to be a clearing of the overcrowded curriculum in those early years of schooling to ensure that there is the time for every young person who has difficulties in learning to read and write to do so. Secondly, there needs to be a thorough evaluation of the teaching methods which are used in schools to assess the effectiveness of different methods in teaching young people to read and write.

Thirdly, there needs to be a clear recognition of the fact that standards currently are too low, and there needs to be a commitment to the national standard which was applied to the analysis of the English literacy survey. Finally, there needs to be quality information provided to parents and the community on the performance of schools.

This government is not alone in believing that steps of this kind are necessary. I would like to quote some important words to this effect. They are:

The first task of the education service must be to ensure that every child is taught to read and write. Literacy is crucial because it opens the door to success across all other subject areas.

Who was it who said that? It was a Labour Party member. It was not the member for Sydney.

Mr SPEAKER —I am delighted to hear it!

Dr KEMP —It was the Labour Party member for North Tyneside, the schools minister of Tony Blair in England. What the Blair government has committed itself to is the clearing of that primary curriculum to make way for one hour of literacy teaching each day in school.

The Blair government has also determined that all primary schools must produce literacy action plans. The only people who seem not to have woken up to what is necessary are those in the Australian Labor Party. It is quite astonishing that the Leader of the Opposition could go over to England and learn nothing about what needs to be done.

The Australian Labor Party show again and again that they are out of touch with Australian parents and out of touch with the Australian community. For far too long they have received their education policy in the post from the Australian Education Union. They have not listened to the concerns of parents. If there is any clearing out to be done on the Labor side, it is not the primary curriculum which needs it but the Jurassic Park on the Labor Party frontbench. As the member for Banks warned the member for Werriwa, `Always remember, you are surrounded by assassins.' The only thing wrong with that remark, Daryl, was that you did not make it to the Leader of the Opposition.