Mr BARTLETT (2:10 PM) —My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware of problems with the teacher recruitment base? Would the Prime Minister provide information to the House about the government's specific proposals to address these problems?

Mr HOWARD (Prime Minister) —In reply to the member for Macquarie: yes, I am aware of problems facing the teacher recruitment base in Australia. There is little argument that this country faces a chronic shortage of male teachers in all of its schools, particularly its primary schools. The worst example of that is to be found in the Catholic education system in New South Wales, where the number of male teachers has fallen to an alarming level of only 14 per cent. Throughout the nation altogether, only one in five teachers in primary schools is a man. Undoubtedly, this represents a very serious challenge to policy makers at both a state and federal level.

I am certainly aware of this, and until last night I also thought that the Leader of the Opposition was aware of this. I did a little research and I found that, writing in the Herald Sun on 30 August 2002, the Leader of the Opposition had this to say:

He went on to say:

He was right then—just as the Deputy Prime Minister, who, first of anybody in this place, raised this issue years ago, was right—to indicate the lack of male role models for young boys growing up in single-parent households with no father, no older brothers and no close male relatives and with the one hope of a viable male role model in their early years being a male teacher at their school. If they happen to be one of the boys attending the 250 primary schools in the state of New South Wales run by the New South Wales government in which there is not one male teacher, they are going to miss out.

I thought until last night that the Leader of the Opposition and I were together on this issue. I thought this might have been one of those issues about which the Leader of the Opposition said, when he assumed his position, that he would put aside the negative politics of the past and adopt the new politics of not being opposed for opposition's sake. But I was wrong. Last night, when the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Attorney-General put out a statement which represented the triumph of narrow ideology over commonsense, I found that I was wrong.

What we have proposed is a sensible response to a request from the Catholic Education Commission of Australia. What we are proposing is opposed by the Leader of the Opposition, not on any grounds of commonsense and not out of an overriding longer term interest in finding a practical solution to this problem but as a demonstration that the old politics still dominate the Australian Labor Party. It is one thing to talk the talk. It is one thing to run around the country for three months and profess your concern for the fatherless boys of Australia. But it is another thing, when you have got an opportunity to put your hand up and do something for them, to not do so.

This is a classic demonstration of what the Treasurer said always typifies the Australian Labor Party: never listen to what they say; have a look at what they do. On this occasion, the Leader of the Opposition has failed his own rhetoric. For three months he has regaled the Australian nation with his concern about the need for male role models but, when he gets an opportunity to actually do something, he fails the test. He comes bottom of the class.