Download Fragment

Tuesday, 7 February 2012
Page: 191

Senator MASON (Queensland) (18:54): I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I will make just a few remarks about the annual report of the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, known as ACARA, for 2010-11. In particular, I refer to pages 10 and 11 of the report, which say:

The Australian Curriculum needs to be relevant to the lives of students and to address the contemporary issues they face. With these considerations and the Melbourne Declaration in mind, the curriculum gives special attention to three priorities:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures

Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia

sustainability.

These cross-curriculum priorities have a strong but varying presence depending on their relevance to the learning areas.

By way of explanation, the Melbourne declaration, which charted the particular three cross-curriculum perspectives to be given to Australia's schoolchildren, was drafted by education bureaucrats—not by teachers or parents or elected officials. Not at all; it was drafted by education bureaucrats. Do they reflect community opinion? I would hazard a guess that they do not. Rather than a mainstream document representing broad community consensus, we have ended up with a product that one might say neatly distils rather trendy views about education.

Without any public consultation we now have a national curriculum that will be saddled with the three cross-curriculum perspectives I mentioned: Aboriginal, Asian and environmental. You might ask whether in fact the national curriculum needs these overarching perspectives. I suspect it does not, but, even if it does, why those three? You are right. There is nothing at all wrong with Indigenous, environmental and Asian themes. Indeed, they are valid. But there are plenty of other ones that are equally or perhaps even more valid and that are not mentioned in the Melbourne declaration by the trendy bureaucrats who drafted it. For example, why wouldn't Australia's national curriculum echo themes such as the role and importance of liberal democratic institutions in shaping the society students live in? Wouldn't you think that was more important? Apparently it is not. What about, perhaps, the heritage and impact of the Judaeo-Christian western tradition that touches on every aspect of life in a modern Western country such as Australia, on everything from the arts to literature to science and the law? Wouldn't that be a more appropriate or comprehensive overarching theme for Australia's natural curriculum? I would have thought so, but the professional bureaucrats do not. Indeed, what about the role of science and technology in the material progress of humankind, including its contri­bution to both creating and then solving the problems inherent in such progress? That is not a bad overarching theme either, is it? But, no, what the professional bureaucrats decided on was that Aboriginal, Asian and environmental themes were more important. Becoming very practical—not too concept­ual or theoretical—what about the national curriculum including a theme that prepares students to face the challenges of life and work in the 21st century? That is a very practical overarching theme, but of course we could not have something mainstream and practical, could we? No, we have these trendy and politically correct values that have been put there not by politicians, not by the public, not even by teachers but by the professional education bureaucrats. This always worries me. It has worried me from the beginning of ACARA's existence that our national curriculum is subject to these three overarching themes.

I could go into the recent debate about getting rid of BC and AD as the date stamps for our history. We have to stop using BC and AD, to cleanse Christianity out of the national curriculum. This is all happening because a group of trendy bureaucrats have a narrow and politically correct view of Australian history and culture. It is wrong, it is not mainstream and it is not what is best for our children. (Time expired)