Opening the doors of opportunity - Address to ALP National Conference

On election night four years ago the Prime Minister talked about opening the doors of opportunity. He said that’s what Labor Governments do. And that we would open them a little bit And delegates, it’s education that does this more than almost anything else.

It opens doors. It change lives. It changes countries.

Just think about this. Under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating the number of kids who finished high school jumped from 40 percent to almost 80 percent. That’s nation changing stuff.

It created jobs and businesses, an economy, a country, that didn’t exist before that. That isn’t possible without it. And that change isn’t done yet.

If I took you in a time machine to 2050 you would find a country where 80 percent of people with jobs haven’t just finished school. They have gone to TAFE or uni as well. And that means we have got to open those doors even wider.

If you are a child from a poor family today you are less likely to go to university, less likely to finish school, more likely to fall behind at school, and more likely to start behind than other kids. If we are going to change that we have got to start right at the start. Before kids start school.

That’s what the changes we are making to early education are about. The 15 percent pay rise for workers and the three day guarantee. A guarantee for every child who needs it of three days a week of subsidised early education.

It’s also what fixing the funding of our public schools is about. Something that Gough talked about. That Gonski designed.

That no government has ever done. Until now. Until this government.

And I am bloody proud of it. It means about an extra $20 billion for public schools over the next ten years. And about $50 billion over the decade after that.

And it’s not a blank cheque. It’s tied to real reform to help more kids finish school. It’s also what Free TAFE is about.

It’s what cutting student debt by 20 percent is all about. It’s what Paid Prac is about. That started with teaching and nursing and midwifery and social work students.

Yesterday we extended it to 10 more front line health professions. And it’s what the legislation that’s in the parliament right now is all about. It means if you are a kid from a poor family or the bush, and you get the marks or you have what it takes, you will get a place at university.

Almost 50 percent of young Australian have a uni degree today. But not everywhere. Not where I grew up in Western Sydney.

Not in the western suburbs of Brisbane or Melbourne. There it’s about half that. In the Northern Suburbs of Adelaide - places like Elizabeth - just half an hour from here it’s seven percent.

It’s not because of a lack of talent. Talent is everywhere. It’s opportunity that’s not.

I don’t want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on who your parents are, where you live, where you go to school or the colour of your skin. And it’s education that can change that. Real change.

That creates jobs and creates businesses, that opens doors, that makes the best country in the world better and fairer. That’s what our Party is all about. It’s what this Chapter is about.

And I commend it to you.