COMMITTEES

Ms COFFEY (Griffith) (11:31): Our minister for education called education the great equaliser in an unequal world. I strongly share that belief, and I'm confident that it's shared by many members in this place. Many years ago, I completed my own teacher training.

I'm also a mother to two young boys. I know education shapes every child's future. Every child deserves the best education Australia can offer, whatever school their family chooses.

Good teachers shape learning outcomes, civics education and media literacy protect our democracy, and, importantly, languages open up other parts of the world. These beliefs are why I am so pleased to serve on the House Standing Committee on Education. I am proud of the report our committee has presented, Security and prosperity in Asia:building Asia capability in Australia through the education system and beyond.

At the outset, I want to thank our chair, the member for Gellibrand, and the deputy chair, the member for Nicholls, for leading all of my committee colleagues through this process. Australia's security and prosperity are tied to our region. We need people who speak its languages, understand its cultures and histories and have built trusted relationships there.

We refer to this as 'Asia capability'. It is a national capability built in classrooms, universities and workplaces and through time spent in the region. The evidence of our nation's capability showed a pipeline deep in trouble.

Domestic enrolments in South-East Asian languages at Australian universities fell by 75 per cent from 2005 to 2024. Take the study of Indonesian, for example, where we heard some of the most concerning evidence. Barely 500 of Australia's one million domestic university students study Indonesian.

At school, 3.3 per cent of Australian year 12 students studied a priority Asian language in 2023. Year 12 Indonesian enrolments fell from 1,160 students in 2010 to 486 nationwide in 2024. In my home state of Queensland, the figures are even more stark.

Four students across our state were projected to sit a year 12 Indonesian exam in 2026. Witnesses to our inquiry warned that Indonesian teaching faces functional extinction in Australia by 2031. Indonesia is one of Australia's closest and most consequential neighbours.

Losing our ability to teach Indonesian weakens our ability to understand the country and build strong relationships with its people. Translation technology in the age of AI just cannot fill that gap. We heard evidence that software can translate words, but it can't read a room, understand history and build trust and relationships.

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, ACARA, conveyed this to our committee very well. A calculator can produce an answer, but the user still needs enough mathematics to know whether that answer makes sense. Australia's Asian Australian communities hold deep language skills and cultural knowledge, yet heritage language skills often fall across generations.

Families told our inquiry they want formal study for their children. Many South Asian Australian students have little access to Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali or Tamil. We have wonderful language programs right across my community of Griffith through so many of our schools.

Of the 19 state schools in and around Griffith, 11 offer at least one Asian language. Japanese is taught at nine of these state schools and Chinese at five. That gives us a good base, but the full picture shows how narrow the choices remain.

Those 19 state schools provide 35 language offerings; 14 offer Chinese or Japanese, and the remaining 21 are European or other languages. The gap is clearer among 13 schools that offer only one language. Just five teach an Asian language.

We have strong foundations across Griffith, but the pathway can break as soon as a student changes school. A child may begin Japanese at primary school and then enter a secondary school where it is unavailable. Another student may study Chinese through to year 12 and then find no clear university course or career path.

A passionate teacher can spark a lifelong interest in a language and culture, but we cannot ask individual teachers to carry a national capability on their shoulders alone. We have local examples of learning experiences that this report seeks to support. We've got so many great state schools offering fabulous programs, including West End State School, East Brisbane State School and Brisbane State High School.

Among other colleges in my area, Cannon Hill Anglican College has run Japan tours for their students for more than 20 years. Senior students visit Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima. They complete a four-day homestay.

Peter Nakamura, the college's head of faculty for languages, has seen students use their Japanese in daily life. Some return as adults to reconnect with host families. Last year at Villanova College, students joined more than 450 language learners from 20 schools at the University of Queensland's Go Borderless Languages Experience Day.

Villanova students then took part in a 13-day China immersion tour, using their Chinese in Beijing and attending school in Nanjing. These experiences give students a reason to keep studying, but not all students and all families are able to afford access to these types of programs. We know interest grows through real contact.

The proposed Asia leader schools draw on this practice and act as hubs for high-quality teaching. The proposed Australian Schools in Asia Consortium will help schools run immersion and exchange programs. ATAR incentives and university credit pathways will reward continued study.

I know the effect of cultural immersion from my own life. For me, that particular exposure was in the Pacific. At 16, I travelled to the Solomon Islands, and I stayed at the Melanesian Brotherhood Central Headquarters at Tabalia and at Selwyn College near Maravovo as part of my school trip.

I fell in love with the Solomon Islands language and culture, and I made lifelong friends. Anyone who knew me as a teenager can probably picture the Solomon Islands material that filled my bedroom. I had the great honour of meeting the new Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, the Hon.

Matthew Wale, during his visit to Australia earlier this year, in June. The Solomon Islands sit in the Pacific, and the same lesson applies across our broader region. Time in another country builds understanding that no app can reproduce.

Australia and the Solomon Islands share ancient cultural links, close geography and a history of standing together through hard times. Meeting the Prime Minister brought me back to the friendships and curiosity that began when I was 16 years old. We need to make sure our future generations of young people have that same chance to form those connections in our region too, particularly in Asia.

The committee made 34 recommendations. The report recommends a national Asia capability strategy, backed by a national data framework and dashboard. Australia needs clear goals and reliable information on subjects, enrolments, teachers and pathways.

It recommends Asia leader schools and the Australian Schools in Asia Consortium. It recommends the recognition of heritage language learning in classrooms. It backs targeted support for language teachers, a larger supply of specialist teachers and continuing professional development.

For universities, the report recommends placing Asia capability among the priorities set by the Australian Tertiary Education Commission. It seeks protection for nationally strategic Asian languages in university funding agreements and shared language hubs for cross-institutional study. The report calls on the Commonwealth to lead through its own recruitment.

Government agencies should recognise Asia capability as a priority in relevant jobs. Students need to see where language and regional knowledge can take them. Together, these recommendations connect primary school interest with secondary study, university courses and real careers.

They support the teachers and institutions needed at each stage. I would like to take this opportunity to thank every person and organisation that made a submission and attended our public hearings. The committee received hundreds of contributions and heard from dozens of witnesses, many of whom have spent their working lives helping Australians learn about our region.

Teachers kept small classes open; researchers protected courses under pressure. Their participation shows parliamentary committees at their very best. Members tested evidence, asked questions and weighed different views.

Good policy grows from this exchange. It helps us as elected representatives make better decisions. I offer special thanks to the outstanding staff in the committee secretariats as well, Joel Bateman and Lisa Deans.

Their expertise helped turn hundreds of submissions, hearing transcripts and policy ideas into a clear report for our parliament, with the member for Gellibrand's leadership. For local students, this report highlights the opportunity before us. It is about the child learning Japanese at East Brisbane State School, who deserves a path through secondary school.

It's about the student studying Chinese at Brisbane State High School, who deserves to see a future for that skill. Australia needs the knowledge and confidence to make its own way in Asia. The capability starts with a teacher, a classroom and the chance to meet people in our region.

To every teacher, academic, student and community leader who contributed: thank you. You kept these subjects alive through years of uneven policy attention. This report is for you and for the students you have yet to teach.