Mr T. SMITH (Kew) — I rise this evening having earnt a rare privilege — the privilege of representing the people of Kew in this our state house, the Legislative Assembly of beautiful, bountiful Victoria. I come here as a fifth-generation Victorian, proud of our state's great past, knowing something of our present challenges and with the determination that my time here will in some way make a contribution to the general welfare of our people by unequivocally pursuing the cause of liberalism.
As Victorians we are heirs to a mighty heritage of a free people who created by their own hand a land of vast opportunity. Victoria was not settled by order of an imperial government. Our corner of this great continent was initially settled by those who were young but free, often Australian-born, aspirational individuals who came here to better themselves and their families, and so it was in the area of Melbourne which became Kew.
Kew was first viewed by Europeans in 1803, during Charles Grimes's survey of the Yarra. Forty-eight years later Nicholas Fenwick purchased 122 acres in the parish of Boroondara, an Indigenous word meaning 'a shady place'. Fenwick called his allotment the Kew Estate, as he is believed to have said, 'Kew in England is near Richmond. This place is near Richmond. Why not call it Kew?'. He then subdivided his estate with an accompanying streetscape, naming the avenues after English statesmen — Walpole, Tennyson, Peel and Cobden — and our pretty part of Melbourne started to take its modern form.
One hundred years later Kew's most famous resident and former owner of 10 Howard Street, Sir Robert Menzies, said of Kew:
A quiet corner of Melbourne we may be, but the quietness is one which has nourished thoughtful people, good citizens and great schools. There is a charm about Kew which nothing can take away from it.
One of my duties is to preserve Kew's distinctive charm. What is left of the original character of Kew, Kew East, Deepdene, Balwyn North and Canterbury must be protected from what Roger Scruton deems 'the modern cult of ugliness'. I will do my best to uphold the legacy of one of my predecessors in Kew, former Premier Sir Rupert Hamer, who did more than any other post-war leader to conserve marvellous Melbourne and our built-form heritage. His planning reforms were far sighted and have contributed greatly to the quality of life we now enjoy in this wonderful city of ours.
In this the 70th anniversary year of the founding of the Liberal Party by Sir Robert Menzies we can reflect on one of his government's significant legacies: the extraordinary expansion of universities and of commonwealth scholarships to attend them, as well as state assistance for Catholic schools. These decisions reflect a deep and abiding Liberal commitment to empowering the individual through education and an education system that enshrines choice and excellence at its core. This has been at the heart of the mission of Australian liberalism from the very start.
It was Liberals in this Parliament who passed the revolutionary Education Act in 1872 — the first of its kind in Australia — to institute a free, secular and compulsory education system for both boys and girls. It was quite correctly argued that amongst other equally important public goods to stem from this reform, educated citizens were essential to the future of an enlightened society and to ensure the preservation of democratic self-government.
The reforming former UK education secretary, Michael Gove, argued:
In an age before structuralism, relativism and postmodernism it seemed a natural and uncomplicated thing, the mark of civilization, to want to spread knowledge, especially the knowledge of great human achievement, to every open mind.
But, over time, that natural and uncomplicated belief has been undermined, over-complicated and all too often twisted out of shape.
If Victoria is to continue to grow and prosper, we have to get serious about maximising our intellectual capacities. How much human capital does Victoria squander every year because of underperforming schools? Why do we blithely accept that there will always be a near-perfect correlation between the socio-economic status of a school's cohort and its academic performance? Equality of opportunity is a fundamental Liberal principle, and nowhere should it find greater expression than in the delivery of high-quality state education.
Of all the controllable inputs into an education system, by far the greatest determinant of academic performance is the quality of teaching. Teaching is one of the most important jobs in our society, and we need to recognise and reward our best teachers and encourage our best and brightest to take up careers in education. I hope the new government will continue programs such as Teach for Australia, which attracts outstanding graduates from non-teaching backgrounds and places them in disadvantaged schools. This is one program currently supported by the Victorian government, but opposed by the unions, which I hope will continue as a measure to drive excellence within the profession.
Mediocrity should not be accepted in our education system. Most state school principals I speak to privately implore me to make it easier for them to move on underperforming teachers. In my personal opinion, principals really should have the power to hire and fire without overbearing bureaucratic and industrial interference.
Introducing our young people to the best that has been thought and said is a fundamental duty of government, yet a survey by the Lowy Institute for International Policy earlier this year found that just 42 per cent of 18 to 29-year-olds agree with the notion that democracy is preferable to any other kind of government. I am the youngest member of this Parliamentary Liberal Party, and it worries me greatly that my generation seems coldly indifferent to the virtues of democratic government. I suspect the cause of this malaise is multifaceted, but the education establishment must bear some responsibility for it.
Our secondary school history curriculum in Victoria is well meaning but fails to inspire much civic devotion or strong adherence to fundamental principles of civilised liberal democratic government. It fails to emphasise through nearly 1000 years of the history of the English-speaking peoples how the struggle between tyrannical government and liberty has defined our society. Foundational events, essential documents and integral principles that underpin our institutions are barely spoken of, such as the Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, the English civil war and the Bill of Rights, which forever enshrined parliamentary supremacy over the Crown — the very basis of our democratic traditions.
On our own continent what happened during the decade 1846–56 period should be better taught. At its beginning no Australian colony had its own government; all were appointed in Britain. By its end all colonies except for Western Australia had achieved what the lawyers called responsible government. The rest of us call it democracy.
I am not suggesting that politicians should be able to dictate the contents of the curriculum, rather that the curriculum should reflect the ideas and the traditions that have stood the test of time. The curriculum should conserve and pass on our shared cultural inheritance. It should distil what the generations who have come before us have deemed to be worth knowing as well as equipping young people with the technical skills and values they need to negotiate a complex economy and an advanced democracy. Setting school-level curriculum was once one of the most important roles of a state government, yet we have ceded most of that power to an unelected federal quango. Regrettably the Victorian government has very little autonomy over what our core curriculum is anymore.
Despite public perceptions to the contrary, there are still clear differences between the major parties over their envisaged role for government. Because of our commitment to the ideals of individual liberty, small government and free markets, the Liberal Party believes in lower taxes and less regulation because a well-working society is best achieved when families and individuals decide what is important to them and can spend their money accordingly. Our opponents think the opposite. The problem with excessive regulation is the same. It replaces the diversity of people's own choices with an enforced uniformity that cannot possibly meet the needs of a diverse community and hence undermines motivation as well as economic and social progress.
What the Liberal Party understands by good government is government in the interests of the people as a whole and hence policies that work in the interests of all. With this philosophy, the Liberal Party has the capacity to rise above pressures from special interests. Our party seeks to provide a voice for the unorganised mainstream of society, what Menzies called the forgotten people. As David Kemp so brilliantly argued earlier this year:
The Labor Party is a stark example of the consequence of the special interest capture of a governing party.
He also said:
… the key flaw in the Labor Party structure was the rule that gave the party organisation outside Parliament the power to determine policy. This rule offered power without responsibility to external interests —
the faceless men, the union movement, with all their class war attitudes. One wonders how this government will be able to keep the wage expectations of public sector unions and lawlessness on our construction sites under control given their huge investment in Labor's recent election victory.
I firmly believe the states have a vital role in advocating the need for tax reform. As early as 1902 Alfred Deakin correctly observed the future of our federation:
As the power of the purse in Great Britain established by degrees the authority of the Commons, it will ultimately establish in Australia the authority of the commonwealth. The rights of self-government of the states have been fondly supposed to be safeguarded by the constitution. It left them legally free but financially bound to the chariot wheels of the central government.
This, unfortunately, has essentially come to pass, and we have been debating the fundamental question of the state's financial dependency on the commonwealth since the first uniform tax case 72 years ago, when the states' share of taxation revenue fell from 50 per cent to 10 per cent and from which it has never really recovered. State governments can raise virtually any tax they like with parliamentary approval. We need a serious debate at the state level around tax reform because states simply cannot afford to build the infrastructure that our constituents expect us to be able to provide, and they are tiring of the excuse, 'Call your federal MP'. We at the state level need to make the case for real reform of the taxation system, as the future livability of Melbourne depends on it.
I am a strong believer in the two-party system. As Gough Whitlam said:
… anybody who's interested in improving matters … should join the Labor Party or the Liberal Party and try to do something about it. Because … the Prime Minister of Australia —
or Premier of a state —
will be a Labor man or a Liberal man, or woman; but otherwise you're just treading water or spouting into thin air if you say that you can change things other than by supporting the Labor or the Liberal Party.
Through you, Speaker, I say this to the government: the coalition will always be your fiercest opponent, but the Greens are a scourge on your proud traditions of democratic socialism and social democracy. Whereas Labor at its best attempts to govern for all Australians, the Greens are committed to global protest movements, divisive identity politics and the niche concerns of a cosseted urban elite. They do not fight for Australia's national interest. I say to Labor, the Greens are an extremist party, and you should put them last.
We do not get elected to this place on our own, and there are many people I am indebted to over what has been quite a journey to this place. My parents, Colin and Deanne Smith, and my sister, Sarah, as well as my girlfriend, Helen Baxendale, have been very supportive. I must especially thank George and Maureen Swinburne and John and Robyn Booth for all their friendship over the years. I cannot thank enough my electorate chairman, Rob Cameron, and his committee of Ben Jessop, Cr Phillip Healey, Susie Manson, Stephen Spring, Keiron Long, Rob Millar, Caroline Inge, Dick King and Michael Norbury. I must also thank Merv Kiley; the Garwolis; the Wightmans; the Jameses; the Clancys; the Barbers; the Josefbergs; Elisabeth Hall; Jane Hargreaves; my campaign manager, Nick Demiris; his deputy, Peter Catterson; Jess Wilson; and my staff, Annemarie Sandilands, Andrew Hudgson, Nick Lamanna and Simon Brown.
I owe a debt of gratitude to Liberal Party federal president Richard Alston; chairman of the Institute of Public Affairs Rod Kemp and its executive director, John Roskam; David Kemp; Michael and Helen Kroger; and my great friend Josh Frydenberg. I must also thank the Leader of the Opposition, Matthew Guy, who will be this state's next Liberal Premier.
I will conclude my contribution to the loyal address-in-reply to His Excellency's speech in the traditional form — by pledging my loyalty and those of the electors of Kew to Her Majesty, the Queen of Australia, in right of the state of Victoria. I thank the house.