It's great to be here today, surrounded by the most important people in Australia - the teachers who will create the Knowledge Nation - and the children who will become the Knowledge Nation.

I'd like to thank you all for the invitation.

Thanks to the New South Wales Teachers Federation for organising this event with the support of parents and principals organisations.

But the biggest thanks go to these beautiful children who have entertained us on stage this morning. They are the future of our country.

Please give them another big hand.

Friends, it's a truly sad day for Australia when the Prime Minister and the Commonwealth Minister for Education are so alienated from the teaching profession and from our public schools that they can't accept an invitation to address a fantastic event such as this and to answer your questions here today.

Well, I have some questions for Mr Howard and Dr Kemp.

• Who do you think is going to educate our children?
• Who is going to teach maths, science and history to the engineers, scientists and national leaders of the future?
• Who is going to train the apprentices who will operate our mines and our manufacturing plants?
• Who is going to create the Knowledge Nation?

It's this nation's teaching profession, and our terrific system of public schools, -- that's who!

Just a few weeks ago the Prime Minister said that enough money is already being spent on health and education and that income tax cuts deserve "the next bite of the cherry".

He said that public schools were not the responsibility of the Commonwealth, except for top up purposes.

Well I have to tell you, I have a fundamental disagreement with the Prime Minister over this.

We live in a world where increasingly knowledge determines a nation's level of wealth. How prosperous we are will depend on how much we invest in education. That makes education a national not just a state issue.

I come to you today with a different message to John Howard's -- creating a great public education system, and giving every child an opportunity to succeed at school, will be the highest priority of a Beazley Labor Government.

It will involve increased levels of investment from the Commonwealth as well as the states and I will be outlining later how I intend to make that happen.

Ladies and Gentlemen

For me, being here is like coming home.

Some of you may know that my Father - Gough Whitlam's Education Minister and proud creator of Labor's then disadvantaged schools program - started his working life as a public school teacher - and ended up as Vice President of the Teachers Union of Western Australia.

My mother was also a teacher - starting at that great public school - Perth Modern.

So was my wife Susie Annus.

If you count a humble university tutor as a teacher, I was one too.

And now I'm proud to say that my eldest daughter is also a teacher.

As you can see, education runs in my blood.

That's only one of the reasons I'm proud to be with you today.

Being here today gives us a chance to reflect on the proud history of our public school system.

Along with our universities and TAFE colleges, these schools have been the great nation-building institutions of post-war Australia.

Our public schools turn nobody away.

They are the ultimate source of our shared experience.

I think someone put it well last year when they said:

To the extent that Australia is an egalitarian, multicultural and tolerant society, we can largely thank our public schools.

And to the extent that we were one of the world's best educated societies we can also largely thank our public schools.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Today, education is one of the primary engines driving the creation of national prosperity.

It has become an indispensable element of a nation's economic and cultural capacity.

In the global knowledge economy, sustained long-term economic prosperity is unimaginable without an ever-improving education system.

As I said, until recently Australians were regarded as one of the most highly educated societies on earth.

But the rest of the world has caught up with us.

• Australia today invests only 6.15 percent of its GDP in our most valuable asset - knowledge.
• The United States invests 8.73 percent.
• Finland invests 9.62 percent.
• Sweden invests 10.8 percent.

Our retention rates are stagnating while in the rest of the world they are rising.

We are wallowing in the middle of international rankings for maths and science, when we should be one of the leaders.

Our teachers are undervalued and demonised by our Commonwealth Government.

The truth our Government won't face is that despite the best efforts of our dedicated teachers, university lecturers and scientists we are falling behind in the race to become a successful Knowledge Nation.

Well, I intend to give this Howard Government an almighty wake up call!

I truly believe this is the most important issue facing this country's future, and we must act before we fall further behind.

To become the Knowledge Nation that we want to be, we must to set ourselves some tough goals.

• We need to dramatically improve the quality of learning in the early years, so that every child gets a great start to life.
• We need to ensure that at least nine out of every ten young people get a year-12 or equivalent qualification, and that every young Australian gets a formal education or training qualification. We did it in some states last decade, we must now do it again across the whole nation.
• We need to increase the number of people going to TAFE and University. It's time to end the TAFE and university funding crisis.
• We need to become a world leader in online education.
• We need to double national investment in research and development.
• And we need to bring home our most brilliant minds currently working overseas for want of stimulating work in Australia.

Two areas of particular importance are these: our teachers and our public schools.

Teachers are the lynchpin of the Knowledge Nation.

Of all the good things in the Report of the Chief Scientist to the Federal Government last year, the bit that jumped out at me was his claim that we will never be able to produce great scientists in this country unless we encourage more young science and maths graduates into teaching.

No teacher should be required to teach a subject in which he or she is only a few classes ahead of the students. We must put all teachers in a position where they can impart to their students their love of, and enthusiasm for their subjects, whether it be maths, science, history, literature, geography or any other.

I find it disturbing that some schools in regional and rural Australia are unable to fill vacancies for science and maths teachers.

I believe that we need to elevate the status of teachers to where it ought to be - the chief of all professions.

We have already made a couple of announcements that will make a start on achieving this Knowledge Nation:

• Labor will provide 1000 scholarships per year to high achieving school leavers and graduates who want to become teachers. For every year they remain in teaching they will pay no HECS.
• And we will pay all course costs and a $2000 bonus for 10,000 existing teachers to undertake further study in key subject areas over the next three years. Over time we hope to provide this to many more teachers.

The other lynchpin of our Knowledge Nation is our public school system.

I understand that the Government is sending a junior representative here to speak to you today to tell you how Commonwealth funding for government schools has gone up by 43 percent since 1996; that you've never had it so good; that there's never been so much money in our public schools; and that the problems facing public schools are somebody else's fault - namely, mine, yours and the States'!

I think it's about time in health and education that this Government stopped trying to shift the blame. I think it's time they accepted some of the responsibility themselves.

Here are the real facts.

• Since the Howard Government came to power, the percentage of direct Commonwealth schools spending going to public schools has declined from 41.5 percent to just 35.7 percent. By 2004 this will have gone down to just 33.6 percent.
• Commonwealth expenditure on Government schools as a percentage of GDP is falling, while expenditure on non-government schools is rising.
• The bulk of the so-called 43 percent increase in funding to public schools has been automatic adjustments for inflation. Somehow I think if you had a 43 percent increase in real funding you'd be able to tell. For instance, the demountables might have been replaced by real classrooms, all schools might have a full-time music or drama teacher, and children with special needs might get the care they deserve.
• The equivalent rise for non-government schools since 1996 has been 115 percent!

The great tragedy of this is that our country can't make it as a Knowledge Nation unless we educate every child to the highest standard.

I am convinced that the future national prosperity lies in the minds of our children.

We must invest not just in some of them and occasionally, but in all of them and continually for our nation to be all that it can.

We must not let any group, or any disadvantaged area, be left behind - this country is too small, and its workforce too important to reward only the elites.

Good public schools are also the key to creating a fairer society.

Only a generation ago it was common for people to rise from the shop floor to the boardroom in the span of their working life.

Education has always been one of the biggest political issues for women, but one of the reasons education is now a big issue for men as well is that many fathers realise that their children won't have the same opportunity they had to get ahead in life unless they get a trade or a university education.

They know that a university or TAFE qualification has become their son's and their daughter's passports to a secure future, as well as the guarantee of a secure future for our nation.

Seventy percent of our children go to public schools, so the starting point for lifting the nation's education level must be investing in public education.

We have already released a number of policies that will begin to make a difference.

• We will take the $105 million increase the Howard Government intends to give to Category One schools like the King's School and Geelong Grammar and spend it on schools that really need it.
• In communities where social and educational disadvantage overlap we will establish Education Priority Zones to provide extra resources to improve school results and get more students into university, TAFE or a job with a future.
• We will create a $50 million fund for capital works in public schools, matched dollar-for-dollar by the states to repair our state schools and build important new facilities.
• And we will not pass the Howard Government's $10 million in extra funding for establishment grants to non-government schools unless they provide a matching increase of $30 million in additional capital works funding for public schools.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Australia needs a renewed national commitment to education and training, starting with our public schools.

Labor's ambitious plans for our public schools will require significant increases in national investment by all Governments - territory, state and federal.

As the Report of the Knowledge Nation Taskforce said: our schools don't just need little changes, they need massive revolutionary changes.

It will be expensive. It will involve new priorities for public spending. But as Barry Jones constantly reminds us: if you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

The Alliance is an agreement to commit all commonwealth, state and territory Labor governments to increase investment in public schools in real terms over the next decade.

It signals a major shift in public policy in Australia.

It will kick start higher levels of public investment in the improvement and modernisation of all our nation's schools, not just some of them.

It's an agreement that the Howard Government, with its agenda to destroy public education, will never make.

John Howard constantly claims that he has increased funding to public schools and that the fault lies with the states.

I think it's time the blame shifting ended and cooperation and higher levels of national investment started.

The National Public Education Alliance will ensure that it does.

Under the Alliance:

• We pledge to invest more to improve school buildings and school facilities.
• We pledge to invest more to improve year-12 retention rates in disadvantaged communities.
• We pledge to invest more to ensure that every child can access quality learning materials on the Internet.
• We pledge to invest more to modernize and improve the curriculum right across Australia.
• And, most importantly of all, we pledge to invest more in our most important national asset - our teachers.

Ladies and Gentlemen

The next three years will be crucial ones for education system, our children and our nation.

A lot can happen in that short time.

A disadvantaged school can be given new resources and new hope.

A five-year old can gain the crucial early learning skills that will make a difference to the rest of his or her life.

A student in year ten can be the first person in his or her family to make it to university.

An apprentice can complete TAFE and become a fully qualified tradesperson.

In just three years Australia can take the first steps to becoming a Knowledge Nation.

But we can only do these things is we have a Commonwealth Government that really cares about public education and has a plan to making it as good as it can be.

But the Commonwealth can't do this alone.

We will need the full support of the state and territory governments, the help of our dedicated principals and teachers and the hard work of students.

Together we can give Australia the best education system in the world.

Thank you.