QUESTION: Can you tell me a bit about your upbringing?
Answer: I was born in Collie and spent my first nine years there before I moved up to Armadale.
My mother was also born in Collie and her parents grew up in Yarloop.
I have an Italian immigrant father who came to Australia when he was 21.
I attended St Brigid's Convent in Collie for my first four years, Kingsley Primary School in Armadale from years 5-7 and then Kelmscott High School.
I am the youngest of four children and the only one who went further than year 10 at school.
I initially studied a Bachelor of Physical Education and a Dip.Ed at university before going into the teaching profession for a few years.I did quite a bit of travelling overseas and when I came back to Australia I began my Masters of Industrial Relations and completed a law degree in Canberra to become a practicing lawyer.
I went into academic law and got a pHD from Oxford University and also studied at Yale Law School.
I am married and we now have three kids who are in their 20s.
Q: You worked as a high school teacher, lawyer, AFL player agent and legal academic.
Out of these professions, which did you enjoy most and why?
A: There's nothing that I haven't enjoyed out of all of them, but I have to say being a legal academic in the sense that it allowed me to pursue research in areas I found particularly interesting.
I also loved teaching students - because of my careers I had flexibility to ensure I could be present for all the major milestones of my kids.
Q: You were elected as the Labor MP for Armadale in October 2010.What led to your decision to enter into politics?
A: I was interested in current affairs and politics as a teenager and in my early 20s I became more interested in becoming a member of the Australian Labor Party.
Being a lawyer and academic, I could see the power laws play in people's lives, so I thought rather than always teaching people about laws and researching them I'd love to be involved in the process of shaping them.
I also wanted to be in a position where I could help people and education was of particular importance to me, as I know how important it has been in my own life.
I represent the community I grew up in, so it's nice when you have the ability to help them.
It's the most frustrating thing when you can't help, but it's a really wonderful thing when you can.
Q: What were some of the challenges you faced as a high school teacher and how did these experiences influence your views as WA's Education Minister?
A: I was a teacher in the mid-1980s, so it was a while ago now, but being a teacher just stressed the importance of the position.
I started off teaching at Corpus Christi College in Bateman, then I did a couple of years of relief teaching at various State schools while doing further study.
I was physical education trained with a science minor, but in the end I taught more science than I did physical education.
Back then, it was difficult to get into teaching at university because a lot of people wanted to do it.
Teachers and the education system are so important in shaping the future opportunities of our young people, so that's a driving force for me now as Education Minister.
One of my mantras is ambition.I have an ambition to improve the education system for the benefit of the students.
My second mantra is that I want every student who goes to school to reach their full potential, whatever that may be.
Q: A Productivity Commission report has stated that 60 per cent of a teacher's workload is administrative and just 40pc of their time is spent teaching.
Having been a teacher, what would you consider a more healthy balance to be?
A: I don't have percentages but as Education Minister I have discussed this with the department and we are doing a review of how we can reduce some of the red tape for teachers and principals.
It's easier said than done, but I want to look at whatever we can do to reduce their administrative workload.
If they are doing less administrative work they can spend more time preparing and teaching their students.
I think we should be able to come up with some significant improvements.
Q: In the Department of Education 2021- 2022 annual report, teacher resignations jumped from 622 to 805.
This is a significant increase compared to 2020 and 2021, when resignations grew from 541 to 586.
Statistics have also shown that 25 per cent of WA's teaching graduates leave the profession within five years.
What improvements are being made to increase the retention rate of WA's education providers?
A: Obviously we don't want teachers resigning if we can possibly help it.We have put measures in place in regards to that.
We have the attraction and retention scheme which has been designed to boost the number of teachers employed in WA's rural and remote areas.
There's 48 remote and regional schools who receive these one-off payments in 2023, made to their new and assisting teachers and administrators.
Teachers can receive incentive payments of just under $21,000 per annum if they are part of a Remote Teaching Service and up to about $14,000pa for Country Teaching Program schools.
There's also other one off payments that vary between $5000 and $17,000, depending on where the teachers are located in the State.
In total, it's a $12.4 million investment to attract and retain teachers in the regions and we've been told that the package has been very well received so far.
But money is only part of it - we need to make the profession more attractive.
We aren't Robinson Crusoe though - there are broader issues in regards to teacher supply and retention, not only in Australia but internationally.
Q: In surveys by the State School Teachers' Union of WA (SSTUWA), high workloads and a lack of teacher safety have been identified as the leading challenges for WA teachers.
How is the State providing support in these areas?
A: In regards to high workloads, we are working on the issue of red tape at the moment.
In regards to violence in schools, my predecessor Sue Ellery announced a 10-point plan a while ago (December, 2018) to help guide schools, families and communities work together to address the issue of violence, but I am looking at what other improvements we can make along those lines.
The message we want to send clearly and more forcefully is that violence against teachers is unacceptable.
We also want to stamp out any harassment of teachers from students' parents, which is bad role modeling for their children.
Q: In a bid to create a higher standard of teachers for Australian schools, a national taskforce is proposing a target ATAR of 80 for teaching students.
Despite this, the ATAR requirements for teachers from WA universities have continued to decrease over the past decade.
Do you think the ATAR scores required to study teaching should be raised?
A: The national review is being done by Mark Scott, who's the vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney and the former secretary of the New South Wales Department of Education.
Firstly, we want to ensure we have people wanting to teach and, secondly, we want to ensure those people who do study teaching at university are of the highest calibre possible.
If there has been a decrease in ATAR scores, which at the moment is the best measure we have, that's something I want to reverse.
I think 80 is a pretty good number for teaching because it means you're in the top 20 per cent of the State.
Q: WA universities have been making offers of admission as early as April to students undertaking their final year of high school.
This can have the potentially detrimental effect of students then taking their foot off the pedal in regards to their studies.
Compare this then to the earliest offers of admission for universities in New South Wales, which are in September.
Do you think WA should make changes as to when universities are first able to make early offers of admission to students?
A: Unconditional offers, which became common practice during COVID, should definitely not be allowed at any time.
For conditional offers they still need to perform and achieve a certain grade before they can take up the offer, so I think they should be allowed but be made as late as possible in the cycle so students don't take their foot off the pedal.
Q: What sort of investment has the State made in the Government Regional Officers Housing Program (GROH) for teachers over the past 12 months to facilitate the attraction and retention of staff in regional and remote locations?
A: The GROH program is administered by the Department of Communities and this year there was an overall program commitment of $200m for the next four years.
In the education space we are always working on how we can increase our share of the program.
We have not increased the rental rate for our teachers in GROH accommodation.
The Education Department has absorbed these costs, which are estimated to be somewhere in the vicinity of $1.8m to $2m for 2023.
In cases where we haven't been able to accommodate teachers in GROH housing and we've provided them with hotel accommodation and the like instead, even for a brief period of time, the department has picked up the tab.
Q: Given the anti-social behaviour, violence and security issues occuring in places like Fitzroy Crossing and Carnarvon, do you think there is the potential to provide teachers with secure housing compounds, similar to what our nurses have received, to keep teachers safe in these remote locations?
A: We need to ensure our teachers are able to work and live in a safe and secure environment, so nothing is off the table.
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Q: What issue are you most passionate about?
A: I want to create an education system where kids want to come to school and every child wants to learn and can reach their full potential no matter where they live, their postcode or what their means are.
Q: You have written books, articles and other publications on the stolen generations, British child migrants, human rights, disability discrimination, sports law, and the Mickelberg saga.
What other topics interest you as a writer and do you plan on publishing your work again?
A: I finished a manuscript a while ago about the voluntary-assisted dying debate which took place in parliament in 2019, so I might progress that one soon.I supported the legislation and have probably become an even stronger supporter of it since 2019.
I think the debate we had on that saw parliament at its finest.I moved an amendment which was unsuccessful.
I wanted to prohibit doctors from being able to raise the issue with their patients.
Because it is such an incredibly important decision, I didn't want anybody who wasn't thinking about it being given the idea by someone else.
Maybe I was being over cautious because I have a child with a disability, so I thought people with disabilities could be more vulnerable in that situation.
My daughter has Cri du chat syndrome which is a chromosomal abnormality in which the person has some genes missing.We didn't know until she was nearly two years of age.
My daughter is 29 now and is very high functioning.
We finally managed to get her a paid job at 28, it's only two days a week in an office but it's good.
So I also have certain insights into special education, but I try to be measured in voicing my opinions on that too.
Who knows - I might write a book about the education system as well.
Q: What is something people might not know about you?
A: I love baking and one of my portfolios is multicultural interests so I have a cooking series which has links on the Office of Multicultural Interests website.
The first show I did was making gnocchi with my mum at the beginning of last year, which was lovely as she passed away in December.
I did another Italian cook with Rita Saffioti's mum as well as Chinese, Sudanese and Indian themes.If there is one thing I wish I could do though it would be to learn to sing properly.
But might be mission impossible.
