On this page: Citizenship Day | Do we need a bill of rights? | Diversity enhances learning | PEO pays return visit | Cockatoo Island is off and flying! | Southbound educators
Profiler Newsletter Issue 5: August 2003
From May 2002 to November 2004, the PEO produced a regular newsletter called Profiler. This publication has now ceased, but archived articles will continue to be made available here.
Articles on this page are in text only and are suitable for printing. The downloadable PDF version contains photographs.
Download Profiler Newsletter Issue 5: August 2003 [PDF 373KB]
Director's cut
This is the fifth edition of the Profiler and it seems that we are never short on for a good story. Our PEO educators have been busy giving real action to our mission which is to provide parliamentary education services to schools, teachers and students – as they should I hear you say!
However, it’s demanding but thoroughly rewarding work and in this edition of the Profiler you will read about how Adrienne, Jan, Camilla, Geoff and Anne crisscrossed the country. They have all been involved with students and teachers from schools in Tasmania and Queensland as well as adult students who are returning to the work force and enrolled in TAFEs throughout NSW and Victoria.
I am sure you will agree that the pictures as well as the articles tell a great story, a story about the work of parliament and the role of our Senators and Members as they go about their day. We invite you to write to us with any comments or questions you might have about these programs and the work done by the PEO. Our email address for comments is info@peo.gov.au. We would love to hear from you.
Finally we have given some press to Australian Citizenship Day in September and Democracy Week in November. There seems to be something for everyone in this edition of the Profiler so go on, begin the big read - there are lots of things to interest you all.
Ann Owner
Director, Parliamentary Education Office
Did you know?
From 1 January to 30 June 2003 there were seventy-eight bills passed by the Senate and the House of Representatives (and so became law); six government bills have not been passed by the Senate, and there were, at 30 June 2003, thirty-one bills that have not yet been debated in the Senate.
School visits to Parliament House
From September to November, the PEO will deliver our one hour program to students visiting Parliament House to: 30,840 students in 886 groups from 564 schools.
From the states and territories we will see the following number of school groups: ACT=5, NSW=533, NT=2, SA=57, TAS=20, VIC=116, WA=20.
So far this year, the PEO has seen: 43,370 students in 1,276 groups from 714 schools.
By the end of December this year, the PEO will have seen: 79,674 students in 2,313 groups from 1,363 schools.
Citizenship Day
This September educators around the country are being invited to support the 2003 Australian Citizenship campaign.
The campaign encourages Australians to appreciate the role of Australian Citizenship as the most important unifying force in our community and invites eligible people to become Australian citizens.
The key campaign date is Australian Citizenship Day on 17 September 2003 when there will be citizenship and affirmation cermonies across Australia.
Selected primary schools, with the help of local councils, in each State and Territory, have been invited to conduct mock ceremonies, with students role playing the parts of key people.
The Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs is also offering an Australian Citizenship Day education resource for Years 4 to 6 primary school students (soon to be released).
Another resource, Citizenship 2030, offering classroom activities to support Civics and Citizenship teaching in high schools, focuses on the future.
The Parliamentary Education Office is lending support by emphasising Australian Citizenship during its September program and spreading the Australian Citizenship message to younger Australians.
Do we need a bill of rights?
A convention with a difference
Eighty five Year 11 students from ACT colleges spent two consecutive Fridays examining the concept of Australia embedding a Bill of Rights into the Federal Constitution. And they did this by acting-out the parliamentary and electoral commission processes of preparing and running a referendum. Students in the 2003 ACT Constitutional Convention learned a lot about referendums. They learned that Bills normally become law after being passed by the Federal Parliament and then signed by the GG, but a Bill which proposes changes to the constitution must be authorised by the people through referendum before the GG signs it into law.
The students also learned that a referendum
- costs heaps to run,
- poses a simple answer (YES or NO) to a complex question,
- works from a secret ballot,
- is presented to the people by the Federal Parliament,
- has printed arguments for the YES and NO cases written by Federal Parliamentarians,
- offers only one model for the proposed change to the Federal Constitution,
- requires a majority of people to say YES in a majority of the six states for the constitutional change to be agreed to by the people and
- raises the passion of all those who argue for either the YES or the NO case.
On Day 1 student delegates voted in a plebiscite whether Australia should have a Bill of Rights, prepared speeches for and against and then delivered them in a Senate debate roleplay. The “government” in the “Senate” lost the vote by 2 in the division, but the convention continued because it was assumed (probably rightly) that the House of Representatives would again pass the bill in three months time and go ahead with the referendum anyway. Delegates then contributed to the writing of the YES and NO cases.
On Day 2 delegates acted as ordinary citizens, and subjected themselves to the experts arguing their case on how to vote. They then tried to talk each other into voting the right way by standing on a soapbox and spruiking for one minute. They voted after lunch and watched as the vote was counted. The result? A resounding NO. Only delegates (posing as WA citizens) voted YES in the majority. Observers noted that the main opposition was against a Bill of Rights being embedded in the Constitution, rather than against Australia having a Bill of Rights. But that’s how it is with referendums! The ACT Assembly Education Office, the Australian Electoral Commission, the ACT Education Department and the PEO organised and ran the program.
-Rick Williams
Diversity enhances learning
TAFEs throughout Australia provide a wide range of courses. The PEO has been working with students who study parliamentary processes and government as well as policy development. In 2002 educators visited Melbourne, the Chisholm Institute in Dandenong, and Horsham. In 2003 we visited Bendigo, Holmesglen in Melbourne, Wollongong, Shellharbour, Northern Beaches (Northern Sydney Institute), Newcastle (The Hunter Institute) and Bathurst/Orange, covering 9 different electorates.
Other States and Territories are in our sights for future visits. TAFE students are diverse. Many are mature age returning to formal studies after having been in the work force in other jobs and are highly motivated. Many are from multicultural backgrounds. At Chisholm we were thanked in fourteen different languages. The students have a strong desire to understand parliamentary processes and their teachers who use what they call ‘simulation’ methods, were prepared to carry on from where we concluded, using our methodology in their approach to teaching parliament.
Guest speakers included Federal, State, Council members and active members in the community. The students were impressed with the relevance, dynamism, inspiration and information conveyed by the speakers.
One student said of a member “I now realise how hard he works” another was “surprised by the services that our local member provides”. Others said “I have learned that change will take place but it takes time, process, commitment and knowledge”, “I can apply this knowledge in the future with advocacy, community concerns and issues”, “I am now armed with more information to help others” and finally on our approach to teaching, “The facilitative learning process that was employed was instrumental for me in achieving a sense of connection to the parliamentary process”.
Comments such as these strongly indicate to the PEO educators involved in TAFE outreach that they are indeed providing relevant and highly valued programs.
-Camilla Blunden
Read more about customised programs.
PEO pays return visit
In March 2003, six school and community educators from Lowood and Laidley near Ipswich (Queensland) and Brisbane visited Parliament House for a week in order to immerse themselves in the workings of Federal Parliament. As reported in the last edition of PEO Profiler, this team gained a strong understanding of the diverse nature of parliamentary activity. They returned to their communities inspired to pass on their experiences and knowledge to the school students and community groups with whom they work.
PEO educators Geoff Clarke and Anne Kennedy recently paid a return visit to Ipswich and took part in a follow-up program organised by several fellows. Geoff worked with Leon Steinhardt, head of Social Science at Lowood State High School, facilitating parliamentary role-plays in four local high schools. Students from three of these schools then took part in a day-long Senate Committee of Inquiry role-play into regional water policy. Teachers recruited community leaders to brief students on the issues involved. Mr Cameron Thompson MP (Member for Blair) also appeared before the Committee.
Anne worked with Rosalie Shawcross, Senior Project Officer for Discovering Democracy, Queensland, facilitating parliamentary role-plays in seven local primary schools. Senator Claire Moore (Senator for Queensland) accompanied Rosalie and Anne to two schools. The PEO visit culminated in a professional development day for 30 teachers in the Brisbane office of Education Queensland, in which Rosalie demonstrated the correlation between PEO role-plays andDiscovering Democracy materials. Shane Browne, Program Leader and community educator at the Shopfront and Community Hub in Lowood, organised a public meeting in Lowood attended by a small but keen group of citizens, including the Mayor, Ms Jean Bray, and a councillor from Esk Shire.
The benefits of the Fellowships program were evident in the enthusiastic and professional way in which the Fellows translated their experiences and knowledge gained from their visit to Canberra into a program which focussed on specific needs in schools and reflected local community conditions and requirements.
-Geoff Clarke and Anne Kennedy
Cockatoo Island is off and flying!
On July 16 the PEO’s newest resource was launched by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Honourable Neil Andrew and the President of the Senate, Senator, the Honourable Paul Calvert. Over 200 guests were treated to a sitting of the Parliament of Birds courtesy of Year 6 students from Gold Creek Primary School and Canberra Junior Girls Grammar School. Cockatoo Island is for students in junior primary school to introduce them to the concepts and processes of our parliamentary democracy. Thomson Learning, one of Australia’s leading educational publishers, will be distributing the package through a series of professional development sessions for teachers throughout the country.
-Ali Garnett
Read more about Cockatoo Island.
Southbound educators
Jan and Adrienne recently embarked on an Outreach program to the Burnie/Devonport and Strahan areas in Tasmania. With the support of Mr Sid Sidebottom, MP, (Federal Member for Braddon) and Senator Richard Colbeck, (TAS) the program involved two educators visiting eleven schools, working with twenty teachers and over five hundred students over five days.
Tony Poynter (Discovering Democracy project officer, Department of Education, Tasmania) steered the PEO educators in the right direction identifying schools in most need, for either reasons of isolation and/or financial hardship. Direct contact with schools was made and teachers responded enthusiastically to the proposed visit. Programs were subsequently tailored to suit the needs of each individual school and class group.
June 23 saw the beginning of a hectic week for Adrienne and Jan, covering the north-west coast and isolated south-west corner of Tasmania. Students experienced, through role-play, how a bill is passed in the House of Representatives and the Senate and the importance of a Senate Committee of Inquiry.
Monday began with a very scenic drive along the north coast to Smithton Primary school where Jan and Adrienne worked with two year 5/6 classes who debated several Bills relating to particular issues of relevance to the children. Similarly roleplays were conducted at Forest Primary in the afternoon.
Back to Burnie for Tuesday’s sessions including classes at Stella Maris and Parklands High school.
The following day Adrienne and Jan were welcomed into Strahan and Zeehan Primary Schools conducting programs with the upper primary class groups.
Returning to the north coast and Penguin, Jan and Adrienne conducted sessions in both Penguin High and Primary Schools followed by Reece High school, Devonport in the afternoon.
On the final day Jan and Adrienne were joined by Mr Sid Sidebottom and Senator Colbeck at Sheffield District High School and Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School in Devonport. It was very generous of both parliamentarians to participate in the program in these two schools, particularly considering they had been in Parliament House in Canberra until the early hours of that morning and then had flown to Devonport!
The highlight of the outreach program was the enthusiasm with which the teachers and students embraced it. Comments such as “Now I feel that I can teach governance”, “Just having you here is something we’ve never had before” and “We have since debated another Bill and it worked just as well as on the day” were indicative of the success of this PEO program.