Selling visions for

education: What do

Australian politicians

believe in, who are they

trying to convince and how?

Tim Pitman

University of Western Australia

his article analyses the educational visions put forward by Australian federal

politicians in their maiden (first) speeches to Parliament. The theoretical approach

was a Habermasian-based analysis of the communication strategies adopted by the

politicians, meaning that it was not only the content of the speeches but also the

delivery that was the focus of the analysis. The findings reveal bipartisan agreement

on the importance of education to personal and national economic prosperity, and

the importance of quality in education. There were ideologically opposed beliefs in

the importance of personal choice and responsibility in education on the one hand,

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and the need for a democratic and equitable education system on the other.

Communicatively, politicians from both sides preferred axiomatic ‘truths’ as a

strategic tool to support their various positions, as opposed to strategies of ‘sincerity’

or ‘rightness.’

Keywords

political parties

ideologies

politics of education

communication research

educational policy

persuasive discourse

Author

Tim Pitman is a Research Development Adviser in the Faculty of Law, University of Western

Australia.

Selling visions for education

Acknowledgement

The author wishes to thank the Editor of the Australian Journal of Education and the

anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this paper.

Introduction

Long before enacting educational policy, politicians traditionally enunciate a more personal

educational ‘vision’—an idealised representation of what education is, does and stands for.

Nowhere is the justification of, and persuasion towards, an educational vision more apparent

than in the maiden speeches of politicians. The maiden speech is, in the words of one

Australian federal politician, ‘the standard against which my actions will be measured

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henceforth’ (Jones, 2010). These speeches have been the focus of scholarly analysis before,

but almost exclusively at the individual level and without a focus on education (for example,

Dees, 1973; Scalmer, 1999). To deal with this gap in research, this article details the findings

of a comprehensive, empirical analysis of the maiden speeches of 150 contemporary

Australian federal politicians, in which they outlined their visions, goals and aspirations for

education in Australia. These statements provide a critical insight into what provides the

initial impetus into education policy development, before pragmatism and politicking

intervene. Furthermore, this article explores the rhetorical devices employed by the

politicians as they describe their educational aspirations. Habermas’s theory of

communicative action (Habermas, 1984) provides a useful theoretical framework for this

task. For Habermas, the underlying function of communicative action is to share and renew

cultural knowledge and thus it is both the message and the delivery that is important.

Contextual framework: the Australian educational

policy terrain (1973–2010)

Politicians make their maiden speech the first time they address Parliament. The 150

speeches informing this study date from as early as 1973 to as recently as 2010. During this

period, three policy developments, influenced by both the left and right of politics,

significantly shaped our contemporary education policy terrain: the funding of public versus

private schools; access to higher education; and state versus federal responsibility. A brief

account of each is provided below.

The funding of public and private schools

Under Australia’s secular system of government, historically only public schools received

financial assistance from the government; private (mostly faith-based) schools relied on

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bequests and tuition fees. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the conservative Menzies

government started to relax its opposition to government assistance for church schools,

reportedly in search of crucial Catholic votes (Potts, 1997). The Australian Labor Party

(ALP) followed suit, so that, when it was elected in 1972, it adopted a policy of funding all

schools on a needs basis, meaning that the most wealthy schools would receive no assistance

and that the majority of Catholic schools (which were comparatively poor) would (Potts,

1997). This model was expanded by the subsequent Liberal government and continued into

the 1980s when national power shifted to the ALP again. While both sides of politics

maintained the essence of the needs-based system, the mixture of private–public financial aid

changed with the government; with ALP governments increasing the proportion given to

government schools and Liberal–National coalitions reversing the trend (Smart, 1986). This

remains the foundation of the private–public funding model today. Proponents of the system

argue that the strength of the ‘needs basis’ funding model strikes a balance between

educational choice and equitable education opportunities; opponents argue that significant

portions of state aid nevertheless continue to subsidise and encourage an elitist sorting

dynamic (Boyd, 1987).

Access to higher education

Before 1973, access to the Australian higher education system was relatively limited, with

fewer than twenty public universities, all charging tuition fees and relatively few merit-based

scholarships available to offset this cost. When the ALP was elected in 1972, the federal

government abolished tuition fees, while retaining a hierarchical system of universities,

institutes of technology and colleges. This remained the case throughout the Liberal (Fraser)

government of 1975–1983. While access to higher education was improved by the abolition

of fees, places were therefore still scarce. The recession of the early 1980s, combined with a

rise in enrolments, placed a financial strain on the funding of higher education institutions

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(Nelson, 2002). In order to deal with access and funding issues, the ALP government led by

R. J. L. Hawke (1983–1991) introduced reforms to increase access to universities. The

traditional hierarchical system of institutions was abolished in favour of a ‘unified’ system

and the number of universities dramatically increased through the merger and re-creation of

colleges and institutes into new universities. Simultaneously, to offset the cost of supporting

the vast increase in undergraduate enrolments, tuition fees were partly reintroduced through

the creation of the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS), whereby the federal

government partly subsidised the cost of education, with the student contributing the rest but

being able to defer his or her payment until employed and earning a predefined minimum

wage. This system was retained but modified by successive ALP and Coalition governments

and continues to the present day.

In 2003, the Coalition government led by John Howard attempted to reintroduce some

full-fee paying places but this was unsuccessful. In 2007, an ALP government led by Kevin

Rudd was elected and in 2008 it adopted most of the recommendations of the Bradley

Review (Bradley, Noonan, Nugent & Scales, 2008), including two key access reforms. First,

institutional caps on undergraduate places were removed, leaving universities free to enrol

(and be paid for) as many places as they could provide. Second, universities were set a target

that, by 2020, at least 20% of undergraduate enrolments were to be of students from low

socio-economic backgrounds. These reforms, still to be played out, have potential to further

improve access to higher education.

State versus federal responsibility

Constitutionally, education in Australia is the responsibility of the states, not the federal

government but, as noted above, the federal government has been enacting significant policy

and taking significant fiscal responsibility for education since the 1970s. This funding has

increased in relative and absolute terms under every successive Commonwealth government,

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and is largely based on section 96 of the Constitution, which allows the Commonwealth to

make payments to the states on such terms and conditions as it sees fit (Hinz, 2010). This has

given rise to the concept of ‘corporate federalism’, where negotiated consensus by federal

and state education ministers allows the constitutional and financial realities of Australian

federalism to be politically circumvented (Lingard, 1991). The federal government uses its

constitutional economic powers to influence education policy that is technically the domain

of the states. Emerging from ad hoc involvement in the 1960s, contemporary federalism in

education is characterised by national policies that deal with matters of concern to the nation

as a whole, adopt a comprehensive approach, are based on principles of collaboration and that

involve commitment and agreement from a number of parties (Lingard, 2000). None the less,

the constitutional ‘murkiness’ of these arrangements has led some education policy

researchers to conclude that the nature and influence of Australian federalism on both school

funding and policy-making is still not properly understood (Hinz, 2010).

In summary, over the last 40 years there has been contested ground on three inter-

related policy continua: the ‘private–public funding’ continuum, the ‘access’ continuum and

the ‘responsibility’ continuum. Across all three, political distinctions (and ideological debate)

revolve around the relative position on each continuum, rather than the adoption of any

radically new paradigm.

Theoretical framework for the study: Habermas’s

theory of communicative action

It is one thing for a politician to have a vision for education; it is another for a politician to

engage the public with it. To achieve this, he or she appeals to the listener on one or a

combination of four bases (Brand, 1990; Ingram, 1982). Constatively, the speaker uses

notions of truthfulness, frequently conveyed via the use of axioms: for example, ‘the

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education of our children is critical to future national prosperity’. Regulatively, the speaker

can use the idea of rightfulness by appealing to norms, either actual or desired. Here, the

word ‘should’ is often used as a trigger; as in, ‘higher education should be accessible and

affordable to all’. Expressively, the speaker attempts to convey sincerity in the speech act.

This involves expressing what he orshe ‘believes’ or ‘desires’ in, or ‘promises’ what he or

she will do. Finally, the comprehensibility of the language used is important, given the

diverse nature of the target audience (Ingram, 1982). The final basis, comprehensibility,

means that syntax and semantics must be considered preconditions for the pragmatic analysis

of the message context (Cukier, Ngwenyama, Bauer & Middelton, 2009). At the same time,

the syntactical and semantic analysis provides a strong indication of the intended audience.

Research method

The data for this study came from the maiden speeches of the 150 current members of the

House of Representatives, which has as its central functions the representation of the people

of Australia, and the passage or amendment of laws. The current Parliament and its

demographics are outlined in Table 1. Since 2010, the ALP has governed as a minority

government, with the support of the Australian Greens and three of the independent

parliamentarians. In opposition, the Liberal and National parties maintained their historical

ties through a formal coalition. There was thus a notionally left-wing government, almost

equally balanced by a notionally right-wing Opposition. More than three-quarters (75.3%) of

members were male, with a similar predominance (71.3%) of university qualifications.

Of the 150 speeches, 98 explicated educational vision. These were contained within

606 individual speech acts, an average of 6.2 speech acts per politician. A speech act is an

utterance (a word, a phrase, a sentence, etc.) that is both an illocutionary act (that is, it has an

intended meaning) and a perlocutionary act (that is, it has an actual effect on the listener,

which may or may not be that intended).

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Table 1: Broad demographics of 2010 Parliament of Australia (House of

Representatives only)

Party Members Gender Educational background1

Female Male Government

Secondary

Independent

Secondary

University

Qualifications

Australian Labor

Party (ALP)

72 23 49 39 25 58

Liberal Party of

Australia (Lib)

61 14 47 20 30 41

The Nationals

(Nat)

12 0 12 8 3 3

Australian

Greens (Green)

1 0 1 1 1

Non-aligned or

independent

(Ind.)

4 0 4 1 2 4

Totals 150 37 113 69 60 107

Note: not all educational qualifications were publicly available; hence subtotals do not always equal 100%

Stage 1 of the analysis involved searching each speech for descriptions of education

vision, which were then coded into themes, as detailed in Table 2 below. Stage 2 of the

analysis involved parsing each thematic statement into discrete syntactical units and

designating each either a constative, regulative or expressive speech act. This required, as is

the case with most social research, an interpretation by the researcher. In line with approach,

the interpretation was not taken from an avowed ‘external’, dispassionate perspective, but

judged within the context of delivery—an interpretive, judgemental analysis that searched for

the dominant, most likely, interpretation of a speech act.

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Finally, speech acts were assessed in terms of comprehensibility by using the Flesch–

Kincaid readability test (Flesch, 1948; Kincaid, Fishburne, Rogers & Chissom, 1975). This

test was chosen due to its ubiquitous nature in the field of linguistics and extensive use in

educational and legal fields. A standard software program was used to assign each speech act

a Flesch–Kincaid score, corresponding to a (US) grade level. For example, a score of 7.0

suggested that a Year 7 student would understand the speech act. The lower the Flesch–

Kincaid score for the speech act, the more comprehensible it was thus determined as being.

Educational themes

As detailed in Table 2 below, educational definitions, aims and visions evidenced four broad

themes.

Table 2: Educational themes in maiden speeches: 1973–2010

Party

Affiliation

Theme

Education

and the

economy

Education

and

democracy

Education

and the

individual

Education

and quality

Other

themes

ALP 62 52 8 17 6

Liberal 32 24 20 6 10

National 3 13 4 3 3

Greens 0 0 0 0 1

Independent 1 1 0 0 0

Totals 98 90 32 26 20

Education and the economy

The economic importance of education was by far the most common discourse across the

political divide, highlighting a bipartisan belief in the fundamental link between education

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and employment. The most common reference was the need to improve educational

qualifications for reasons of employability and prosperity. Perhaps the most overt reference

came from an Independent MP: ‘I look forward to driving the motto home with everyone

here that the future of the mid-North Coast, and the future for most young people in Australia

today, is based on the motto ‘”study for a job, study for a job, study for a job”’.

Similarly, a Liberal MP drew upon the experience of his father, who ‘went to night

school to open up his employment opportunities’, and an ALP MP stated that she wanted to

ensure that all people ‘should have access to training opportunities to advance their

educational qualifications and gain skills that lead to fulfilling employment’.

Alternatively, education—more specifically, higher education—was itself seen as a

commodity. A typical statement came from a Liberal MP who argued for greater funding for

universities, since ‘to underfund these institutions is self-defeating because the harvest of

intellectual property generated by them can be the source of our prosperity in the knowledge

economy of the future.’ An ALP parliamentarian spoke of the existence of a ‘world-class

university’ producing ‘cutting- edge technology’ in his electorate as evidence that regional as

well as urban areas could become a ‘global centre of manufacturing evidence’. In this way,

local, political goals were aligned with broader discourses on education and the economy.

Something that was politically contestable (investment in regional education) was thus

potentially strengthened through an alignment with something that was politically

unshakeable (that education contributed to gross national product).

Education and the economy was the most common theme across both major political

affiliations, but noticeably more so in the ALP. Of 145 themes mentioned by ALP members,

42.8% related to education and the economy, compared to just 29.7% of the 118 themes

mentioned by Coalition members. This reflects the way in which the ALP historically used its

constitutional (fiscal) power to influence the states towards a desired national policy, such as

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needs-basis school funding and the introduction of the HECS. Given that the federal

government ‘manages’ the economy, the ALP has seen great benefit in defining education

policy as part of a broader economic remit (Lingard, 1991). The Coalition also adopts the

same rhetoric, but, interestingly, to a far lesser degree. Probably, this is because the rhetoric

of individual responsibility and choice, which aligns closely with notions of ‘small

government’ is somewhat discordant with the significant fiscal and policy influence federal

government wields in the sphere of education.

Education and democracy

The second most common reference to education was in association with principles of

democracy, equity and inclusivity. These discourses were largely appropriated by the ALP.

The ALP claims its origins lie in ‘the necessity for a political voice to take forward the

struggle of the working class against the excesses, injustices and inequalities of capitalism’

(Australian Labor Party, 2009, p. 3). As one male party member proudly proclaimed, he drew

‘strength and inspirations from the achievements of the Australian Labor Party [in] opening

access for people of my generation to tertiary education’. Of the 93 individual speech acts

relating to either access or equity in education, 76 of them were from ALP politicians.

In contrast, Liberal and National party members tended to refer to educational

democracy in its broadest sense, where use of the term was so ephemeral to become

politically neutral. For example, one Liberal politician stated in her maiden speech ‘In the

coming century, it will be incumbent upon us to provide an [educational] environment that

gives equality of opportunity’. Rare protestations of bipartisanship were, in reality, more

often reinforcements of party positions concerning education ideology. Such was the case

with another Liberal MP, commencing ‘it seems to me that bipartisan agreement . . . that

“lack of money must be no impediment to bright minds”’, but immediately continuing, ‘at

this point the ideological battleground begins . . . what seems to be missing is taking the

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pursuit of excellence seriously.’ In similar ways, politicians on both sides sought to align a

contentious or ideological position, with a larger concept perceived to be more ecumenical in

nature.

An additional, rhetorical function of these vision statements was to allow the ALP to

increase the ideological ‘distance’ between itself and the Coalition in a way that pragmatic

educational policy did not allow. Given that all major policy developments (that is, needs-

based school funding, higher education funding and cooperative federalism) were supported

by both sides of politics, accounts of goals and values, such as democracy in education, were

essential in order to justify an MP’s political affiliation.

Education and the individual

Almost in direct contrast to the discourse of democracy were the ways in which educational

visions described the individual. Individual discourses were those in which the choices,

actions and responsibilities of the person were given preference over those of the state. For

example, whereas one Labor politician believed that ‘it is the responsibility of governments

to ensure that all children receive an education’, his Liberal party colleague argued instead:

From as early as I can remember, my mother and father instilled in me and my

eight brothers and sisters that opportunity and freedom would come through

education, personal responsibility and self-belief; that our destiny was largely in

our own hands.

Three-quarters (24 out of 32) of the politicians highlighting individual responsibility

in education were from the Liberal–National Coalition. Only eight ALP politicians made

similar references to individual choice and responsibility in education; all of them negative.

For example, one female ALP MP inverted the argument that educational choice meant

prioritising private over public education by arguing, ‘it is only by making sure that all our

schools are fairly and equitably funded that parents will have real choice’. Where the pro-

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educational choice arguments differed was in the perceived responsibility of government. For

some politicians, such as the aforementioned Liberal MP, both educational choice and

responsibility were in the domain of the individual. For others in the same party, individual

choice was improved only when the government took on the responsibility. Such was the

view of one male Liberal politician who averred, ‘I firmly believe the federal government has

a responsibility to support the private school system as the states do the public system’. There

were thus three distinct ideologies in relation to choice:

individual choice and individual responsibility were the antithesis of social democracy

and inclusion

pro-choice and pro-government responsibility

pro-individual choice and individual responsibility.

Of the two ‘pro-choice’ ideologies, more politicians supported options that recommended

government intervention. A common argument was, as one male National party member put

it, that ‘funding of non-government schools is essential to ensuring that parents continue to

have a choice as to where their children will be educated’. Therefore, while ‘democracy’

versus ‘choice’ educational debates tended to run according to party lines, positions on

‘large’ government (for example, fiscal intervention) were not so tribal.

In an identical fashion to the ALP when discussing democracy in education, Coalition

politicians exhorted the ideal of the ‘individual’ as a way of increasing the ideological

distance between the two sides, while maintaining (albeit calibrating differently) similar

policy positions on school and university funding.

Education and quality

The final, significant education theme revealed was that of ‘quality’. Quality was expressed

both as an input (for example, improving professional development of teachers), and an

output (for example, higher achievement). Improvements in educational quality were

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frequently linked to government funding, student retention and choice in education. Again,

the economy figured in discussions on quality, mostly as a proxy measurement. There was a

widespread agreement that, in the words of one ALP MP, improving the quality of primary

and secondary education would lead to greater opportunities for students ‘to have career

paths by the time they leave secondary education’.

Quality was thus less of a partisan issue than democracy or choice, and almost as

bipartisan an issue as the economy. The most distinctive features of discussions on

educational quality were that they were mostly described in abstract and aspirational terms. In

other words, politicians struggled to define what, exactly, ‘quality’ was—but they were very

definite that it needed to be improved. Of the 117 individual speech acts referring to

educational quality, only 26 made specific recommendations or gave concrete examples as to

how educational quality could be improved. The remaining speech acts spoke in highly

nebulous terms, such as, ‘quality education is, of course, a priority’, ‘we must constantly be

improving standards’, or ‘we start by giving every child access to high-quality preschool’. As

with education and the economy, quality education was most frequently described in

axiomatic terms. But, whereas the axiom for education was, essentially, described as a cause-

and-effect relationship (education leads to individual and national productivity), the axiom

for education and quality was that quality could and must always be improved.

Selling the education vision

Constative speech acts

Constative speech acts were the overwhelmingly preferred means of communication used by

politicians in their maiden speeches. Of the 606 speech acts, 439 (72.4%) used ‘truth’ for the

purpose of communication, or strategic action. Examples of constative speech acts included

‘education is the great engine of personal development’ and ‘education is fundamental to a

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successful society’. Cleary, politicians preferred the use of axioms or similar strategies of

self-evidence to convey their own personal opinions. Frequently, these statements included

‘floating signifiers’; that is, words or phrases that had a general rather than specific meaning.

For example, one Liberal politician used his speech to promote the ‘fact that education and

access to the knowledge society involves lifelong learning’ (author’s emphasis). At times

politicians used invisible third parties to enhance the verisimilitude of constative speech acts.

A typical example can be found in the statement by one Liberal MP who averred that ‘they

want choice in education: the choice of quality government schools as well as the chance—

and the right—to send their children to a private school if they see fit’. It was a common

strategy for many politicians to deploy variations of the ‘people tell me’ constative speech act

in order to deflect attention away from what was, in reality, personal opinion or contested

ideology.

Politicians were just as likely to resort to constative speech acts in opposition as they

were in government. ALP politicians were slightly more likely to use constative speech acts

than those from the Liberal–National coalition (74.1% compared to 69.6%). The gender

discrepancy was greater (79.2% of female politicians’ speech acts were constative, compared

to 69.1% of males). This contrasts with some cultural perceptions that men tend to speak

more directly, or dogmatically, than women (see , for example, Popp, Donovan, Crawford,

Marsh & Peele, 2003).

There was some variation in the use of constative speech acts across educational

themes. Discussions concerning the themes of democracy (72.2%) and choice (74.2%)

accorded closely with the overall average of 72.4%. Where the economy was the issue,

politicians tended to be even more definitive in nature: 79.0% of these speech acts were

constative. Whether measured by frequency (the number of times mentioned), breadth (the

number of politicians mentioning), bipartisanship (agreement across party lines) and recourse

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to the constative speech act (presenting the theme as self-evident), the primary function of

education was presented as being the generation of more and better employment

opportunities for individuals and the country. Constative speech acts were much less

frequently deployed when then theme of educational quality was discussed (59.8%). In these

instances, there was a significant shift towards the use of expressive speech acts.

Expressive speech acts

Expressions of emotion or sincerity or both represented 17.5% of all speech acts. Examples

included ‘I will work tirelessly . . . to encourage . . . greater education and training

opportunities’ and ‘My highest priority in this House will be to advocate improvements to

public education that will benefit the people I represent’. There was little difference in the use

of expressive acts across party lines; more interesting was that men were somewhat more

likely than women to use expressive speech acts (18.8% compared to 14.9%). Politicians in

power were also more likely to adopt this strategy than those in opposition (20.0% compared

to 15.4%).

Thematically, the issue of quality in education was the most likely source of

expressive speech acts. Overall, 17.5% of speech acts were expressive but this figure rose to

23.1% when quality was discussed. Perhaps one link between quality and sincerity was the

subjective nature of both concepts. As previously noted, quality was most commonly

described in aspirational terms and these phrases readily leant themselves to the similarly

aspirational language of ‘sincerity’. Words and phrases such as ‘hope’, ‘commit’, ‘work

tirelessly’ or ‘passionately held view’ were just some examples of how politicians attempted

to convey, through their speech acts, that they were capable of dealing with an educational

issue that was itself amorphous.

Regulative speech acts

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Of the three types of speech act, regulative speech acts—expressions of normative values or

the way things ‘should be’—were the least used by the politicians in their maiden speeches.

Only 10.1% of speech acts used regulative phrases, such as ‘full school enrolment should be

enforced under the law’or ‘we should aim to have ten Australian universities in the top 100

by 2030’. This appeared to be a direct result of the politicians’ preference for using constative

speech acts to convey the perception that they would make a concrete and positive difference

for their electorate., It was far more likely for a politician to speak about what he or she

would do, rather than what should be done. This is interesting in the field of political

language, as there is a wealth of scholarly literature to confirm that, in general, political

discourse is characterised by instances of evasion, misdirection or non-commitment (see, for

example, Bull, 1994, 2008; Harris, 1991). In maiden speeches, the opposite appeared to be

true.

The most likely possibility for the striking imbalance between the use of constative

and regulative speech acts is that many constative speech acts were, in reality, appeals to

normative values. That is, when a politician referred to some aspect of educational vision that

was not the subject of universal agreement, they tended to resort to statements of ‘fact’ in

order to disguise the ideological tension. Take, for example, this statement by a female ALP

politician:

My highest priority in this House will be to advocate improvements to public

education that will benefit the people I represent. That means creating lifelong

learning opportunities for Calwell's adults, especially through the TAFE system. It

means increasing the educational resources available to Calwell's children

through state primary and secondary schools. It means recognising the absolutely

central importance of public education not only in equipping Australia for success

in the knowledge economy but in enriching the lives and expanding the horizons of

individual Australians. (author’s italics)

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This statement, commencing with an expressive speech act, contains five constative speech

acts (italicised). Consequently, the politician described her personal educational aspirations as

things that must and would occur. In reality, each statement referred to a normative value:

namely, that people should have lifelong learning opportunities; that educational resources

should be increased; that public education should be the cornerstone of government education

policy; and that education policy should, at its heart, result in greater national wealth and

productivity.

Comprehensibility

Overall, speech acts concerning education had an average Flesch–Kincaid score of 13.8. To

date, no empirical research has been conducted regarding this type of comprehensibility, of

Australian political speeches. Arguments can be made both ways as to the general level of

comprehensibility. On the one hand, there has been coverage of President Obama’s 2011

State of the Union address, which at a Flesch–Kincaid score of 8.5, was the second-lowest

score in 75 years (Ostermeier, 2011). Editorialising on the topic has generally inferred, or

explicitly stated, that the low score was a positive discursive strategy. This suggests that the

speech acts of these Australian politicians were much less understandable but it could also be

argued that the target audience of Australian politicians are adults (that is, of voting age) and,

of those, more than 70% have completed Year 12 studies or greater (Australian Bureau of

Statistics, 2011). With this in mind, the Flesch–Kincaid score of 13.8 is perhaps more

reasonable. On balance, the author’s qualitative assessment—leading from the assumption

that speech acts in political discourse should follow the same general guidelines for

comprehensibility as other types of discourse—is that the speech acts were overly

complicated.

On most criteria used to parse the data (for example, comparisons of gender,

educational theme, and so on), the Flesch–Kincaid score was, within the relevant error

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margin, almost identical but there was a significant variation by speech act. Constative

speech acts had an average Flesch–Kincaid score of 13.5, whereas expressive speech acts had

a slightly higher score of 14.8. Thus, when politicians were describing the ‘truth’, they tended

to speak more simply than when talking ‘emotionally’. When the Flesch–Kincaid score was

considered in combination with the frequency of constative speech acts, the conclusion that

the overwhelming focus of the politician was to use their maiden speech to describe their own

personal vision for education policy as a universal, immutable concept was reinforced.

One area in which a significant difference might have been expected was in the

consideration of the educational background the politicians. Yet it was not the case:

politicians with university qualifications (mostly commonly law degrees) had an average

Flesch–Kincaid score of 13.9. This was scarcely distinguishable from the 13.4 score recorded

by politicians with no tertiary qualifications. Two conclusions might reasonably be drawn.

First, maiden speeches are mostly written with significant third-party support, such as from

speech writers. This could in turn account for a uniform style and level of comprehensibility

within the speeches, but could not account for the variance across political party.

The second conclusion is that the politicians wrote their speeches with the internal

audience in mind: that is, these were political speeches written by politicians, for other

politicians. There is some evidence to support this conclusion. For example, the maiden

speeches contain more than 170 instances of direct reference to ‘honourable members’.

Statement such as ‘I would recommend a visit to Churchill Island to any honourable

member’, ‘As honourable members may be aware’, or ‘Honourable members who had an

interest in the Dickson campaign would know’ clearly indicate that the speaker was directly

addressing his or her peers, rather than the general public. The speeches were, in effect,

‘insider’ statements. There is evidence, therefore, that these politicians wrote their speeches

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to conform to specific, cultural norms (the culture of Australian federal politics), rather than

reflecting the more diverse nature of their individual life stories.

Concluding discussion

This analysis of 150 maiden political speeches shows that contemporary education policy is

formed by visions that simultaneously diverge across traditional ideological grounds (that is,

a democratic ‘free’ public system of education versus the individual choice and

responsibility), yet converge towards an increasing belief in the importance of education to

national employment and productivity. Fejes (2010) argued that the 21st century has

witnessed a shift from speaking about employment to employability. More specifically he

observed that ‘in transnational policy texts concerning the labour market and lifelong

learning, there is a consensus perspective as regards the responsibility for employability

shared between the employer, the state and the individual’ (Fejes, 2010, p. 99). There is thus

agreement that the responsibility for education is jointly owned by the public and private

sectors, as well as the ‘user’ of the services but this study shows that there remains significant

debate as to the relative weight of each party’s share of the burden.

Crucially, in the process of conducting ideological debates of process and

responsibility (for example, what type of schooling should be available? How much should

we pay for it?), the mutually agreed focus of educational policy is itself supressed as a topic

for debate. Politicians of the left continue to champion more democratic public school

systems and greater access to education. Politicians of the right maintain their support for a

more independent educational sector, with a greater emphasis on individual responsibility.

Yet in this tribal, political process, both sides argue that their policies are the ones that will

best harness educational infrastructure to generate more jobs and greater wealth for their

country. This fundamental goal of education is almost never questioned; indeed, the vast

majority of politicians seem incapable of even considering that this issue might be

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questioned. This should be of concern to anyone interested in educational policy. It is not the

intention of this article to argue for an alternative proto-goal for education. But we should

remind politicians and policy-makers that the current goal, or purpose, of education should

never be taken for granted: that is, it is not just the means, but also the ends, of education, that

should remain open to debate.

Just as there is a broad consensus as to the purpose of education, this research reveals

that there is a homogenous approach in message delivery. Overall, maiden speeches present

educational vision, via relatively complex expressions of immutable ‘fact’ and self-evident

truths. This reveals the underlying strategy of the political maiden speech:

To present a criticisable validity claim means to present a claim which can, if need

be, be defended with arguments which might lead to an agreement based on

reason. Thus ‘simple imperatives’, even though they are couched in language, are

not a matter of communicative but of linguistically mediated open strategic action.

(Brand, 1990, p. 29)

By ‘open strategic action’ it is meant that the politician attempts to achieve success—rather

than understanding—by influencing (not manipulating) his or her audience. Maiden speeches

are not meant to change opinion, but neither are they intended to deceive. The overall

(in)comprehensibility of the speeches, as well as their regular reference to political colleagues

and the forum, suggests that the politicians are attempting to influence those within the

chamber, rather than the external public who democratically elected them. But what realistic

chance does a politician have to influence the actions of what one individual referred to as

‘the rabble opposite’, given the apparent immutability of the ideological battlelines?

It appears likely that the primary targets of the maiden speech are political colleagues,

not political opponents, or voters. Politicians use maiden speeches largely to demonstrate to

their peers that they understand the rules of, and are ready to play, the ‘game’. As Habermas

himself quotes Durkheim:

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There can be no society which does not feel the need of upholding and reaffirming

at regular intervals the collective sentiments and the collective ideas which make

its unity and its personality . . . hence come ceremonies which do not differ from

regular religious ceremonies, either in their object, the result which they produce,

or the process employed to attain the results (Durkheim, 1965, pp. 474–475, as

cited in Habermas, 1984).

This conclusion allows us to consider the development of subsequent policy documents (in

this case, education policy), in a new light. Many (mostly poststructural) researchers

conclude in some way or another that, in the words of Codd (1988, p. 235), policy texts

contain ‘divergent meanings, contradictions and structured omissions, so that different effects

are produced on different readers’. The findings of this study remind us that a one of these

key audiences (that is, readers) of policy texts is the political party in which the agent is

situated. This audience will interpret an individual member’s policy actions in the broader

context of the party’s shared system of values, and this is the fundamental function of the

maiden speech. Whereas a policy document can—and perhaps, sometimes, must—be subject

to different interpretations, the maiden speech cannot. Perhaps this is its ultimate function,

from which it derives its ideologically axiomatic, internally focused form.

References