In fact I believe that we need better sex education in our own culture here in America so that young folk learn about things like venereal disease before they encounter it.
There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education poverty and drugs. Two of them we talk about and one of them we don't.
These are important reforms. Infrastructure education health hospitals closing the gap with indigenous Australians. Also the Apology to the first Australians. As Prime Minister of the country I am proud of each and every one of these achievements.
Access to books and the encouragement of the habit of reading: these two things are the first and most necessary steps in education and librarians teachers and parents all over the country know it. It is our children's right and it is also our best hope and their best hope for the future.
The gap in education in this country the unfairness of the schools is one of the great unfairness in this society.
I'm sure I am impatient sometimes. I sure do get angry sometimes. I think it's outrageous how hard it is to get this country to feed its children and to take care of its children to give them a decent education.
The government has convinced parents that at some point it's no longer their responsibility. And in fact they force them in many respects to turn their children over to the public education system and wrest control from them and block them out of participation of that. That has to change or education will not improve in this country.
Higher education is one of few areas where this country competes with the rest of the world and wins. The best of American higher education outstrips any in the world. Look where the rest of the world goes for higher education for graduate degrees. They come here.
My mother was born on a tiny farm in County Mayo. She was meant to stay at home and look after the farm while her brother and sister got an education. However she came to England on a visit and never went back.
Unless children have strong education and strong families and strong communities and decent housing it's not enough to go sit in at a lunch counter.
Which is - you know like check it out I'm pretty young I'm only about 40 years old. I still have maybe another four decades of work left in me. And it's exceedingly likely that anything I write from this point forward is going to be judged by the world as the work that came after the freakish success of my last book right?