Every year, more than 100,000 school students visit Parliament House, with many accessing the Parliament and Civics Education Rebate (PACER). First established in 1989, PACER operates to financially incentivise onsite student learning about parliament and democratic processes. This Flagpost article provides an overview of PACER’s history and evolution, as a civics education tool for many of Australia's first-time referendum voters.

Bringing the classroom to Canberra

The Senate Employment, Education and Training committee’s 1989 report Education For Active Citizenship in Australian Schools and Youth Organisations was the catalyst for PACER’s establishment. Having observed ‘widespread political ignorance in the Australian community’, the Government’s response included a proposal to:

subsidise the travel of high school groups from the remoter parts of Australia so that they might have the same opportunity as students from the south-east mainland to visit national Parliament and participate in the programs of the Parliamentary Education Office (page 3).

The ensuing Citizenship Visits [pilot] Program (CVP) reportedly garnered immediate results, with over 7,500 eligible student visits in the first year. However, participating schools were unevenly located, with 57% of students travelling from Queensland in 1992–93. Conversely, non-east coast mainland states and territories made up less than 30% of participating schools.

Picking up the PACER: the tyranny of distance

In 2006 the CVP became PACER, with responsibility transferring from the House of Representatives and Senate departments to the Department of Education, Science and Training. PACER’s operating administration was also outsourced (with Busy At Work the current provider).

However, the most significant change was that the 1000 km minimum travel distance was reduced to only 150 km. This transition had pronounced impacts on the number and location of schools accessing PACER, as shown in the below graph.

Students accessing PACER by state

Source: Department of the House of Representatives, Annual Report 2005–06 (page 31); Senate Estimates: Parliamentary Departments, Answers to Questions on Notice, 2007.
Note: 2006–07 data accurate to 29 May 2007.

Across PACER’s 17-year existence, the location of participating schools has remained largely static. According to the most recent (pre-COVID) publicly available data from 2017–18, almost half of the 2,042 participating schools were from NSW (page 47). Conversely, non-east coast mainland states and territories made up less than 20% of participating schools. These results run counter to the then-Minister for Education, John Dawkins’ original intent (outlined in 1990) that the CVP ‘introduce an element of access for children from more outlying, far flung parts of Australia’.

Is PACER making the grade?

The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters’ (JSCEM) Civics and Electoral Education report (May 2007) highlighted the cost-prohibitive and logistically challenging nature of travelling to Canberra for increasingly-busy teachers. As PACER is not CPI-adjusted, and travel costs have increased, its inherent role as an incentive reduced over time (a key finding of a 2018 internal review).

Accordingly, in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2023, successive governments have sporadically increased PACER’S rates to offset increasing costs. The most recent 2023 changes also included additional loadings for schools classified as ‘outer regional’ or beyond, or with a specified level of socio-economic disadvantage. Given the recent implementation of these changes, it will naturally take time to identify their results.

Alongside the financial costs, capacity constraints can also impact PACER’s effectiveness. The JSCEM Civics and Electoral Education report recommended that the Parliamentary Education Office receive additional space to increase participation in programmes (recommendation 8). However, the Government’s response was to have an internal review of the program, and noted that classroom-based learning was more efficient.

This has become increasingly pertinent, as the Department of Education, Skills and Employment noted in their 2021 committee inquiry evidence the anecdotal increase in schools using PACER institutions’ online learning resources (accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic). Additionally, the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) asserted in a 2019 report that better results in the ‘Civics and Citizenship’ standardised test ‘should not be interpreted as evidence that participation in excursions to parliament, local government or law courts necessarily results in higher student achievement’ (page p. 96). Though whether facilitated through PACER or at school, ACARA notes (in chapter 5 of the 2019 report) that any interactive student engagement with civics and citizenship activities is statistically significant in improving knowledge and understanding.