Christopher Pyne should do his homework and read the new Australian Curriculum before shooting his mouth off about the teaching of Australia Day.

A quick search of the curriculum content would reveal that the term “invasion day” is simply not mentioned.

Until now, the study of the history and significance of Australia Day hasn’t been compulsory in Australian schools. Under the new curriculum agreed with states and territories and being rolled out from this year, all students in Year 3 will now learn about our national day.

This includes learning about the perspectives and experiences of all members of Australian society, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

It’s a pretty straightforward fact that a couple of minutes of research would have confirmed. Instead, Mr Pyne has chosen to use the headline of a single newspaper report as the basis for his misleading comments.

It’s not the first time Mr Pyne has made inaccurate comments this week. His claims that the Gillard Government has cut education funding are just ludicrous.

Not only does he ignore that we’ve almost doubled investment in our schools, he’s also been pretty quiet about the fact that the Coalition is on record as wanting to slash at least $2.8 billion from the schools budget – and hasn’t ruled out further cuts.

The national curriculum is an important reform that means every Australian student will study and be assessed against the same content. The previous Government put a common curriculum in the too-hard basket, but Labor has delivered it.