Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know that that is not exactly what the member was saying, but I want to put it on the record that this is an issue across all communities and it is something that does require a careful response, because without the capacity to learn we know that the great enabler of Australian life, education, is something that people cannot participate in.

However, I note that the member for Murray, while claiming that this government is not doing anything substantial for the benefit of the Indigenous population of this country, is happy to have this legislation go through. I am pleased to hear that, because at least it is a sign of something positive—a little bit of support for what this program will offer. We hear about cutting and cutting and cutting to the bone from the other side. I am pleased to see that they are not going to oppose this, which will enable and support a community.

This bill is going to amend the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000, and it will increase the appropriation to reflect the inclusion of a very important program known as ARTIE, Achieving Results Through Indigenous Education. This particular program is being run by the Former Origin Greats, the FOGS organisation, which is a very timely thing for us to be talking about, as the blue and maroon contest is about to commence next week. The former State of Origin greats are using these sporting programs and cultural activities to really help Indigenous kids stay at school and get an education. Critically, attending school is a vital part of becoming a citizen in the fullest sense: not just somebody who is able to work—and I note the comments of the member for Murray in that regard—but somebody who has the freedom that education provides—the freedom to think, to read, to move freely in the society and to participate in civic life at the highest levels. All of these things are enabled by people's attendance at school. So clearly this is a very important project.

On 10 December 2012, the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer and the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, the Hon. Peter Garrett, announced an additional $4.43 million to expand the ARTIE academy. That might be called 'a few dollars' by the member for Murray, but I am sure that the community that received that and those who are giving their life's work to this cause appreciate that investment by the Australian people in the project that they have developed and that they want to get on with. The academy has a fine track record, kicked off in 2009 with six secondary schools. Through a continuous improvement program, it has established a model of learning that focuses on critical things that are not just about learning to do, learning to know and skill development but about ways of being as well. Through mentoring, tutoring and cultural understanding, they are supporting participating students in schools across South-East Queensland.

In 2010, the academy targeted 500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, and the success of the program has led to it increasing to 1,500 students that are targeted in the period 2011-12. When we look at the success of this ARTIE program so far, there are 1,630 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students who have completed their education. These numbers roll off our tongues: 1,630. But I know what that looks like at a school assembly. Eight hundred children in front of you is a lot of children. When we think about 1,600 young Australian Indigenous people whose lives have been improved by being helped to complete their school education through the ARTIE program, we have some sense of the profound change that that offers to communities and the profound change it offers to those individuals.

The additional investment that was announced in December last year means that the ARTIE academy is going to be funded for another four years in 21 schools in south-east and central Queensland and, importantly, two schools—Kirwan State High School and Pimlico State High School—in Townsville. I rise and celebrate these things in a state foreign to my own. Although I am the member for the seat of Robertson in New South Wales, I delight in the success of education for Indigenous people all over this country, because in a way I get to see it in my own seat in the institution that we have there, which is the site at which all those talented dancers come to the Central Coast: NAISDA, the National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Association. Basically it is the equivalent of NIDA, which is for the training of our dramatic arts and actors. This is for the training of Indigenous young people in dance and the interpretation of culture. There is wonderful work going on there. I have met many young men and women from all over Australia who have benefited from exactly this sort of program where they live right around the country.

Indeed, one of the most interesting interactions that I have had at NAISDA was at the recent graduation ceremony, where I was asking each of the recipients of awards as they approached me, 'Where are you from?' and they were naming cities around the country and places that I could recognise. Finally one young Indigenous woman named her Aboriginal country that she came from. Just as we are in the land of the Darkinjung, she identified herself as from that particular country. I thought, 'Well, there is a lot of learning for me to do in terms of coming to an understanding of the great number of different countries of our Indigenous people throughout this land.' I thought what a testimony it was to education that, here she is, expanding her skill set in a program supported and funded by the federal government—no doubt enabled by exactly the sort of funding that we are talking about this morning—to be able to do her best to own her identity as an Indigenous woman in her own right and to claim that and celebrate it. It was a very, very pleasurable experience for me, I can tell you.

I want to make a couple of comments in relation to the interaction of programs such as ARTIE and Sporting Chance funded under the IETA, which I will also speak to, in terms of our determination to close the gap. It really disappoints me that, in the time I have been in this parliament, every day at two o'clock, as important as the functioning of this parliament is around question time, I think at this point in history when we are aware of the incredible disadvantage between those born into Indigenous families and the rest of the Australian population in terms of length of life, the Closing the Gap reports that are given by both the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister in this place and have been given every year since I have been here, draws such little attention from the gallery. Right now as we speak there is one dedicated journalist sitting up there—a very good one from AAP; they are a permanent presence in this place. But on the occasion of last year and the year before, when I looked up for the scrutiny of the media in response to the Closing the Gap statements—half an hour from the Prime Minister and a very good 20-minute speech from the Leader of the Opposition—there were two journalists this year and in the year before only one person was present and I am assuming that person was AAP.

If we are to indeed address the disadvantage that we know exists in this country, surely initiatives around Closing the Gap deserves our greatest attention. Even today in the papers we have heard a conversation about racist slurs that have been the focus of some considerable media attention in the last few days. I happened to hear this morning on my way to the parliament a statement by a young Aboriginal Aussie Rules player from Melbourne, who is unknown to me by name. He simply said that larrikinism is being used as a mask for racism. I wonder what the reason is for a failure to attend to Closing the Gap as a critical part of what this parliament is charged with doing in the time that we are here.

Despite that seeming lack of attention from agencies of the media in what I think is perhaps the most pressing responsibility for us to deal with as a nation in terms of access and equity and life, health, social and work outcomes, we continue as this government to invest in programs that we know work for our Indigenous communities. Through this bill we are once again reaffirming our commitment to supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and their families to engage in education.

I mentioned that one of the programs in addition to the ARTIE program is the IETA program, which includes the Parental and Community Engagement (PaCE) program. This program is a community driven program that develops very important partnerships between parents and the school. The program that the kids will be accessing most is often called the Sporting Chance program, which uses sport and recreation as a great way to engage kids. We know that it works, and it is wonderful to see that this investment is making sure that kids are engaged in healthy activity that engages them in school. The IETA also run an Indigenous Youth Leadership Program, providing secondary and tertiary scholarships to engage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids in secondary education, helping them to stay there so that they are successful and then able to move on beyond that into the tertiary setting. They also support and fund the Indigenous Youth Mobility Program, supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth from remote areas to move to the centres where they have a chance to get those vital skills to gain a qualification and get sustainable employment as it arises from that skill set development.

In the time that remains I would just like to get on the record the important interaction between the things that I have been talking about and the overarching framework that this Gillard government wants to put in place to improve education for every child, every young person in every school around the country. We know from the Gonski review that children who are born to families where perhaps their parents have not had great financial success and they are in a low-SES background have a disadvantage—we know that indigeneity is a significant disadvantage in terms of school outcomes; we know that being from rural or remote area can be a disadvantage. Because of those things we want to put more money into schools. I am delighted to say that Barry O'Farrell has actually shown great leadership on this, making sure that kids in New South Wales have a sporting chance of getting a fair share to ensure that they have a decent education.

Under the Gillard government's National Plan for School Improvement there will be dedicated extra funding for every Indigenous student in the country and it is called the Indigenous loading. Extra money will help schools focus even more strongly on improving the results that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students achieve. Over the six-year transition to achieve this new school funding arrangement it means a very practical and significant investment: $5.5 billion in public funding to address what we know is an inexplicable gap between the success of children who were born to non-Indigenous families and those born to Indigenous families. For my state of New South Wales it is $1.3 billion for Indigenous students. That means 53,900 lives—53,900 students in 2½ thousand schools in New South Wales—will benefit from this investment in their education.

As a former teacher I applaud the work that my fellow teachers do and have done for so many years, but teachers need resources, and resources cost money—resources in the shape of people; resources in the shape of documents; resources in the shape of accessing the internet; resources in the shape of bringing in community, training community and supporting it, because each community needs to be able to respond in their own particular way. I certainly applaud the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill and I commend it to the House.

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