Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to put on the record and commend the great work of the Isolated Children’s Parents Association, which I have met with over the last couple of months, particularly in Sydney and also here in Canberra. They are a great bunch of people that are working very hard. They are not only working hard on the land in remote, rural and isolated communities right across Australia but also working very hard to educate their kids. What they tell me and explain to me is just how difficult it is today to try to educate your kids when you live in remote, rural and very isolated parts of Australia—parts where the nearest school might be 300 or 400 kilometres away or, for some people on the land, 1,000 or more kilometres away. The message they are trying to give to this place—to the parliament and to members of parliament—is that we need to be more in touch with these issues. We need to do more. We need to ensure that their children have the same educational opportunities as every other child in Australia. I do not think there is an issue that is any more important. We need opportunities and the skilling-up of young people and to try to get into some of those rural and remote communities and ensure that they have the same opportunities that every other young person in Australia enjoys today.