Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in continuation of my speech on the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2013. The additional funding provided to ARTIE will allow for the implementation of the program in three primary schools in South East Queensland and for the expansion of the academy into two Townsville high schools at Kirwan and Pimlico.

Members of the House will be aware of my passion for education. In my maiden speech, and repeatedly since then, I have spoken of my own life being testimony to the truth that education is the great transformer. Education allowed me to escape the cycle of disadvantage, and I understand and appreciate its importance completely. That is why I so strongly support this government's education reforms, particularly in the area of Indigenous education. The Labor government are determined to close the gap between the education results of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students and we are focused on investing in programs we know can lift results.

We are delivering an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Action Plan in cooperation with the states, territories and non-government schools. We have invested $128 million to help boost school attendance, literacy and numeracy skills, strengthen the education workforce and provide extra resources to schools that are in most need of help through the education plan.

We will achieve the Closing the Gap target of ensuring all Indigenous four-year-olds in remote communities have access to early childhood education. We are also building 38 children and family centres as part of the National Partnership Agreement for Indigenous Early Childhood Development.

Under our National Plan for School Improvement, every Indigenous student in the country will be entitled to guaranteed extra funding, no matter what school they attend. This means an estimated total of $5.5 billion in public funding across Australia, which will be directed to specifically support the almost 200,000 Indigenous students in about 8,000 schools. In the ACT, this will mean $40 million in new funding for Indigenous students in Canberra, benefiting around 1,400 students in 117 schools.

This bill reaffirms Labor's commitment to improving educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, families and communities. By funding targeted programs that are designed to complement and support mainstream schooling,    this bill will achieve so much. I commend the bill to the House.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2013. This bill aims to increase the appropriations for some measures until 30 June 2014, in particular to boost spending for the School Nutrition Program, which caters for over 5,000 students in 65 schools selected in the Northern Territory. As well, there are to be an additional 200 teachers in the Northern Territory and new funding for the Achieving Results Through Indigenous Education project, which will be administered through the Sporting Chance Program, also funded through this bill. The problem is that this still only amounts to a series of one-year commitments. This is the third round of one-year ad hoc commitments. Imagine the lot of the individuals and their families employed in these programs—that is, the teachers, the administrators and the fieldworkers. They are trying to focus on their work but, every six months, they have to contemplate: where do we go to next, what new job application do we send off?

Think of the Indigenous children and their families who have come to expect nothing more than short-termism, a revolving door of ad hoc programs, new faces, new people, always one finishing, one starting up and with no expectation of continuity. This is the hallmark of a chaotic administration and of governments that pay only lip-service to assisting one of the most disadvantaged populations embedded in any developed nation.

Take the Indigenous Youth Mobility Program, which provides accommodation support for remote young people as they take up, say, a trade or a traineeship. First, Labor cut the program's funding, leaving students in their dreams of a better life stranded, leaving their families disenchanted and saying, 'That's what you expect.' But then the government replaced the funding a year later. So this is not only chaotic; it is cruel, given its impacts on young people's hopes and plans. We all know that the educational outcomes for all students have been deteriorating under the Labor regime. This is the case across the country and it is deeply shameful. But that is what the deeply flawed but much loved by Labor NAPLAN results show us. We now have the statistics to compare ourselves with developed nations in our Asia region and beyond. We are in an incredible situation where we see maths and literacy skills and learning are contracting over time, not improving. We are also seeing a widening gap between the most able students and students who struggle. On a national scale, translate that into the situation for Indigenous Australians, where many of them are living in extraordinarily remote communities, a long way from job opportunities and role models, with a range of different occupations and in families which may not have known work or which may not have participated in the modern Australian economy for two or three generations.

Quite clearly, we need to have an education plan and funding which is not short term and which is not one year at a time—'Let's see what's in the budget, let's see if we can throw a bit of money back at that program we cut last year' seems to be the thinking of the ministers responsible for Indigenous education in Australia. It is not good enough and it results in deeply disadvantaged, cynical, isolated individuals. Many of them, especially our Indigenous youth, end up in jail. They end up with thwarted life opportunities and with alcohol and drug consumption levels, which are dangerous to them and their children.

Two recent reports of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs—and I am deputy chair of this committee—addressed in particular this issue of young people and their educational opportunities in Australia and the failure of our education system for them. One is titled Doing time—time for doing: Indigenous youth in the criminal justice system. The other report is titled Our land our languages. Both these reports identified the terrible failures in the provision of formal education for Indigenous students. I have already mentioned the outcome for many of our Indigenous students is early engagement in the criminal justice system, particularly for boys.

Recommendation 9 of the languages report asked that, by March 2013, the Commonwealth government develop and announce an implementation plan, given its endorsement of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. This endorsement was made in 2009. People on this side will not be surprised to hear that that deadline has well and truly passed and this government still has done nothing more than endorse this declaration, pay lip-service to it. The human rights of Indigenous Australians, in regard to them having access to the economy of Australia and having a decent life, are now just as remote for Aboriginal peoples as they were many years ago. The gap between the life opportunities and quality of life between Indigenous Australians and the rest of our society widens, whether that gap is measured in health terms, numbers in incarceration or numbers who are unemployed and who are therefore experiencing extreme poverty. Whatever way you measure this gap, it is growing in Australia and it should not be tolerated by a developed nations like ours.

That inequality and that gap can in particular be addressed through better education and training opportunities for Indigenous families, Indigenous Australians. This is what this bill is supposed to be about, but all it does is throw a little bit of money for one year at a couple of programs. This is a serious problem.

School for remote Aboriginal families in particular almost universally reinforces their sense of alienation and isolation from mainstream society. It reinforces their lack of power or lack of independent action after they have finished some schooling in remote Australia. An indication of exactly what most of our Indigenous children think about their schooling is in the levels of absenteeism. Most Indigenous students arrive at preschool or primary school in these remote settlements with a home language which is not your standard Australian English. These children may speak traditional languages, or a creole, a complex contact language. Our inquiry into languages and issues surrounding education in languages found that these children's languages were not identified at the time of their arrival as a little girl or boy full of hope and expectation on their first days at preschool or kindergarten or primary school. Typically they were expected to be speaking standard Australian English on the day they arrived and they were taught like that. They were not taught first in their home languages, and their teachers were not universally trained in teaching English as a second language. So these children began from their first day to be alienated and disadvantaged because there was a totally different set of expectations about what they were actually understanding in the classroom. Very often employed in that classroom, at a poor salary and with very limited career expectations, is an Aboriginal teacher's aide. She typically does speak the language of the children in the classroom but she is not the one instructing the children.

I have met so many bright and eager young people in small Northern Territory, Western Australian and Queensland outback schools who are approaching their final years at school and who, according to the data held by the school, have actually been in school for six, seven, eight, nine or 10 years but have no working knowledge in English-language speaking, and they certainly cannot write it. These young people want to get a licence to drive a car, they want to work in the mines, they want to play football for Collingwood—they have a whole range of expectations like any other young Australian. But they will be competing to get a job, to participate in our economy, with one hand tied behind their backs because the education system has completely failed to give them adequate English language skills.

It is one of the most important things to retain traditional or contact languages amongst our Indigenous communities, and as an anthropologist I understand that profoundly. But it is equally important to ensure that the young person is not marginalised or open to exploitation or disempowered because they cannot communicate in standard Australian English. This is, unfortunately, too often the consequence of eight, nine or 10 years of formal education for an Aboriginal student in their remote Indigenous school. This is pathetic and it should not be tolerated. We have recommendations in our report, Our land our languages: language learning in Indigenous communities from September 2012, when we brought down our recommendations about all these issues. We spelt out quite clearly what the federal and Northern Territory governments in particular should do. I am very sad to say, but you will not be surprised to find, that those recommendations have fallen on deaf ears.

Then we have the extraordinary situation of alcohol consumption in some of our Indigenous communities to the extent that women who are pregnant are still drinking, and so we have foetal alcohol spectrum disorder at a rate of prevalence in some Indigenous communities which means that a significant number of the young children are brain damaged, and have been brain damaged at birth. We are not addressing in our schools now this issue of how to support and give some instruction to those young children who are brain damaged as a consequence of their mother's consumption of alcohol when they were in the womb. Some communities in Western Australia have had prevalence studies completed in terms of the proportion of children affected by foetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

Let me say that the proportions of children affected are shocking, deeply shocking. Are those schools being given support in terms of special programs? Are they being given support from a multidisciplinary team which has everything from psychiatric to speech therapy to physiotherapy skills? No, they are not. We are just noting how many children have foetal alcohol spectrum disorder consequences. We are saying, 'That is bad.' We do not yet even have any program in Australia which brings the community's attention to the problem of drinking while you are pregnant. Yet here we are with a bill giving a few dollars for a year to a few Indigenous programs in schools, but we are ignoring the elephant in the room, which is that in some Indigenous communities up to half of the children have brain damage at birth. They cannot learn like normal children and yet they do not have an intellectual incapacity; they have a cognitive incapacity, so they understand profoundly what their own shortcomings are. One of the most tragic things you watch is a short film called Tristan where a young 10-year-old Indigenous boy from Fitzroy Crossing says: 'I just want to be normal. I would like to be a policeman but I just want to be normal.' What a tragic statement of yearning from a young boy born profoundly brain-damaged, with other physical disabilities as well, because his mother was drinking while she was pregnant without any support for her alcohol dependency while she was pregnant. In fact, that mother has other children with the same condition.

This government, I am very sad to say, still has not responded to the House of Representatives Social and Legal Affairs Standing Committee, which brought down a report late last year into foetal alcohol spectrum disorder in Australia. The recommendations that we put up were to be responded to by this government by the end of this month. We have heard nothing. I am hoping that we will be having a government response to that report very soon, because too many young children in Australia—not just in the Indigenous communities but in the broader Australian community—are being born brain-damaged, with their capacity to learn severely impaired because their mothers were not aware of the dangers of drinking during pregnancy or because their mothers were addicted or had a drinking problem and have not been given any support during their pregnancies.

So I have many concerns. Having worked in the education sector in the academic training of teachers and in developing curriculum, and as an anthropologist and a person working in Indigenous communities for many years, I am deeply concerned by the limitations of this bill. Of course, the opposition will not oppose this bill, because at least it gives a few dollars to a few good programs, particularly the program which will feed little Indigenous children in the schools. But it is short-termism. This is just a one-year program commitment till June 2014. That is not good enough. That is an insult. It is disrespectful to Australian society, which expects the government to seriously address the disadvantage in Indigenous communities. From 14 September this year, I am expecting that there will be a real change where a different government will put the priorities for Indigenous Australians first and that we will begin to see a closing of the gap in educational outcomes, because nothing else will do for a nation which claims to be developed and caring.

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

I rise with considerable pleasure to speak on the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2013. Before I make my detailed remarks with regard to the bill, I take the opportunity to respond to the words of the member for Murray. While foetal alcohol spectrum disorder is something that is of concern to all Australians, I think it is very important that we frame it in the reality that this is going in all communities across Australia. It is not something that is exclusive to the Indigenous community; it is happening in all communities. It is happening in my community.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's not what I said.

Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2013. In some respects this is a noncontroversial bill because all it does is extend for a further year the funding of three particular initiatives. So the coalition will not be opposing this bill, but I do have some concerns about it which I would like to raise in the time I have available. I would also like to make some broader comments about Indigenous education.

My concerns about this bill are twofold: one in relation to the process and the other in relation to the content. Firstly, on the process, this is now the third time that the Labor government have introduced a bill very similar to this to extend the funding of these three programs for a further year, and it is simply not good enough. Programs which the government want to support should have funding for three or four years so that those programs can be embedded properly, not have annual extensions like what is occurring here. The reason they are doing that is because these programs were supposed to be brought into the fold of the broader school funding reform programs but, as you know, Madam Deputy Speaker Livermore, those school funding reforms have been taking months and months and months to bed down and we are still no closer to having a solution from this government. School funding reform is something that Labor have been talking about since 2004, when they last put up a school funding model. That is nine years ago now. Surely that is sufficient time for the government to put up an alternative, given that they dislike the existing model so much.

The second concern I have in relation to this bill goes to the content of it. This bill extends the funding of three particular measures: firstly, a nutrition program; secondly, additional teachers; and, thirdly, the Former Origin Greats program. In some respects these are all fine programs. But, like so many well-intentioned programs in this area, they chip away at the edges and have less systemic impact on what is a fundamental problem, particularly in remote areas of Australia. Yes, through this we will provide a breakfast program because kids are not being fed in the morning by their parents; yes, we will provide more teachers because the classrooms are in chaos and they need additional support; yes, we will get the Origin Greats to appear from time to time, which will hopefully inspire the kids to stay at school for longer. But none of these three particular measures will be decisive on the crisis which is occurring today and perhaps all of them address the symptoms of the problems rather than the underlying structural issues which are in play.

Let us look, for example, at the breakfast program. Yes, we need a breakfast program because kids are going to school hungry, and if they go to school hungry they are not learning as well. But the real issue here is the dysfunction of the families, such that they are sending their kids to school—if they send them at all—without having an adequate breakfast and without a packed lunch. That is the real issue. So we can put in this program today and we can feel good about putting in a program which ensures that the kids will receive breakfast and will have a lunch, which we want to occur, but we have to address the fundamental of the parents' responsibility. The danger is that if the government takes this responsibility for providing breakfasts and lunches then, over time, parents and entire communities start to believe that that is no longer their responsibility to provide—and that will occur within six to 12 months.

This is indicative of Indigenous programs across all remote communities. The breakfast program is one of those where, over time, people now expect it: 'I'm a parent but I don't need to feed my kids breakfast before school, the government provides that.' You see that in every aspect of individuals' lives where the government has taken away a responsibility from what are normal family or parental responsibilities. This is what we need to be addressing here. By all means, we should support a breakfast or lunch program, as we are doing here. But what we should be adding to that is a measure which says, 'If we're going to do that then, at the very least, we should be insisting that the parents make a small financial contribution towards it,' so that they know that it is still their responsibility to be doing that.

In some respects this overall philosophy goes to the heart of some of the issues in the remote communities where over time, and all for well-intentioned purposes, we have introduced measures which have reduced individual responsibility. That is why the great leader Noel Pearson talks about the right to take back responsibility. That is what he talks about, where we actually need to reduce the government impact and let individuals again be responsible for what rightly they should be responsible for. I think that this should be the lens by which we look at all programs which we put in place particularly in the remote communities. It is the lens of whether a particular program that we put in place either helps towards individuals taking responsibility or diminishes it. If it diminishes it then I think we need to take a second look.

More systemically, I think we need to be addressing the structural problems in remote Indigenous education. I see three broad structural problems. The first is family dysfunction, which means that kids are not being fed and are not going to school. The Cape York reforms, which I am very proud to have helped contribute to their formulation, have now got a mechanism which is making a difference in this area particularly through the Families Responsibilities Commission, which ties welfare payments to school attendance and to more properly looking after children. I think that type of measure could be replicated more broadly.

The second structural issue is the structure of schooling itself, particularly the teaching methods used inside the primary schools. We must use basic direct instruction methods that work. That is what we must be using, direct instruction methods that actually work, and we must banish this idea of culturally appropriate curriculum when it is another way of saying lower standards, which frequently is the case. Of course, culture can be taught as part of the school day but, most importantly, it needs to be taught at home and in community settings. School should be for learning: to read, to write, to do maths and to have imaginations opened.

The third structural issue is access to secondary schooling and, realistically for the remote context, that means boarding schools because there simply are not adequate secondary schools in those remote areas. This is why I have been critical of this government's decision to cut last year, through this particular axe, the Indigenous Youth Leadership Program, which actually provides scholarship support for remote kids to attend good boarding schools in regional and urban areas. We need to be expanding scholarship support so that if parents want to take up the opportunity of sending their children to a good boarding school, in a regional or urban area, they can do that and they can financially afford to do so.

We have an emergency in remote Indigenous education. We talk a lot about crisis in this place but a real crisis is occurring in remote Indigenous education. In year 5 reading fewer than one in 10 remote students are passing the basic benchmark, and this is the basic minimum benchmark which we require of people for them to move on to the next year. In Queensland, the official statistics show that by year 9 students from remote areas are on average six years behind mainstream levels. That is the crisis which is occurring today and this bill, for all the good with these three small measures, will not make a demonstrable impact on that crisis. We need to be doing some fundamental changes to make a demonstrable impact on that. I have met in remote communities people who are in their teenage years and who, when they have to sign a form, will sign with an 'X' because they cannot write their own name. That is the extent of what is occurring in some of these remote communities. If people cannot read, if people cannot write and if they cannot do basic maths, then we set them up for failure. We set them up for long-term welfare dependence and the poison which that brings—and we all know about this. Getting education right is so critical because if students get a good education, and if they have a loving family, then the world is their oyster. Every opportunity in Australia, or indeed across the world, is opened up to them if they have that good education and a loving family.

Let me finish, in the last few minutes that I have available, with a word of hope. There are great things occurring in remote Indigenous education but perhaps the one that shows the most promise is that occurring in four Cape York communities today through the Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy. This has been the brainchild of Noel Pearson and I am proud to have played a small part in helping with his reform agenda over the years, including having been his deputy director for some time. He and the other Cape York leaders have revolutionised the school system in these four Cape York communities and it is truly remarkable. If you go to one of the four schools, even in Aurukun, one of the toughest places in Australia, boys and girls are at their desk, they are studying, they are writing, they are listening and they are absorbing every piece of knowledge offered to them. As the journalist Nicolas Rothwell from the Australian notes:

It is the dream that has seemed beyond realisation in recent years: a remote-area indigenous school where the students are bound for success.

That is what we can have hope about and in some respects what they are doing in those schools is radical compared to what is occurring elsewhere but is largely common sense when you think about it, because what they are doing is based on three essential principles. Firstly, that children are grouped according to their ability rather than their age, because, as you know, if kids are grouped according to their age you will have all sorts of abilities and if a kid has not mastered the content from the previous year he or she will not master the content in the next year and will become disengaged and fall out of schooling.

Secondly, no-one advances to a higher level until they have mastered the content of that level. That student is tested regularly—almost daily—to ensure that they are mastering the content and they go over it if they have not mastered it. That is basic, fundamental scaffolding.

Thirdly, lessons are tightly scripted such that teacher discretion is minimised. This means that in the remote area schools, where we struggle to get the very best teachers, it does not matter as much, because almost anybody can deliver those tightly scripted lessons and get terrific outcomes. This gives me hope in an area where the statistics suggest that there is very little hope.

So, we will pass this bill. We will let it through, but let's address the real issues in remote Indigenous education. Let's address the fundamental structural issues. The Cape York reforms and the reforms in some other areas give us some guidance as to how to do that.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2013 amends the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000 to increase the appropriation to reflect the inclusion of the Achieving Results Through Indigenous Education project to be delivered as part of the Sporting Chance Program currently funded under the Indigenous education targeted assistance. The Achieving Results Through Indigenous Education Academy is run by the Former Origin Greats organisation and uses sporting programs and cultural activities to help Indigenous students stay in school and get an education.

The programs funded and delivered under the Indigenous education targeted assistance are complementary to mainstream schooling. By including the Achieving Results Through Indigenous Education Former Origin Greats project in the Indigenous education targeted assistance, we will be spending more money from the 2012-13 appropriation than we currently have authority for, and that is why this legislation is necessary.

Indigenous education lies at the heart of overcoming Indigenous disadvantage, just as it lies at the heart of overcoming disadvantage for any sector within the community. If we are going to improve the quality of life of the Indigenous people of this country and 'close the gap', as we often say, then a good place to start is through improving the educational outcomes. I have to say that over recent decades, there has not been a want of effort by governments of all persuasions to do exactly that. But the reality is that we still have a long way to go if we are going to achieve the kinds of results that we are all looking for. With respect to that, I just want to quote some statistics with respect to recent trends in detention that were highlighted in the 2012 Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report on juvenile detention population in Australia, because the statistics are quite pertinent to this discussion. I will quote the statistics from the report. It says:

There were 1,024 young people in detention on an average night in the June quarter of 2012 …

Seventy-eight per cent of them were aged 10 to 17, which is a rate of .35 per one thousand young people aged between 10 and 17. Just over half of them—that is, 53 per cent of all those in detention—were Indigenous young people, and 91 per cent were boys and young men. The statistics go on to say:

In other words, we appear to be going backwards with respect to keeping young Indigenous people out of our detention systems. In fact, that figure correlates with another statistic, and whilst it is some three years old now—I am referring to the deaths in custody statistics that were available for the year 2009-10; I believe that is the last year for which they were available—that statistic shows that there were 14 deaths of Indigenous people in custody.

That number is equal to the highest on record, to date. Whilst the numbers of deaths in custody had begun to fall after the commission of inquiry two decades ago, it would appear from the most recent statistics that they might be on the rise again. So we have two groups of statistics that I believe are very concerning, and very relevant to the bill that is before this parliament, because the bill that is before this parliament is about taking complementary initiatives to those already underway to try and reverse those very trends.

It is true that there are many initiatives that the government is supporting at the moment. Whilst I have picked up on the comments from the member for Aston that we need to do a lot more, and that there are other things that we need to do, I want to stress that the measures in this bill are only one part of a range of measures and programs that are currently underway across the country that are, indeed, making a difference and transforming the lives of young Indigenous people. They include programs such as the Parental and Community Engagement Program, the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation Scholarship Program, the Indigenous Youth Leadership Program, the Indigenous Ranger Cadetship program and the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory national partnership.

All of these programs have an important role in trying to ensure that young people stay at school and complete their schooling. I note that the Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory national partnership program is one that will focus on attracting high-quality teachers to Northern Territory schools. That is terribly important. If we want kids to stay at school we need not only to push them into schools but to ensure that the teachers are available in those schools and that the teachers are quality teachers who know how to deal with the needs of the young people they are teaching. In addition, a new model for school enrolment and for an attendance measure have been introduced as has a school nutrition program, which we have heard others speak about. Again, all these measures complement each other.

Also, since 2010 the government has committed $2.8 million to the Governor-General's Indigenous Student Teacher Scholarships program. That program supports Indigenous students to take up a teaching degree. There can be nothing more inspirational for a young person at school than to have the person who is teaching them come from the same pathway as them. It shows them that it can be done. It gives them something to look up to and it encourages them because they know that it is possible.

Under the government's National Plan for School Improvement there will be dedicated extra funds for Indigenous students. And under this plan, the government has made it clear there will be additional funding for special needs. The needs of Indigenous students will be one of those special needs. An Indigenous loading will be applied for Indigenous students across the country. In my state of South Australia, the loading will be worth $300 million over six years and that will support some 10,200 Indigenous students. Across the country, the loading is worth $5.5 billion over the next six years and that will support some 200,000 Indigenous students. These are not insignificant commitments by the government of the day to try to address the issues that we know need to be addressed if we are to close the gap and give young Indigenous people a real chance in life.

We also know that involving Indigenous people in sports and cultural activities is one way that has been proven to be successful time and time again in keeping young people engaged in the education system. In my own community I have seen it. I represent an urban electorate but we have a significant number of Indigenous families who live in the region. I am familiar with the high schools in the area and the work they are doing to try to ensure that Indigenous students complete their education to year 12 and go on to university. They do that not just by carrying out what I would call normal school programs but by engaging the students in areas of interest, such as sports and cultural activities. We know that across the country there is plenty of evidence to show that that has made a real difference.

In December 2012, the government committed an additional $4.43 million to the Achieving Results Through Indigenous Education program. That program now has the funding for a further four years in some 21 schools in south-east and central Queensland. The extra funding will also enable the Widening Success program to be expanded to three primary schools. This is an example of identifying what might work in a particular area and then providing the appropriate resources to ensure that the program can be rolled out.

I want to talk about that approach by governments across the country. I believe it is an approach that is being taken both by the Commonwealth and the state governments where they identify what is likely to work in a particular region or a particular area and then embark on the necessary program to ensure that the outcomes they want are achieved.

Earlier this month, the Minister for Higher Education and Skills came to my electorate of Makin and announced an additional $2.4 million for the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience program, AIME. This program operates throughout Australia, I believe, in about 15 different places and links high schools with universities in their area. It links them in two ways. If the high schools are in reasonable proximity to the university involved in the program, students from the high schools visit the university on a regular basis and mentors at the university guide them through the university system so that they become familiar with what to expect if they complete year 12 and go on to a university degree. The program also helps remote Indigenous students who do not have access to universities so easily. Those students will go to the city on a more infrequent basis but, again, they are linked with a mentor at the university and encouraged to attend university and shown the pathway to becoming a university student and gaining a degree.

These are the kinds of measures that I believe will make a difference and obviously are making a difference, and that is why the government is continuing to fund the AIME program across Australia. I welcome the additional $2.4 million that has been put into the northern region of Adelaide. The University of South Australia has embraced the program and will work with Indigenous young people in the area to try to ensure that more of those people go through to university. One of the great things about this program is that it links with a mindset that already exists amongst the high schools—that is, that they are individually doing what they can to mentor and guide Indigenous students within their high schools to ensure that they not only complete year 12 but go on to university. From my observations, those efforts are making a difference and we are seeing more Indigenous people attend the universities in South Australia as a result of those efforts.

This bill highlights the fact that if we are going to address Indigenous disadvantage then education is the key. It also highlights that there is no single solution to the problems that exist in the different communities across Australia. As a result of that, we need to bring together all the different propositions that are put to us by the communities around Australia who best understand what will work in their local regions. That is exactly what this legislation does. It complements the many programs that are already underway and that are making a difference, and I commend the legislation to the House.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak on the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2013. I do so because I have quite a determined interest in the issues which surround the targeting of this bill. The purpose of this bill is to extend funding for assistance programs under the IETA for a further year and then reallocate some funds to other programs and initiatives. The bill does not provide for any new initiatives.

I will not go into the detail that Senator Scullion has put out in relation to the lack of regional targets, or just throwing money at numeracy and literacy programs. In fact, as he points out, it has gone backwards in some areas. I want to talk about the programs that work. In 2007 the Council of Australian Governments, or COAG, agreed to six targets for Closing the Gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. It wanted to halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements for Indigenous children within a decade and to halve the gap for Indigenous students in year 12 attainment to equivalent attainment rates by 2020. As part of the actions linked to this targeting they had six priority domains: school readiness; engagement and connections; attendance; literacy and numeracy; leadership, quality teaching and workforce development; and pathways to 'real' post school options. Excellent!

I want to talk today about one of the programs that is really working in the area of sporting chance—that is, the Clontarf Foundation, based in Western Australia but now being rolled out throughout Australia. To put it on the record, this foundation is run by the CEO Gerard Neesham, who was a footballer who played for the Sydney Swans and was the inaugural coach of the Fremantle Dockers. After he was sacked after his time at the Dockers, as a schoolteacher Gerard decided he would do something in the Indigenous area. I know Gerard because I went to teachers' college with him—he was a year behind me—and so I have a relationship with him from our old days at Graylands Teachers College, where I rucked in the college football side. I used to put the ball down his neck and he would kick it to the centre half-forward and our full forward kicked a hundred goals that year—I digress.

As I said, the CEO is Gerard and the chair is Ross Kelly, who was also the chair of the Dockers. The reason I give this background is to show that we have people in the field who know this area rather well. Also, the patron of the foundation is the Governor-General. The Governor-General just recently launched this program that is before the House and many people attended. Unfortunately, the media did not attend and so it did not get the exposure that it should have.

This program started at the Clontarf school on Manning Road in Bentley well over 10 years ago. It started with just a handful of students. I have mentioned in the House before, so I will not dwell on it too long because of the time, that originally Phillip Ruddock went out and made sure that ATSIC, as it was then, handed over $30,000 that was owed to them and Brendan Nelson, as the then minister, saw that they received their first $100,000 and then their first million dollars. The program has rolled on since then.

I want to make sure it is fully understood that this program works because it encourages young Indigenous boys of high-school age to come to school, because they believe they are going to school to play football. They believe that, by going to school, they are going to become AFL stars. And there have been some AFL stars who have already come out of this program: Lewis Jetta is one at the moment who is playing AFL in Sydney. The reality though is that most of these boys do not end up being AFL stars—but it gets them to school. We know that by getting young Indigenous boys to school they can turn their life around and, by turning their life around, they are not involved in crime or any dysfunctional or antisocial behaviour which is far more costly than sending the boys to school under the Clontarf program.

Clontarf then rolled itself out from the original campus. By the way, the Queen visited this program during her jubilee year visit to Perth. She was photographed, not bouncing the ball but holding the ball up for the boys, in the middle of the football oval. It helped to celebrate the great work that is being done over there. But the program was rolled out throughout Western Australia. As I have said in this place before, Clare Martin, then the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, invited the Clontarf Foundation to roll this program out through the Northern Territory. Now, they have 54 academies around Australia. The template worked because they have great mentors whom the boys respect, from football backgrounds, and they have good quality staff to see that the boys are well catered for when they get to school.

I say the template works because it has gone from AFL to New South Wales, where they are using it in rugby. Dare I say, the member for Parkes told me recently he has had four academies in his electorate—the largest one is in Moree—and they are really achieving some fantastic results. There is a guy named Smiley Johnson, a well-known Indigenous rugby player who is helping to mentor this program there.

There are four academies in Victoria. There are none in South Australia because the South Australian government has not invited them there, though there are overtures from the Queensland government to take this program there. However, there is something stopping this—and you know it is funding. I will get to that in a moment. It costs just over $7,000 for each boy to be in this program. The funding model is this: they rely on one-third of their funding from the federal government, one-third of their funding from the state government and one-third of their funding from the corporate world. But everything hangs on the federal government funding because they cannot get the states to get on board unless the federal funds flow.

Of course, the corporates are saying, 'We are happy to pay our third, but we want to see the other moneys first.' So you have Goldman Sachs, BHP and a whole range of large corporates like Fortescue who willingly put their money into these programs. People bag the billionaires in this place but they are all behind this program. Twiggy Forrest is making sure that the Indigenous boys are not only funded through his company but that they get jobs there afterwards.

At this stage they are short of funds to roll this program out any further. In New South Wales they are already there in rugby. They could actually take another 5,000 boys. At the moment there are 2,850 boys in this program and they could extend this to an extra 5,000 Indigenous boys in New South Wales alone. That is going to cost $35 million. They need a third of that from the Commonwealth government. They have been making overtures. I give Minister Macklin her due. She has been working well with the people in Clontarf to assist, as did Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister, as has Julia Gillard Prime Minister, but there is a bit of a block when it comes to the education minister's office. They have a submission in there to expand this program and I understand they are being told, 'We cannot do anything, we are waiting for Gonski.' So everything is on hold in terms of any future expansion because they have been told that the submission is sitting in the minister's office and they have not had a response on it. That is disappointing because every one of the boys who ends up on this program achieves some fantastic results.

Let me give you just one of the results. Part of the Indigenous targeting was about school retention. They say Indigenous school retention rates are improving. The retention rate from years 7 and 8 to year 12 has improved from 40.1 to 47.2 per cent in 2010. That is good. But under the Clontarf program the retention rate is 90.27 per cent with an attendance of 76 per cent—well and truly above the national average, isn't it?

Recently, I was fortunate enough to go the launch of a program in my electorate at Coodanup Community College. Can I say that all these programs are attached to an existing education institution, generally a secondary school. Coodanup Community College is in a pretty tough area. Demographically, it is tough. It is in the paper so I do not mind saying that a group of 14-, 15- and 16-year-old Indigenous boys were involved in a murder of a man at Mandurah. This is the crime that happens if you cannot get yourself to school and get into a decent program.

The principal at Coodanup, Vicki McKeown, has allowed Clontarf to attach themselves to the school. The academy director is a guy called Craig Callaghan, who is a former Dockers footballer. The program was launched with the boys there with a whole lot of people and supporters, including the local mayor, Paddi Creevey, in attendance. Beautifully, a young Indigenous guy called Jayden Grazier was the MC. He was conducting the whole event for the launch. He proudly told us that he had 100 per cent attendance at the academy. Isn't that fantastic? A young Indigenous boy who probably would have been lost to the education system unless he had the ability to be at Clontarf.

The Clontarf program has the opportunity to grow. That is why they need more funds to do that. I heard the member for Makin, whose heart is in the right place, talking about other programs. But that is the problem with this Indigenous funding: it is sprayed around everywhere. We will have 15 sites here and a trial there. Many of these do not work. Without mentioning names, there are some high-profile Indigenous ex-footballers who are receiving bucketloads of money to run programs. Essentially, they give themselves and a few of their mates a job and they drive around and talk to a number of Indigenous kids in different areas but there is no real program that goes with it.

This Clontarf program is one that works. It achieves fantastic results. For example, 300 of the boys that are in the program at the moment are in year 12. One in four Indigenous boys in year 12 in Western Australia are in the Clontarf program. It gets them to school and keeps them at school. A lot of these boys never make it as AFL footballers. This program then links them to a job and that is the key, so they have a transition from year 12 into employment.

This week the Financial Review covered the CEO of Qantas, Alan Joyce, at the Clontarf academy saying that Qantas are going to be a vehicle for allowing boys to go and work at Qantas as ground crew in Perth. They are not only going to help back the academy—that is part of the corporate funding—but they are going to see the boys go from these academies into work with Qantas. The north has QantasLink fly in, fly out, so there is a lot of work for boys, not just on the mines but in infrastructure and transport and all those sorts of areas. It is fantastic to see someone like Alan Joyce getting on board.

I not only recommend maintaining the funding for Clontarf academy but I am also taking Tony Abbott out there, as soon as I am organised, to go and see this program as Brendan Nelson did when he was minister, to say this program needs further funding. I know there is not going to be a lot of money around but I suggest that some of the programs that are not working might want to be closed down or downsized so that more money can be put into Clontarf because it has this model that will not only deliver kids to school and out of trouble but into a job afterwards. It will save a generation of young Indigenous boys who would have been vulnerable had it not been for programs like Clontarf.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2013. It is not going to fix all ills but it is yet another step forward on a very long journey which has been touched on by many other speakers. It is timely, with an Indigenous round of sport just having happened and several events having happened over this weekend that have put issues of race front and centre of a lot of people's thinking. My only comment on that by way of introduction is that I hope we all respect the comments made by the players who have spoken. I think in both examples—Collingwood and the Sydney Swans—representatives of community have spoken and shown real leadership in the words they have used. From my point of view: more power to them, in the way they represent themselves and their communities.

The other reason for wanting to speak is that, having listened to the debate, I have to call into question some of the arguments being used. The education data in Australia is segregated, and there are real issues in regional Australia, in Aboriginal Australia and in poor Australia. I am pleased in many ways that that is acknowledged by many of the speakers in this chamber. But the member for Aston used that as some sort of argument against this bill or some sort of argument about the lack of effort from government to try to deliver the 'demonstrable change' that is needed. Then why on earth would that same speaker be going against a new funding formula in school education that delivers exactly that—demonstrable change—with a specific loading that addresses the 'intolerable link' between the funding formula in education and the education data that we all agree has problems.

This is not a problem of Aboriginal Australia. It is patronising that that is used in this chamber as some sort of argument against Aboriginal Australia: 'I met an Aboriginal and they could only write their name X. And that is a big problem.' And we go home and quaff our wine and sit around our table amused. That is patronising. It is patronising to say this is a problem of remote Australia in education and a huge failure of others. It is patronising to say the poor people of Australia are failing in education. The failure is us in this chamber. The failure is in the funding model itself that has led to these outcomes in education, in these three clear categories: poorness, rurality and Aboriginality.

I know lots of people are running around saying: 'Gonski! Gonski! What is Gonski?' The whole point of Gonski is that it blew the whistle on the failure of the funding model itself and the intolerable link—an exact quote from the Gonski work—between the funding formula and the education data that is seeing huge segregation in Australian education and huge segregation as a consequence in Australian society.

So, yes, the education data is a problem. It is a problem for Aboriginal Australia in education outcomes, for poor Australia in education outcomes and for rural and remote Australia in educational outcomes. Where does the blame lie? In this chamber right now.

Why on earth we are having a funding fight and a political fight over the funding formula has me beat. Here is the opportunity for demonstrable change. Here is the opportunity to finally deliver on the principle of equity and here is the opportunity, with loadings in the funding formula, to address the failures in the education data. Here, finally, is the opportunity for us to do some nation building.

The people using the data against legislation such as this, and using it in the manner of, 'Oh, woe is everyone else,' and 'Oh, isn't it terrible what is happening with Aborigines'—come on! Here is the chance to actually address something in a substantial way, based on evidence, based on facts and based on actually providing a solution to the problem that has been identified, which is this intolerable link between education performance and education outcomes and the funding formula that has led to those gaps of around 30 per cent when you slice and dice education data in those particular categories.

So I hope the hard and detailed work that the New South Wales education minister and the federal education minister, who is now at the table, have done can at some point soon be committed to by all members in this chamber based on the failures that everyone is recognising in the education data.

This is one step in the journey: a bit of targeted assistance for some sports programs. It is not the whole journey. The big work is the political fight of the moment over Gonski, which is really about blowing open this intolerable link that exists. It has to change. It should not be a political fight. I hope both the New South Wales Nation Party education minister in his visit to Canberra this week can be listened to. And I hope that the data, common sense and evidence can also be listened to.

I also make the point that this is timely legislation, because only yesterday the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit, a bipartisan committee, delivered a report on leadership in Indigenous coordination programs at a Commonwealth level, and it made an important recommendation. The lead agency FaHCSIA does great coordination work in this area with both mainstream and targeted programs, but there is a failing. That failing is the desperate need for leadership from FaHCSIA and from the Commonwealth to do more than just coordinate—to lead. I think the worry that is being expressed by the committee is that within the agencies in Canberra FaHCSIA may not have the power and the authority to really drive a leadership agenda that we are all wanting to see in improving not only education outcomes for Aboriginal Australia but also programs across the board. So this bill is timely, as an opportunity to say that once again, and to hope that all members in this chamber push FaHCSIA or any other bodies, such as the PMO, to really take a strong leadership role in the coordination of programs of assistance for Aboriginal Australia.

The bill also gives me the chance, once again, to talk about spatial data. I remind the House where Aboriginal Australia lives. When you look at where Aboriginal Australia lives, you see that more than 50 per cent of the population is on the east coast between Sydney and Rockhampton. It is lost in the mythology at times that Aboriginal Australia is only remote or very remote—it is only Cape York; it is only the Northern Territory. I remind the House that Aboriginal Australia and the majority of the Aboriginal population is on the east coast, living in the best parts of Australia—from a parochial point of view, like many others—and quite often there is a difference between where programs from this chamber are targeted and where money is spent versus where the majority of the population lives.

We can all argue the toss, for example, over the rights and the wrongs of the Northern Territory intervention and the number of programs from the Commonwealth into the Northern Territory. I just take the chance once again to remind the House that there are plenty of issues, plenty of challenges and plenty of opportunities to target programs for the majority of the population of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia, and it is in that window, on the east coast, from Sydney to Rockhampton, where there is a need for more attention, more resourcing and more support if we are really serious about tackling issues in the majority of the sector involved.

The final point I make is one of grabbing this legislation and shamelessly endorsing the recognised campaign. Only last Sunday, the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, the Leader of the Opposition, Minister Macklin, the Attorney-General, the shadow minister for Indigenous affairs and I—and many other members of parliament as well as many artists and celebrities and plenty of the Melbourne community—all started the Long Walk with Michael Long, the AFL player who is on the journey from Melbourne to Adelaide after which they are all cutting up through to Darwin over the next three or four months and finishing, I understand, at the Garma Festival. It is an extraordinary push to try to get Australia excited about what Australia should be excited about, and that is dealing with the open wound in our lead document, trying to take the opportunity to remove 'race' from our Constitution and undergoing the difficult exercise of finding some words to celebrate 40,000 years of history and not just a couple of hundred years of our history.

I take this opportunity to endorse that and wish them well, and I invite as many people as possible listening—either within this chamber or via radio or any other means through the House of Representatives broadcasting—to have a look at the Recognise website and do what you can to reflect and think about the importance of this bipartisan referendum question that is coming in the next couple of years. It matters. It matters for Australia, and it will be a huge opportunity missed if we do not progress on that correcting of the record.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank members in the House for their contributions to this debate on the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2013. I particularly note the most recent comments by the member for Lyne—recognising the responsibility that this parliament has not only to make absolutely sure that we do everything within our powers to assist the endeavours of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people both in education and more broadly but also, in doing that, to identify how crucial it is that we do have a national plan for school improvement in place, a major part of which is focused specifically on addressing those levels of disadvantage that prevent students reaching their full potential and which, sadly, are still too prevalent in Indigenous communities.

I also respond to the comments from the shadow minister who, it seemed to me on considering his remarks, was almost talking down Indigenous education and the efforts of the many dedicated educators across Australia. In his remarks around the Indigenous Youth Leadership Program—a government initiative providing secondary scholarships to Indigenous students; often kids from remote and very remote locations—he made a number of comments. I need to make it clear that the program has not been cut; that the program is continuing; and that in 2012 the government prioritised Indigenous education in the Northern Territory by providing additional funds to support initiatives such as more teachers, school nutrition program for students and the like. It was made clear at the time, and publicised in the budget papers, that there was not a reduction in funding for Indigenous education. In fact, the budget ensured that current scholarships remained funded and that 210 new scholarships were funded for 2013. This was also done at a time when the government had provided $22 million for the very successful Australian Indigenous Education Foundation, an organisation which in some ways parallels the Indigenous Youth Leadership Program—again, an organisation which also provides alternative secondary education and tertiary options for Indigenous students.

More recently, we announced an additional $10 million which the government has provided for the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation. That announcement was made this year, as well as the government's decision to provide an extra $12 million to the Indigenous Youth Leadership Program to support an additional 204 scholarships in 2014.

This government recognises the important role that organisations such as the AIEF play. I was very concerned about the previously reported remarks of one of the Leader of the Opposition's staff in relation to that foundation. But the fact is that there is a suite of measures that are necessary to support and deliver, to ensure that young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students get the very best opportunities that they can for education and that they are supported in their education journey, because they certainly bring in many instances a heavy weight of disadvantage with them.

Remarks have been made by some members opposite about the performance of Indigenous students in NAPLAN. It is important that we put on the record how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are performing in relation to the national testing. The fact is that we have seen an increase in performance over the 2007-2011 period, but the 2012 result was disappointing. That may, in part, have been due to some of the community unrest in places such as the Warlpiri Triangle in the Northern Territory. Certainly, in those schools during that period of unrest and community concern about issues unrelated to education, many young people did not actually attend school for different durations.

The fact is that, if you look at the longitudinal data that is in the final section of the 2012 NAPLAN report, it is showing us that that across years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in both reading and numeracy, between 2008 and 2012, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children gained in reading and numeracy achievement at a higher rate than the total Australian student body. I have previously mentioned this in the House, but we have also seen good gains as well, proportionally, in year 12 attainment—in other words, the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students concluding year 12 and consequently being much better prepared for further study, work or vocational training.

It is absolutely true that we must do more now as a matter of national urgency to ensure that Indigenous school populations are better supported in their school setting, are able to achieve their potential and that the significant gap that still exists between the education results of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students is closed.

That is why the Gillard government's National Plan for School Improvement, a funding model which would deliver resources on a needs-based funding model across the nation, is so crucial. Under the government's plan we would see about $5.5 billion of total public funds directed to support approximately 200,000 Indigenous students in about 8,000 schools. That is absolutely essential. It is not only about the figure itself, important though that is, but also about the targeted investment of those sums to ensure that there is certainty in the provision of support and programs in schools to enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to get better education under their belt as they journey through school.

We have specifically identified in that National Plan for School Improvement the requirement for the implementation of personalised learning plans for every Indigenous student. It is a way of ensuring that the student, their teacher, school leaders, their parents and community—in many cases, aunts and uncles—are well aware of the progress that the student is making and are well placed to build on progress or to seek additional support or action if progress is faltering.

That is particularly important when students move, as they may do, from one school to another. It is particularly important because sometimes young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids bring a significant degree of disadvantage into the classroom. Ensuring that each student's education progress is carefully monitored, understood and supported is one of the important elements in lifting the performance of these kids nationwide.

Other things need to happen as well. Amongst those is engagement with community, which is focused on the child's learning and on supporting the child as they learn in school. Many studies point to how important a feature of Indigenous education this is and, again, under the National Plan for School Improvement that should and could be given effect to.

When we talk about the National Plan for School Improvement we can look at the different loadings that apply to provide resources to school communities. Whether it be the Indigenous loading itself or the loadings for remoteness, school location or socioeconomic status background, all of these can and should apply and would apply to significant proportions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Unfortunately, at the moment the opposition is simply sticking with a broken system, trying to persuade states not to sign on to the National Plan for School Improvement, notwithstanding that the New South Wales Premier, Barry O'Farrell, has taken that step in the interests of his state. And, as of about 55 minutes ago, I am pleased to be able to report to the House that the Australian Capital Territory, too, has now determined that it will join the Commonwealth in a new National Plan for School Improvement. I pay tribute to Chief Minister Katy Gallagher and to her government for taking this step on behalf of the students of the ACT.

But still we have an opposition leader and a shadow minister who are opposed to the National Plan for School Improvement and the additional investment that it can and would deliver into schools, particularly to schools in regional and rural Australia, including schools that are schooling Aboriginal kids, whilst at the same time sticking with a broking funding model that would see fewer resources going to schooling over time. It is a very clear choice. If we are serious about education, we need to get this National Plan for School Improvement in place and underway.

The passage of this bill amends the IETA act to increase the legislative appropriation for the period January 2012 to January 2014. The increased appropriations will enable the School Nutrition Program and the 200 additional teachers, both education components of the Stronger Futures NT national partnership, to now be administered under IETA. It also allows the Achieving Results Through Indigenous Education, or ARTIE, student engagement project to be administered through the current IETA Sporting Chance Program. I know that members on both sides of the House had reflected on what an important program Sporting Chance is, and that is certainly true.

The Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act has seen a focus on improving the education outcomes of these most educationally disadvantaged students and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. The programs that are funded under IETA generally have supported greater engagement for Indigenous parents, particularly through a program that members would know, the very successful Parental and Community Engagement Program, the PaCE program, that has seen about 500 community-based projects around Australia. It is a good program and I certainly commend it very strongly to the House. It enables communities to have a hands-on role in education of their children, and where these projects have been supported they inevitably prove valuable in making sure that kids stay at school, focus on their work and obviously have better prospects when they get through high school out into the world at large.

Student engagement in education has been supported through the Sporting Chance Program. In 2013 we will have delivered more than $58 million supporting 75 programs assisting over 13,000 students. Other programs that are supported include the Indigenous Youth Leadership Program, which I referred to at the beginning of my remarks. The Indigenous Youth Mobility Program supports young people from remote areas to move to centres where they have a chance to get qualifications and obtain sustainable employment. These are set to continue. The amended act will ensure that we continue to address the most difficult barriers to education that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students face, which is attendance and being engaged in school.

To conclude, I affirm this parliament's strong and necessary responsibility to make sure we do everything within our powers to assist, both in the provision of resources and robust policies, young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in the education system and more broadly. The fact is that for most of these young people education is literally a passport out of poverty, and we have an extraordinary responsibility as a nation to make sure that these, who are amongst our most disadvantaged young people, are given the support they need to be the very best that I know they can be. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.