Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to incorporate my remarks.

Leave granted.

The incorporated speech read as follows—

Mr President, I rise to speak to the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment (Cape York Measures) Bill 2007.

This bill amends the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000 to provide an extra $2 million in 2008 for literacy initiatives in the Cape York region of Queensland.

The $2 million is expected to fund the Making Up Lost Time In Literacy (MULTILIT) accelerated literacy program in Cape York.

The bill is also expected to fund the establishment of Student Education Trusts to encourage families to save for education costs. The Student Education Trusts are voluntary trusts where families can make regular contributions to cover the costs of their child’s education, such as uniforms, books and excursions.

Labor supports this bill.

We do so for two main reasons:

• Because, in a very small but important way, the measures contained in the bill forward Labor’s policy commitments to close the yawning gaps in literacy and numeracy outcomes of Indigenous children across Australia; and
• Because the two initiatives to be funded through this Bill are a rare example of the Government supporting evidence-based programs, rather than pursuing an agenda in Indigenous policy based purely on ideology.

Government’s record

This Government’s record in Indigenous affairs has displayed some serious shortcomings. It has acted to bring down and dismantle a number of constructive initiatives built up over many years by previous governments—I’m thinking here of such steps as the abolition of ATSIC, something that Labor opposed strongly.

In the past (in 2005 to be precise) it has underspent allocated funds on Indigenous education—failing to expend around $142 million allocated for targeted assistance under IESIP. Bureaucratic and legislative foot-dragging seem to have been the explanation for this, but that’s no excuse.

Labor’s commitments

On the 40th anniversary of the 1967 Referendum, Kevin Rudd announced that Labor would commit to a key target in the area of education—to at least halve the difference in the rate of Indigenous students at years 3, 5 and 7 who fail to meet reading, writing and numeracy benchmarks within ten years.

Kevin Rudd also said that Labor’s policies will driven by measurable goals and evidence-based programs developed in partnership with Indigenous people.

To support our Indigenous education commitments, we announced nearly $22 million ($21.9 million) over four years to expand intensive literacy and numeracy programs for Indigenous children in our schools. In particular, we said we want to see intensive literacy programs, including programs such as

• Making Up Lost Time In Literacy or MULTILIT, and
• Accelerated Literacy.

which provide a heavily-structured approach to teaching literacy.

Numeracy programs

Labor went further than intensive literacy however. We will also target intensive numeracy programs.

It is remarkable that there are no major programs in numeracy for struggling Indigenous children.

The gap in education outcomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous children is widest in numeracy, and getting wider over time.

To look at 2005 data, 80.4 per cent of Indigenous children in Year 3 met the numeracy benchmarks. By Year 7 this fell to 48.8 per cent, according to the National Report on Schooling in Australia 2005. Fewer than half of Indigenous children in Year 7 were numerate at a basic level.

No government serious about improving the lives of Indigenous children can sit on its hands when confronted with such a shocking figure. As part of our $22 million commitment, Labor will develop a new intensive numeracy program, and implement it at a pilot stage. The Federal Government has yet to sign up to this policy.

I call on the Government to provide funding for concrete programs to improve the numeracy and literacy skills of all Indigenous children.

Other Labor commitments

There are four other major policy commitments we have made that to support intensive literacy and numeracy programs for Indigenous children. The Government has also failed to support any of these polices.

First, we have pledged $450 million towards universal access to preschool for all four-year olds, including Indigenous children.

We are guided in this by two principles:

• It is never too early to invest in a child’s learning but it can sometimes be too late; and
• Children must be allowed to be children and learn through play and fun activities.

The Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman has showed that the return on human capital is very high in the early years of life and diminishes rapidly thereafter.

The quantum on that return, according to some experts, is as much as $7 saved later for every $1 spent on early childhood services.

The Productivity Commission estimates that around half of all Indigenous children do not have access to preschool—that’s around 4,500 children every year.

Intensive programs in disadvantaged communities in the United States, such as the Perry Preschool Project, have shown that early intervention can produce large social and economic benefits for individual children and for the communities.

Labor’s plan will ensure that every Australian four-year-old, including Indigenous four-year-olds, has the right to 15 hours per week of early childhood education, for at least 40 weeks of the year, delivered by a properly qualified teacher.

It is extraordinary that the Howard Government has ruled out matching Federal Labor’s promise to provide early learning for all four-year-olds.

On 25 July 2007, the Minister was reported in The Australian saying it was up to the states to provide preschool places. While the Minister has been busy playing the blame game, children are missing out.

Most Indigenous children start behind the eight ball when they get to school. It’s shocking that they slip further behind while they are at school.

We have also announced that if we are elected, we would rollout the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) nationally, at a cost of $16.9 million over four years—a rigorous checklist across five developmental areas to determine a child’s needs when they start school.

Once again, the Minister is funding a small part of AEDI but has failed to commit to a complete rollout nationally.

Labor in Government will fund the development of a specific Index for Indigenous children to take into account the differing cultural and language features of the early child-rearing environments of Indigenous families.

Third, Labor will ensure that, once a development checklist has been completed for an Indigenous child starting school, that child will have their very own Individual Learning Plan, to be updated twice a year for every year of schooling, up to Year 10.

Every Indigenous child in Australia would have a learning plan developed by teachers in consultation with parents and the community.

These plans will be based on the individual child’s needs, as determined by the teacher’s professional judgements, the results of assessments (including national literacy and numeracy testing in years 3, 5, 7, and 9) and through new initiatives such as the Australian Early Development Index.

The plans would identify the individual strengths and weaknesses of every child, and set out in what areas the student and the teacher will target for improvement across the basics of reading, writing, and numeracy.

Labor has pledged $34.5 million over four years providing professional development support to teachers to enable them to complete these learning plans. Parents will be able to access these plans so they can be part of their children’s learning improvements.

Once children’s learning needs have been identified, funding and intervention programs can be targeted and implemented more precisely.

We have seen these initiatives working for Indigenous children in Cape York. The Queensland Government is implementing Individual Learning Plans and working with the Cape York Institute to provide intensive support programs in Cape York and the Torres Strait. They are focusing on heavy mentoring and community involvement.

Parents are involved in developing the individual learning plans, and come together to discuss various challenges on a regular basis. With respect and commitment on both sides, I’m sure that they will succeed in giving children the opportunities they have not had before.

Lastly, on 25 June 2007, Kevin Rudd endorsed and agreed to fund the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership’s welfare reform plan for four Cape York communities—Mossman Gorge, Aurukun, Coen and Hope Vale.

The plan is expected to implement initiatives to make family and welfare payments and housing conditional on children’s school attendance. This would be done through four Family Responsibilities Commissions—local statutory bodies that would ensure that welfare benefits go towards the benefit of children.

Federal Labor endorses the key elements of the Pearson plan that in all communities, there must be a reasonable expectation that:

• Children are safe;
• Children attend school and schools are provided for children to attend;
• Adults do not behave in a way that puts their children at risk, either through alcohol and substance abuse, family violence or gambling,
• Training is available and people do their best to seek work; and
• Tenants in public housing comply with their tenancy obligations.

Welfare dependency eats away at your life chances, no matter who you are or what age you are. Low school attendance, lack of safe housing, as well as horrific child abuse and neglect are all deeply connected to welfare dependency.

That is why Labor has committed both to intensive support for Indigenous education and tough measures to help break the cycle of welfare dependency.

This bill’s initiatives

I’d like to speak about the particular initiatives in this Bill today.

MULTILIT [multi-lit] was established in 1996 by the Macquarie University Special Education Centre based on extensive research and trialling of initiatives to teach low progress readers effectively.

Since then, it has grown significantly with outreach services provided through the Exodus Foundation and at tutorial centres in Gladstone in Central Queensland and in Coen on Cape York.

According to a 2000 evaluation of MULTILIT, low-progress readers in Years 3 to 6 attending a single primary school made mean gains of about 20 months in both reading accuracy and reading comprehension, over two terms when experiencing an attenuated MULTILIT program for under two hours per day.

It is good to see that such progress can be made in Years 3 to 6 because as we know from the latest National Report on Schooling, the number of Indigenous children who meet the reading benchmarks falls from 78% in Year 3 to 63.8% in Year 7.

There are also other successful remedial programs—in particular the Accelerated Literacy project operating in many schools in the Northern Territory, the Kimberleys and Queensland.

Accelerated Literacy (or Scaffolding Literacy) assists low- achieving students to catch up to the average level of the rest of their class by using age-appropriate books to develop reading, writing, comprehension and spelling skills to a high level very quickly.

Analysis by Charles Darwin University shows that students undertaking Accelerated Literacy improve their reading ability at an average rate of 1.73 year levels per year—around 21 months progress in reading a year.

An independent evaluation by the Australian Council of Educational Research concluded that the results were ‘little short of sensational’.

Student Education Trusts

As I noted earlier, this bill would also establish a scheme to encourage Indigenous families to set up Student Education Trusts.

I understand that Student Education Trusts have been tested in Indigenous communities with success. According to the Department of Education, Science and Training, a recent trial in the community of Coen had an 80 per cent take up.

I hope that Student Education Trusts can further build on the initiatives already working in Cape York.

It is critical that we support initiatives based on evidence and demonstrated success. This Government has so far taken a disappointing ad hoc approach.

Successful programs are scrapped in favour of new and untested activities, grants last only three months, six months or a year—when what’s needed is constant, long-term progress.

Indigenous disadvantage will not be tackled with flash-in-the-pan initiatives and half-baked ideas.

Today I call on the Government to establish a baseline survey for the Cape York communities that will be affected by this Bill before these programs are rolled out.

We need to know what we are dealing with before we put in place or extend programs intended to improve Indigenous communities.

There is so much that needs to be done to close the gap in indigenous disadvantage.

Conclusion

Labor has committed to an Education Revolution.

We have also said that a Labor Government will build a future for this nation based on innovation. Both the Education Revolution—on which innovation will depend—and our innovation agenda itself must be inclusive. They must be for all Australians, including Indigenous Australians.

Labor will not let our Indigenous fellow citizens be left behind through disadvantage and prejudice. If Indigenous Australians are left out of our future, our nation will be infinitely the poorer.

In that this bill provides for measures to improve educational outcomes for Indigenous kids in Cape York, Labor supports it.

I commend the bill to the Senate.

I move the second reading amendment standing in my name, which I understand had been distributed in the chamber:

At the end of the motion, add “but the Senate provides bipartisan support for:

(a)

eliminating the 17 year gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation so that every Indigenous child has the same educational and life opportunities as other Australian children; and

(b)

Labor’s positive policy approach towards narrowing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous educational outcomes by:

(i)

providing universal preschool access for all Australian four-year-olds, including Indigenous four-year-olds, including Indigenous four-year-olds,

(ii)

committing additional funding towards intensive literacy and numeracy programs across Australia,

(iii)

developing new programs to tackle the gap in numeracy outcomes between Indigenous and other Australian children,

(iv)

implementing the Australian early development index for all Australian children starting school, and

(v)

introducing individual learning plans for all Indigenous children in Australia”.

Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will speak only briefly to this legislation, which is indeed non-controversial. The Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment (Cape York Measures) Bill 2007 provides an extra degree of assistance for Cape York measures with regard to schooling and the like. I note that this is another example of the curious state of play that has occurred with regard to our Senate committee processes, where comprehensive legislation that is controversial and complicated is not referred to Senate committees or is referred to committees with ridiculously short and inadequate time frames, whilst legislation that is extremely straightforward and not controversial at all is sent to committees for a leisurely examination. I think, Acting Deputy President Marshall, you are deputy chair of the committee in question.

This particular bill was referred by the government to the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education despite nobody from the non-government side having any concern about it or thinking that it needed referral. It is interesting to note the report of the committee on this piece of legislation, which concluded:

The committee is surprised to have received this reference—

that is, the reference of this piece of legislation—

As it has noticed previously, the reference of supplementary appropriation bills directed at specific programs has only a limited usefulness. The amounts of money involved—

in this particular piece of legislation—

represent no more than what would be expected for the continuation of a policy which the Parliament has previously approved.

The committee does not see its role to review a policy which has obvious community support. Nor does it see itself as equipped to assess whether the appropriation is sufficient or otherwise for the purpose of the program which is proposed in the bill. However the committee is not in a position to assess whether the appropriation is sufficient or otherwise for the purpose of the program in the time allowed for consideration of the bill.

That, I think, is a very polite way of saying: ‘Why the hell was this bill referred to this committee in the first place? It is inappropriate and unnecessary. Even inasmuch as there is any issue for us to consider, we do not have the capacity or the time to look at it.’ I really do need to take the opportunity to point out just how perverted our committee process has become when bills that are not appropriate for referral, dealing with a matter that is not necessary to examine, are sent to committee. Indeed, at one stage consideration was given to the committee visiting areas of Cape York. As a Queenslander, I would like as many senators as possible to visit Cape York and examine some of the issues there. But, at the end of a week in which 500 pages of legislation which will have massive impacts on Aboriginal people across the Northern Territory was railroaded through this place without any opportunity for proper consideration—it had a one-day hearing on one day’s notice in Canberra—to have a bill that deals with, from memory, about $2 million of appropriation given two or three weeks time for examination, with consideration given to senators travelling to Cape York to check things out, just shows how totally perverted the role of Senate committees has become. That, I think, is a real shame.

Having said that, the Democrats support the legislation. There is no reason not to support it. It is part of a much wider range of measures that are being implemented in Cape York. They are in part controversial; I certainly acknowledge that. My response as a Queensland senator and as the Democrats’ Indigenous affairs spokesperson has been to watch them closely to try and get as much information as possible. I have received briefings from the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership about the quite comprehensive plan they have for a range of measures in that region. As is regularly stated, this is a trial. It is being done, at least to a reasonable degree, with the involvement of people at the community level and with the intent of trying to empower people locally: to get them to take control over and have ownership of decision making, to restore lines of authority in communities around the cape and to monitor progress and assess it in an evidence based way. It may be that some of those measures are not ones that turn out to be effective. There are some that I am not convinced will be effective, but I certainly support efforts to give them a go. I also support those efforts being properly resourced. That is what is being done here.

I think it is very unfortunate that what is being done in Cape York is being treated as though it is parallel to what is being done in the Northern Territory, because the similarities are nowhere near as great as the differences. We have had the Northern Territory debate a number of times in this place, so I will not deal with that here. The Democrats support this legislation. The measures are, on the whole, welcomed and supported by us, particularly in the context of a trial that is being assessed continually and with the stated goal of empowering people at the local level by involving them in the development and implementation of the program and the decision making along the way. That is clearly different from what is being done in the Northern Territory. How well that will work is still to be seen, but I think the measures need to be commended as a genuine attempt to develop evidence based solutions to entrenched problems and to do so in a way that gives ownership to people at the community level and that has a clear goal of ending it all with greater empowerment at the community level. For that reason, the Democrats congratulate the government for their willingness to provide that support in the scope and nature that they have.

I just wish that the commitment shown by the government in enthusiastically referring this piece of legislation to a Senate committee when it was not controversial or complex—it is basically just some extra funding to continue a pre-existing policy—had been matched by their desire for its much more comprehensive, far-reaching legislation dealing with Aboriginal people elsewhere to be given the opportunity for some proper examination. We know that a lot of the issues that are seeking to be addressed are similar. There are some differences, but there are some similarities, particularly on the issues of child safety, child sexual abuse and child protection in the cape. They are serious problems that have been identified a number of times, not least in reports by Professor Bonnie Robertson some years back. That is part and parcel of the landscape which led to and informed some of the actions there.

In Cape York, these measures were able to be scrutinised, debated, examined and developed with the involvement, at least to some extent, of people at the community level. I still cannot see why the same could not have been done in the Territory, but we will continue with that debate and continue to try and get some of those principles married with and folded into the action in the Territory over time. I know there are some in the government parties themselves who are keen to have a greater degree of emphasis on some of those issues and be more fully involved with what is happening in the Territory. Regardless of who ends up in government, if there is one thing that changes after the election, I hope it is that the Senate committee process does its job in a much more rational and appropriate way than has occurred far too often in the last year or two.

Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to incorporate my summing-up speech.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

I will sum up the debate on the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment (Cape York Measures) Bill 2007.

Through the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment (Cape York Measures) Bill 2007 funding of $2.0 million will be appropriated for the 2008 programme year to provide additional educational support for Indigenous students and their families in the Cape York region.

Funding provided through the Amendment will be used by the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership to work with the Cape York communities of Coen, Hope Vale, Aurukun, and Mossman Gorge to embed the Making Up Lost Time in Literacy (MUI,TILIT) accelerated literacy programme, and to work with parents and guardians to establish Student Education Trusts (SETs).

Representing a key component of the broader Welfare Reform agenda to tackle disadvantage in Cape York communities, these initiatives will provide further education opportunity for up to 800 Indigenous students in Cape York who may require intensive literacy support, for their families who may require additional assistance to save for the costs of education.

In recognition that, strong literacy skills are a critical factor in school completion and in longer-term success, the MULTILIT component of this measure will enable the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership to further address what it describes as the “Cape York literacy crisis”.

Through the provision of MULTILIT, those Indigenous students with the greatest literacy need will have access to the accelerated literacy programme MULTILIT in their classroom and through a MLTLTILIT Tutorial Centre in their community.

The Cape York Institute has identified that poor literacy outcomes are exacerbated by the fact that, upon entering the school system, many Indigenous children fail to make literacy gains and in some cases slip increasingly further behind. The Institute estimates that by the time Indigenous students are in Year 2, some 60-80% already require additional support, compared with 10-25% of non-Indigenous Cape York children.

The concentrated MULTILIT approach has already produced positive outcomes in Cape York. A trial of MULTILIT, conducted in the community of Coen in 2005, had a sample of participating students about four years behind in both reading accuracy and comprehension at the commencement of the programme. This group gained improvements after only 17 weeks of intensive MULTILIT instruction in their reading with a 43% increase in the number of words that they could read correctly per minute and average comparative gains of: 4.3 months in reading comprehension, 13.6 months in reading accuracy and 15.9 months in spelling. These results have continued in later trials in Coen.

The programme has also been recognised by the 2007 Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage Key Indicators Report, which in looking at a range of best practice in early literacy engagement strategies, identified the establishment of MULTILIT in the Cape York community of Coen, as an example of an initiative that has improved the educational outcomes experienced by Indigenous students.

The intensive support provided through MULTILIT will be strengthened by the establishment of Student Education Trusts (SETs) in the Cape. Student Education Trusts will provide low income families with the right support to better use their income to ensure that their child is school ready, and has the support to meet education expenses, such as fees, uniforms, textbooks and excursion fees, as well as home-based expenses such as reading books and other learning aids.

The provision of support for the establishment of Student Education Trusts reflects that while some Indigenous parents in Cape York already contribute financially to their child’s education, the high number of school children who start school without the required uniforms or equipment, and with the minimal learning support in their homes, indicates that many do not.

The roll out of Student Education Trusts into the communities of Coen, Hopevale, Aurukun, and Mossman Gorge, will enable parents, guardians and extended family members to make regular financial contributions to meet their child’s on-going education related expenses from “birth to graduation”.

This initiative is an important part of the Cape York Institute’s strategy to increase the demand for education in Cape York. Through the Trust accounts, the Cape York Institute anticipates that normalised financial expectations in relation to a child’s education will be established and in turn will increase the value of, and commitment, to education in Cape York.

Successfully trialled in the Cape York community of Coen in 2005, Student Education Trusts are now a permanent component of education reform in Coen, being driven by the Cape York Institute. The trial in Coen, achieved an outstanding 80% take up in the first two months. Successes included that:

• 70% of primary school children had their school uniforms purchased and were ready to start school on time;
• 80% of primary school children had on average two books purchased through the school book club; and
• children participated in sporting/education excursions subsidised by savings from their SET.

MULTILIT and Student Education Trusts will have a positive impact on the education outcomes of Indigenous young people and their families in the Cape York region. They will enable the provision of educational assistance to Indigenous students with the greatest need, and will improve the financial capacity of individuals and families to contribute to their child’s education.

The measures are part of the Australian Government’s support for Welfare Reform in Cape York. They reflect the recommendations made by the Cape York Institute, and the Australian Government’s continuing commitment ensuring that Indigenous students, wherever they live, have access to educational opportunities.

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.