Bruce Baird (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wish they had done a little better in the last few weeks, but it is not the fault of the program. It is a very successful program. It is the type of thing that we want to do to sponsor and identify a talent amongst Indigenous young people. It is a program which we support.

There is no doubt that education is not just a means of personal progress. Education will lead to greater equality for Indigenous Australians. Unemployment is the foremost source of poverty in Australia today, and the reason that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people face difficulties with respect to employment outcomes is their comparative lack of education. I remember a long time ago, when I was shadow minister for Indigenous affairs—or Aboriginal affairs I think it was called at that time—in New South Wales, speaking to the head of World Vision about the programs they had set up in New South Wales. I asked, ‘What do you see as the biggest single way in which we could overcome disadvantage?’ He said, ‘By providing jobs.’ We are going to provide jobs, but as part of that we have to provide the educational skills to enable them to take on those jobs. That is why this bill is so important and why this funding is significant.

There is still a significant gap between the educational participation and the achievement of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, but we have made some small advancements and that gap is slowly and steadily getting smaller. Although 40 per cent of Indigenous students now finish year 12, that figure was only 29 per cent when this government took office 10 years ago—and the number of Indigenous students in vocational and technical education has almost doubled since 1996.

No-one can pretend that we have achieved so much success that we can all sit back and say: ‘Well done. Haven’t we done well?’ I think indigenous people around the world are facing similar challenges, whether they are American Indians or Eskimos in Alaska. It is difficult and challenging, but we are making some progress—and it is the incremental progress that I think we should be very pleased with. This bill is not suggesting that this is going to provide some panacea to address the inherent difficulties that we have, but certainly it attempts to address the imbalance and the gap. This bill is part of the government’s strategy to reduce that gap further and to keep Indigenous educational outcomes at the front of our efforts to improve conditions for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

In keeping with the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Policy, the additional funding allocated will pay for a number of new initiatives. There is $14.5 million to provide additional tutorial assistance for year 9 Indigenous students, $11.2 million for new programs of tutorial assistance for Indigenous students in vocational and technical education, $7.3 million to support the Indigenous youth festival’s health promotion programs and $1.5 million for activities that address substance abuse by Indigenous youth in remote areas—and those programs will assist up to 1,000 young people involved in petrol sniffing and other substance abuse in the central desert and other regions. There is no point us having great education programs if our young Indigenous people are involved in petrol sniffing. It is a great tragedy that this is occurring and destroying lives, and it is a challenge for all of us as to what we do to persuade them not to be involved in these activities. It is not easy, but I am very glad to see that additional money is being allocated for that reason. Finally, there is $9.1 million to set up sporting academies and sports related activities based in schools.

These initiatives will complement the existing programs. As for the additional tutorial assistance for year 9 students, year 9 is basically the period when Indigenous students are at risk of dropping out of school, so additional tutoring will be provided for year 9 students as a way of addressing this challenge. They will provide some counselling, and the tutors will assist those who have poor literacy and numeracy skills in overcoming some of the difficulties they experience. I think that is an important activity.

I see that the minister who is responsible for vocational education is at the table. I am sure he has been very much involved in the program, in that there has been no previous provision for vocational and technical education for Indigenous students. This initiative will encourage Indigenous students to enrol as VTE students. While 13 per cent of Australians between the ages of 18 and 24 are neither studying nor working, 42 per cent of Indigenous Australians fit into this category. So we hope that this program will assist to reduce this. I am sure the minister will be watching that. I am sure all of us in this House feel a responsibility for our Indigenous community and for getting them involved in education and also in trades.

This bill provides for the establishment of 18 sporting academies, based in schools, with the aim of increasing sports and related activities for young Indigenous students. If that works as well as it has in Endeavour High, I think it will go particularly well, because sport is something that Indigenous young people can all identify with. There are some great stars. I know in the Sharks, my own football team, David Peachey was a great idol of many of the young people. Unfortunately, he is now playing for Souths. But he got Cathy Freeman involved as the No. 1 cardholder of the team. He is a great role model for our young people. This program will encourage them in life skills, and self-esteem is going to be important as well. By next year these academies will provide more than 1,000 students with a range of school based sporting activities. I know the minister, having been educated in the Sutherland shire, is a product of Miranda North high school—

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