Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

More seriously, I want to remind the member for Fisher that this is the same government that managed to underspend—he talks about criticism; it is appropriate criticism by the member for Canberra—the Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Program in 2004-05. This underspend was the massive amount of $126 million through bureaucratic bungling. That raises issues in the minds of the opposition about confidence in the Howard government to actually get things right, but we are prepared to give the government a go because things are so bad with respect to educational opportunity in our Indigenous communities.

In any case, the bill also fails to provide sufficient resources to address the huge gap between the participation and achievement rates of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in secondary education. So it is not only about primary education; it is also about how we make further progress with one of the real areas of weakness—that is, at the secondary education level. In that context, I believe that we also have to work out how we more closely marry VET in Schools at a secondary level with the Indigenous communities. I think about the industries I have raised today, such as resources, forestry, energy and tourism, and the shortage of skills that exists in isolated areas of Australia. Just think about the skills opportunities in the training and education of the Indigenous community that exist in those sectors.

I therefore remind the House of the comments by the member for Jagajaga and shadow minister for education and training by which she has previously informed the House on numerous occasions that the retention rate for Indigenous people when it comes to completing year 12 was just 39.5 per cent in 2005, compared—and this is an amazing difference—with 76.6 per cent of non-Indigenous students. Clearly there is room for a lot of improvement. It requires assistance by all political parties and all tiers of government.

I now go to the issue of achievement. Unfortunately, just 50 per cent of Indigenous year 7 students achieve national benchmarks for numeracy, compared with 80 per cent of all Australian year 7 students. When the shadow minister for education and training spoke on this bill, she said:

... I do not think anybody in this chamber would say that this massive difference is acceptable.

I merely want to echo those comments, and I think—to be fair to both sides of the House—that would be the view of all members of this House, irrespective of their political allegiances. We have a lot of work to do. I also draw attention to the comments by the member for Capricornia when debating the same subject almost two years ago. She has a long-term commitment—and she represents a huge regional seat in Queensland that includes not only the beef industry but also, importantly, the coal industry—to trying to do something about the needs and aspirations of Indigenous people. She said in this debate almost two years ago: ‘It can well be said that we do not spend enough time in this parliament discussing and debating the level of disadvantage that exists for Indigenous Australians in this country.’ Let us hope that, as suggested by the member for Capricornia, debates such as this actually start drawing sharper attention by the Australian community to our need to do a better job. For that reason, I can only agree with my colleagues the members for Jagajaga and Capricornia, who have correctly and wholeheartedly raised some of these problems.

But, in doing so, I also further lament that, whilst we have seen more debate in recent months, its genesis took the sensationalisation of events in the Northern Territory communities, and its content still lacks a focus on economic empowerment. I think that is fundamental to building healthy, sustainable communities for the long term. Obviously, from time to time, the media will want to sensationalise some of these stories because it is easy reporting. That does not solve the problems on the ground. That actually requires assistance from government but also, importantly, a willingness by the local leadership of these communities to get serious about a partnership with government and the private sector to try and make a concerted contribution to overcoming these problems. I think all of us know that it is not going to be easy. It is fair to say that in many instances we have almost lost a whole generation of our Indigenous community. In all the problems of a lack of education and the social dislocation issues of drugs and alcohol, we have all failed in our efforts to try and work out how we are supposed to make a fresh start.

We cannot make the same mistakes. It requires all of us, in some ways, to assess some of our past views on these issues. I say that because I think it is imperative for us to better understand the scale of the problem that confronts us at the moment. We also have to understand the reasons for our underachievement. We have underachieved in Indigenous Australia in education, health and employment. That creates an imperative for us to address the low employment participation rate for Indigenous Australians, because we are not going to resolve these problems in the Indigenous communities until we accept that, for them, just like for Australians generally, you define yourself by your capacity to work. If you have not achieved educationally then you cannot get an employment opportunity. If you do not have competence in your ability to work and deliver for your family then that creates major problems in local communities. So, in a lot of ways, education is the foundation that creates the opportunities to overcome some of the other problems in Indigenous communities.

We have never had a better time to do something about this, provided that there is empowerment at a local level, a willingness by the leadership of these communities to get serious about their problems with support from government, and a willingness also by the private sector—as they have suddenly realised—to actually give local support, not just as they have in the past, surfacing some football oval or creating some lights around the basketball or netball court. They thought that was about doing something for local communities. I have come to the conclusion that local communities are no longer interested in those little social programs; they want the fundamentals fixed. They also understand that a private employer such as a Rio Tinto, an Accor in the hospitality sector or a Southern Plantations in the forestry sector giving a commitment that, if kids are prepared to apply themselves at school, they are prepared to give an employment opportunity will over time have a major impact on changing the level of achievement in these communities.

That raises where we are as a nation at the moment. Australia faces a severe skills shortage and desperately needs more people participating in the workforce. It is an indictment of this government that Indigenous employment lags so far behind mainstream levels of participation. I think it is little known that by 2020 every second Australian living north of the Tropic of Capricorn or above Port Augusta in South Australia will be of Aboriginal descent. This is a staggering statistic. By 2020, one in two Australians living in Northern Australia will be of Aboriginal descent. This has important implications for a lot of resource development in Australia and also in terms of trying to confront some of the difficulties—for example, in the tourism sector.

These Indigenous people are the future workforce of Northern Australia. They are important in industries such as the pastoral, agriculture, forestry, horticulture, tourism and resources industries. In particular, as I have said this evening, Indigenous Australians are a logical source of labour and skills for Australian mining. They often live in remote areas and they are also there at the centre of industry. I therefore refer to a recent comment by the Rio Tinto Chief Adviser on Aboriginal and Community Relations, Bruce Harvey, in a very important article in the Australian Financial Review of last Friday. I urge all members to read this detailed article. In that article, Mr Harvey is reported as saying:

... recruiting from local communities is a matter of survival. The business case for us is pretty simple ... Most of our long-life mines are in northern Australia ... Well, who do we think is going to be running the mines?

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With burgeoning Aboriginal population growth rates at 4 per cent, by 2016 we will have 10,000 additional Aboriginal people in the valleys of our operations.

If they are all ungainfully employed, they will be doing ungainful things. That represents a threat to our operations.

If we help build a sustainable regional economy, you’ve got a source of skilled, mobile employees who can come and go as they want, you have local service and supply that gives you a normal market economy, you’ve got stable civic governance, environmental ecological management, and good lifestyle. The whole thing becomes attractive for people to stay there and support the mine.

I support those comments of Bruce Harvey, the representative of Rio Tinto. This company, like a number of other major resource companies in Australia, is now a corporate leader in Indigenous employment, employing about 700 Aborigines and a further 300 Aboriginal contractors. According to the Australian Financial Review, while Aboriginal representation in mining workforces in northern Australia averages about nine per cent, Rio Tinto is doing much better, with roughly 25 per cent at Argyle Diamonds in Western Australia and 18 per cent at Comalco at Weipa in Queensland.

Importantly, the company has also said that, if a young person finishes year 10, they are guaranteed a job with Comalco at Weipa. It is those commitments by the private sector that can make this education initiative by the Howard government a bigger success. I urge corporate Australia to get behind initiatives by state and territory governments and the Australian government to do something about Indigenous education by creating that extra carrot: a commitment to actually employ these people if they improve their education. Then there will be a greater willingness of people to put their heads down and do the hard work at school.

I know that many other mining companies have a similar view and are also adopting new good practices to assist the advancement of Indigenous Australians. That is important because Indigenous employment, education and training, and business and community development opportunities must be a key consideration in all mining approvals and management plans. This has got to become part of government consideration at a state and federal level in thinking about how we develop the mining sector in the future.

This is also a responsibility of the industry itself, and it is now spoken about by the Minerals Council of Australia. That raises why we have to do this more successfully. I say that that is also economically smart because some estimates put the cost of Indigenous unemployment to government at $1 billion per annum. The cost to the Australian economy in lost productive output associated with Indigenous unemployment is estimated at $3 billion, and related social welfare expenditure and foregone tax revenue is a further $3 billion.

As I have said before in this House, not only is it shameful in the 21st century that a modern, developed and wealthy society tolerates the level of Indigenous unemployment and social disadvantage that this country does, but it is also costing us roughly $7 billion a year. Notwithstanding the unforgivable human cost, imagine the financial cost to Australia of Indigenous unemployment by 2020 if we fail to properly address the incredible social disadvantage faced by Indigenous communities today. This is an issue of social and economic importance that we cannot ignore.

The education of young Indigenous Australians is an absolute priority. It is about improving their future employment opportunities and the future productive opportunities of the Australian nation as a whole. That is why I support wholeheartedly the second reading amendment moved by the member for Jagajaga which is about putting in place a more comprehensive and inclusive set of policies and programs for Indigenous students, parents and communities.

Governments, the private sector and Indigenous communities must now act in partnership. We have to create educational opportunities that mean that Indigenous communities can actually grasp those employment opportunities that are emerging in remote regional and rural Australia. I have talked about the mining companies. Another example, in the tourism sector, is Accor Asia Pacific, which manages the Sofitel, Novotel and Mercure hotels and, according to the Australian Financial Review article last Friday, now employs about 150 Indigenous Australians, compared to just 10 five years ago. Similarly, at Port Keats, a Wadeye community, there has now been talk of investment in forestry, which can aid the building of skills based on the education in those local schools.

The Tiwi islands project is also widely reported in the Australian Financial Review of August of this year. It talks about achievements in the Tiwi Land Council area with respect to investment in the forestry industry, historically for research opportunities but now for sustainable forestry opportunities. Obviously it involves plantations, and I must say that the issue of plantation investment is a matter that has to be resolved by the government sooner rather than later because it is creating uncertainty in industry at the moment as to whether the plantation industry will be able to survive if the government withdraws some of the tax benefits or incentives that have existed over recent years.

With a focus on Indigenous forestry, again I simply urge that the government be required to make this final decision on the investment scheme that has been available to the plantation industry in recent years. This is the type of investment, side by side with education, that will do something about overcoming Indigenous disadvantage. It is about productive investment in education and working with the private sector to create productive employment opportunities and to enlarge Australia’s economic cake.

I therefore refer to the Weekend Australian, where it talks about Great Southern Plantations doing something about the Tiwi workforce. Out of a full-time workforce on site of 58, 29 Tiwis work for Great Southern Plantations already—which is a great achievement—in real jobs, for competitive wages and not CDEP or dole pittances. These people are now emerging as the leadership of these communities because of their employment status.

In conclusion, I simply say that this bill does provide additional welcome funding for Indigenous education—it is a start—but I also say that we have to do better. With the implementation of this additional funding, there is an absolute requirement for cooperation between state and territory governments and the Australian government. I also emphasise, as I have said throughout this speech, that Indigenous Australians expect better and we as a decent community expect to do better—and also that we must do it in partnership with the private sector. We can create a multiplier effect by linking up education and employment as a result of these initiatives. I commend the bill with the additional funding to the House, but I also support the second reading amendment, which is about improving the administration and delivery of Indigenous education. I thank the House for the opportunity to address what I regard as a very serious issue.

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