Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

We hear the groans. Let me say this to the member opposite: if your child or the children of anyone else in this place were asked to learn under those same circumstances, there would be a riot—but it passes in here with the blink of an eye because of the lack of comprehension and understanding and knowledge that exists within this place and within the wider community.

We have significant responsibilities in this place, and one of the most significant—for me, at any rate—is to ensure that every Australian child, no matter where they live, has reasonable access to educational opportunities. Those educational opportunities include not just primary school education; they include access to high school opportunities and vocational education and training opportunities. If we do not provide those opportunities, we are condemning those kids to a future of poverty and welfare dependency. Yet when we hear discussions in this place about the issue of welfare dependency, do we hear any recognition of the need to address the most fundamental issue of getting kids and communities out of welfare and into work, which is providing them with basic educational opportunities? It is to provide them with not only basic educational opportunities but an opportunity to get vocational education and training. What is the point of having young people go to a primary school, perhaps attain a reading age to a year 3 or 4 level and then get into a high school and not be able to pass the entrance exams that might exist for a VET course because they do not have the literacy and numeracy skills?

The Northern Territory government is fully cognisant of its responsibilities and is doing a great deal to try to address the situation. I noted that when the minister was on The World Today she talked about funding being made available from the Commonwealth for two schools. They are yet to be built, but potentially will be built, one hopes, on the Tiwi Islands and at Woolaning. What do we know about these two schools? We know that they are both independent schools. Whilst the Commonwealth is prepared to provide resources for the independent school sector in the Northern Territory for these schools in the bush, it is not prepared to stump up the money that is required to provide educational opportunities for people in the mainstream who go to educational institutions which are funded by the Northern Territory government.

A great deal needs to be done. I am thankful, as I said at the outset, for the money which has been made available through the program which we have been discussing this morning, but a great deal still needs to be done. If we are to achieve better outcomes then we need to work collaboratively on this. It is not an issue of partisan politics for me; it is an issue of fundamental and basic human rights and the dignity of human beings.

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