Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Like most members in this House, I have a deep interest in education. I genuinely believe that education is essential in how we actually perceive the development of our society for the future. I am genuinely committed to improving the educational outcomes of our young people. It is a simple fact that, if children are to benefit from education, they must attend school. Kids of school age must attend school. Education is the key to developing the potential of our kids. To deprive a child of education, to me, is nothing more than neglect, and one that will continually serve to deprive development of a child right through to adulthood, with consequential effects on a community generally.

I make it clear from the outset of my contribution on the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008 that I am concerned about the number of children not attending school for various reasons. Any policy measure which purports to deliver more of the same, as the member for Cook might have us do, quite frankly, is not acceptable. Central to any policy reform in this area must be a focus on children. The Deputy Prime Minister noted in her second reading speech:

... it is estimated that up to 20,000 Australian children of compulsory school age may not be enrolled in school. Many more are not attending school regularly enough to meet any reasonable benchmark.

We must act now to transform this statistic. Education is a priority of this government and that can be seen through this legislation. Of more concern to me is that this is not just another statistic. The 20,000 kids who are not enrolled for school, and the many more who are not attending school regularly, are real kids who are at risk of losing their future.

This bill is designed to increase the enrolment and regular attendance of kids of compulsory school age and to improve parents’ recognition of the importance and benefits education has in respect of their child’s development through to their later life and the outcomes that brings in employment, financial independence and social inclusion. This bill introduces the concept of mutual obligation as opposed simply to a conceptual position of rights based welfare. Why? That is pretty simple: this is because of kids. This bill will introduce conditions on the recipient of income support whereby parents are obliged to ensure that their children of compulsory school age are enrolled in school and, what is more, that they take reasonable efforts to ensure their children attend school regularly. As a final step, this bill provides for those parents who fail their responsibilities of enrolling their children in school or having them attend regularly. Only after all efforts have been pursued, and in extreme circumstances, parents will put their welfare payments at risk. As I said, this bill introduces a concept of obligation. No-one is trying to hide behind that. I think the member for Cook had the view that the responsibility is somebody else’s and that we should impose that on state governments. I am sure that they also have responsibilities, but we ourselves have a very clear responsibility for welfare payments and income support payments. What we are saying through this legislation is that we intend to impose a responsibility on recipients of those payments. Their obligation in respect of their children is to ensure that they have the benefit of gaining an education.

In this bill it is proposed to trial this welfare based approach to truancy in eight communities. This will be a genuine trial. There is no predetermined outcome with it. Quite frankly, simply doing nothing is not acceptable. All it means is that kids will continue to miss out. That is simply not an acceptable position for us. And we are not just talking about kids in Indigenous communities; we are talking about all kids. At the end of the day, we want children to go to school. It is vital in setting themselves up for the rest of their lives. It is a fundamental responsibility of parents to make sure that their children attend school. I understand that there may be excuses from time to time. Some of those excuses may be acceptable; some are otherwise.

Let me tell you a little bit about my community. I live in and represent people in the south-west of Sydney. People would probably refer to it as a working class community. We have 41 government schools, nine Catholic systemic schools and eight non-government schools, all of which have very committed principals and teachers who do a wonderful job of educating the kids of my area. Generally, the kids who participate in education there do relatively well, as you would expect in any area. The dedication of the teachers is second to none. As a matter of fact, in some areas that are probably a little bit more sensitive, specifically those based around housing commission areas, I am overwhelmed by the commitment I see from principals. These are schools such as Sarah Redfern High School, Robert Townsend High School and others that put in day in and day out. They do wonders to ensure that these kids participate in and actually benefit from education. I know the principal of James Meehan High School, Gail Taylor, and I know much work goes on out of school through her facilities in Macquarie Fields to ensure that kids do not fall through the cracks.

Education, quite frankly, is the key to escaping the welfare cycle. It seems to me that simply doing nothing is going to put at risk the future of young people and will probably commit people to another generation within that basic cycle of welfare. Research suggests that students who are absent from school are those at greatest risk of dropping out of school early, becoming long-term unemployed, becoming dependent on welfare and interacting with the criminal justice system. That is the research and I do not think we need to challenge that. We would each know that from our own electorates. Education is what empowers young people to participate fully in our communities as they develop. I know for a fact that the majority of parents in my electorate are doing the right thing because they believe in education. I would particularly like to acknowledge that I have a very high proportion of immigrants in my electorate, particularly Bangladeshi and Islander immigrants. I take my hat off to those parents. In coming to this country they know the importance of changing outcomes in their lives and in their children’s lives. They are quite forthright in their commitment to education. They know education is the tool for breaking the poverty cycle.

On the other hand, I know there are also some parents who are neglecting their children for all sorts of reasons. Unfortunately, some of their problems are now being passed on from one generation to the next. The preliminary findings of the ongoing School Attendance Project show that reasons for poor school attendance essentially fall into three major categories: school related factors; home and student related factors; and demographic factors. The demographic factors include the socioeconomic status of the student’s family, and particular issues have also been identified in communities and families with a high level of dysfunction and welfare dependence.

There are a number of relevant international studies that support the correlation between low socioeconomic status for individuals and poor school attendance. For example, a recent one was a report from the National Centre for Children in Poverty in the US, compiled in October 2007, entitled A national portrait of chronic absenteeism in the early grades. This report found that the lower the family income, the higher the student absentee rate. Living in a low-income family generally increased the risk of high or chronic absenteeism. More recently, a report commissioned in Ireland concluded that a social mix is predictive of truancy patterns, with students attending schools in disadvantaged communities significantly more likely to truant than those attending fee-paying schools. I cannot put that down to anything more than taking an interest in the education of one’s children. As I said, in my area a significant proportion of the population are immigrants, and they make it very clear that a significant aspect of their family’s plight in their country of origin was that they lacked education. These are probably the most profound advocates of education that I have ever seen out here.

We cannot keep on talking about kids as though they are statistics. The kids that are missing out are missing out not only now—and not only tomorrow—but also on their futures generally, and that is why what we do is so important. It is not, as the member for Cook was saying, that it is sending a message. This is actually making a real statement about parental responsibility, and we can make that statement about those parents who are presently receiving welfare. My personal view is that this position should be put for all parents. Regrettably, there is no course that parents must do before they conceive a child. It seems to me that a lot must be learned by parents in bringing up kids to make sure that we give them every right and every chance to fully participate in our community as they grow.

A series of articles in the Australian this year focused on suburbs where there is intergenerational welfare dependency. An article on 28 July highlighted one suburb in my electorate. The article states:

The issue of welfare is one spoken about openly in Macquarie Fields. One Salvation Army welfare officer says: The education of people in Macquarie Fields is education in the welfare system.

With that way of thinking, something must change if we are going to move on from this cycle of dependency so as not to condemn future generations of Australians to a lifestyle of welfare addiction.

I found out that 17.9 per cent of the people in my electorate are infants or primary or secondary students. I would like to think that the more we can do for people in that category the more that we will be the society that we dream about, not only for our future but also for the future of our kids. I would also like to remind people that not all children in Macquarie Fields re-enter the welfare cycle, but certainly some do. It is those ‘some’ that I am committed to helping.

The article in the Australian interviewed a Macquarie Fields resident, Julia Willmott. She indicated that she is committed to improving the situation in her local community. I note that she welcomes the attempt by the Australian government to reform welfare so as to try to prevent future generations from becoming, in her words, ‘welfare hooked’.

A person mentioned in another of the articles is a young woman, Wendy Cocks, who is also a resident in Macquarie Fields. Unfortunately, she has already had four of her children removed from her care by authorities in New South Wales because of her addiction to amphetamines, or ‘speed’. I was touched when Wendy spoke out very bravely about her belief that she has beaten her drug addiction. She has been drug-free for the last two years. She is hoping that she can keep her fifth child, who is aged seven. Wendy only went to year 7. This did not empower her with the ability to gain employment, further education or anything else. Wendy left school early and this has locked her into a life of welfare dependency. When Wendy was asked about her ambitions for her seven-year-old child, she replied that she wanted them to have a good education. She went on to say that she hoped ‘he not be a ratbag’. I thought it was interesting that what she wanted for her child was something that she had not had—a good education.

Another person referred to in this article is Mathew Boan. He is also a resident of Macquarie Fields. Due to the curse of drugs, along with stress and an inability to break the cycle of despair, he lost custody of his children. Ordinarily, you would expect these people to speak out against the system; they certainly speak out against certain aspects of the system from time to time. But when Mathew was confronted with the reality of the quarantining plan, within the spirit of this legislation, his position was: ‘I would have liked that.’ Mr Boan took the view that had this been in existence at the time when he was having his problems it might have caused him to sit up and take note. It might have caused him to spend less money on drugs and other vices and to have regard for his kids. Hindsight is all well and good, but here is a person who is freely coming out now and saying that this plan might have caused him to wake up. Once again, he acknowledges the benefit of education, which was something that he had missed out on.

In the brief time remaining to me, I would like to mention a couple of other people who have made a contribution to Macquarie Fields. Andrew McDonald is a local paediatrician, who has worked and lived in the area for almost 20 years. I am proud to say that, since March 2007, he has been the state Labor member for Macquarie Fields. In the article, Dr McDonald is quoted as saying:

The day the new Federal Government spoke about welfare reform “it was just like the fall of the Berlin Wall—it was music to my ears”.

Further in the article, he is quoted as saying that he welcomes any examination of the way welfare works and what makes him sad is seeing kids without options. According to Dr McDonald:

You see a kid with potential who doesn’t have options and the most common reason for that is social dislocation, being itinerant, away from your family, away from the extended family. Family breakdown and lack of options is the thing that I find most distressing.

These stories are occurring right smack bang in the middle of my electorate. My electorate is probably not too dissimilar to many other electorates. As I said at the outset, Macquarie Fields is a working-class suburb, and the people who live there want the best for their kids. In the past, people might have referred to that notion as being aspirational. I think it is almost incumbent on us as parents—(Time expired)

See this speech in context