Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008, which is a bill that seeks to amend the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999, the Student Assistance Act 1973 and the Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986. In amending those pieces of legislation, this bill will allow for the measures that were announced in the most recent budget under ‘welfare payments reform’, which enables the implementation of the improving school enrolment and attendance through welfare reform measure. This is a measure that is intended to be initially trialled in eight locations, six of which are in the Northern Territory, one of which is in Western Australia and another location is to be determined. It is a trial which will affect parents and carers who are in receipt of income support and who have children who are of a compulsory school age.

At the outset, I think it is important to understand the framework of this bill and the trial which is contained in it—in a sense, to understand what it is and what it is not. This is not a bill or a trial which will seek to punish children or parents. This bill seeks to link the support that is received from our society through income benefits with a basic obligation in our society to send one’s children to school. It is a bill which accepts that, despite concerted efforts by some parents, there will be some children who will continue to have unsatisfactory levels of school attendance. At the end of the day, it is a bill that balances the expectations of the community with the obligations and the abilities of parents to ensure that their children are attending school.

This bill—and the trial contained within it—acknowledges the power of education. This bill acknowledges the power of education to change our society. It acknowledges the power of education to uplift those in our society who come from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. It acknowledges the power of education as being the single most fundamental way in which we provide opportunity in our society to each and every citizen. In acknowledging the power of education, what this bill will do—and what this trial intends to do—is provide and ensure that the right of every child to have an education exists.

Given the discussion on this bill that has occurred publicly, I want to briefly go through the precise terms of the bill so that we are clear about what we are talking about. In the event that this bill becomes law, the bill will provide that, starting from next year, parents who are receiving income support, who have children who are of a compulsory school age and who are living in the trial areas will need to provide Centrelink with information about their child’s school enrolment. Parents who fail to provide that information to Centrelink will need to engage with Centrelink—and I will come back to that in a moment. Parents who fail to enrol their children in school will also be required to engage with Centrelink. The bill also provides that those parents whose children are enrolled in school but are not attending school on a regular basis will also be required to engage with Centrelink.

In engaging with Centrelink there will an encouragement on the part of Centrelink for those parents to rectify whatever the situation is that is out of kilter—be it providing the initial information about the enrolment, ensuring that the child becomes enrolled in school or, if they are already enrolled and they are not attending, trying to make sure that attendance occurs. In engaging with the parents, Centrelink can rely on writing letters, phone contacts, referrals and ultimately providing social work support.

I guess the point in making those observations at the outset is that, before we get to the issues in this bill that have gained the most attention, there will be a concerted effort to try to work with the parents to rectify whatever is outstanding in the situation that exists. If that is not successful, the bill provides an ability for Centrelink to suspend income support payments. In the event that the situation is rectified—the child starts attending school or the child becomes enrolled in school—there is the power for Centrelink to reinstate those payments up to a period of 13 weeks, and indeed in some situations to back pay beyond a period of 13 weeks. If that as a sanction is not successful in terms of ensuring that the children are enrolled at school and attending school, there is then an ability, in the most extreme of circumstances, for Centrelink to actually terminate those payments altogether.

This bill provides for Centrelink to terminate payments in eight trial locations, which I indicated, in the Northern Territory communities which form part of the Northern Territory intervention and also in communities which are not part of that, as well as in schools which have Indigenous children in them and also schools which have non-Indigenous children in them. In having two locations outside the Northern Territory it is hoped that there will be a wider demographic so that a proper assessment of the affect of this trial can be obtained. It is acknowledged that ultimately the power for education and for schooling rests with the territories and the states, and it is acknowledged that there is not a power within this bill to compel non-government and government schools to participate. But a range of incentives may form part of this regime to be provided to the states and territories in order to encourage those schools to participate in the scheme.

At the end of the day, that describes the trial and the regime that we are talking about putting in place. It is not a new idea. Linking parents’ welfare payments with children’s satisfactory attendance at school is an idea that has been put in place in 40 states within the United States. In some of those states there have been very encouraging outcomes from such programs. In California, for example, where there has been a comprehensive system of welfare sanctions combined with active case management—and that is a really important aspect of this—there have been results which indicated an increase of eight per cent in school attendance, and that is a very significant outcome indeed. The United Kingdom also has in place systems of conditional entitlements of this kind. Whilst it is in a sense new to this country, it is not an entirely novel idea and it is one which has an international basis.

It is important that we embark upon a program and trial such as this now because of the statistics on school attendance which confront our country. It is estimated that right now there are 20,000 Australian children of compulsory school age who are not enrolled in school. That is by any measure a disgraceful statistic and one which brings shame upon our country. An OECD analysis of the population aged between 25 and 64 shows that in Australia people within that age bracket who have obtained upper secondary education—this is a 2005 figure—is 65 per cent. Of the 35 countries who participated in that particular OECD survey Australia was eighth from the bottom. Again a shameful situation for our country.

Under the Howard government we saw school retention rates stagnate, after a period of significant growth during the Hawke and Keating years, such that year 12 retention rates now are at around 74 per cent. One in 10 year 7 students is currently unable to meet national reading and writing benchmarks, and one in five is not able to meet numeracy benchmarks. Again these are appalling statistics to characterise Australia in 2008.

In my electorate of Corio, which covers the city of Geelong, there is equally difficult reading when one considers the statistics that apply there in relation to education, particularly when we look at the suburbs of Norlane and Corio, which have the lower socioeconomic outcomes. In Norlane and Corio secondary schools the average days of school lost for students range from 14.2 per cent, or almost three weeks, up to 28.7 per cent, or almost six weeks. According to ABS data from 2006 the completion rate for year 12 education in Norlane and Corio stood at 23 per cent. Fifty-one per cent of the residents of Corio and Norlane aged between 20 and 24 have not completed year 12, and that compares with 25 per cent in greater Melbourne and 29 per cent in Victoria. The school retention data over the past five years for students moving between years 11 and 12 at Corio Bay Senior College show that only around 50 per cent of year 11 students remain at school for year 12.

These are statistics which absolutely bear out the need for us to look at new ways in which we can keep our children at school so that they complete their education. These statistics are staggering for a developed country like Australia and they bear out the failure of the Howard government over the last 12 years. We cannot improve those statistics if we do not have the most basic issue of our children attending school. We will not improve year 12 completion rates if children do not attend school during their early years.

We know that regular truancy often results in an increased risk of students dropping out of school. It results, in turn, in an increased risk of those students ending up as long-term unemployed. It involves an increased probability that in adult life those students will end up being welfare dependent and it also involves an increased risk that those students will have an interaction with the criminal justice system at some point in their adult lives. This is stark evidence and it requires and demands a response. This idea and this trial is an attempt to provide that response.

But from the opposition we have seen no clear direction at all on this issue which is confronting our country. We have seen nothing other than the consistent flip-flopping—the consistent inconsistency—which we have seen from the opposition on almost every major piece of public policy since November of last year. On 25 August, in an interview with the ABC, the member for Warringah said that he supported the government’s policy in relation to this area. On the very same day, a New South Wales senator, the shadow minister for human services, Senator Coonan, criticised the policy on the Liberal Party website but in the same breath noted that this was indeed a policy which had been announced by the government in the budget in May. The very day before that appeared on the Liberal Party’s website, the Leader of the Opposition suggested that this was a populist piece of policy being done on the run, even though, as I have just said, his party’s website acknowledged that this policy was announced in the government’s budget in May. Indeed, the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs had made public statements in relation to this policy in both June and July. The opposition, as always, seem determined on this issue to confound the electorate with their obvious lack of direction. They are clearly far more concerned about outdoing each other in their various media sound bites—which, in a sense, is what we just heard from the member for Kalgoorlie—than they are on focusing on the critical issue which is before this parliament and the Australian people today.

This trial needs not to be seen in isolation. It forms part of a greater commitment by the Rudd government to a fundamental education revolution in this country. That is an important symbolic statement but it is in turn backed up by significant resources. It is worth reminding the House that in the budget $1.2 billion was committed to delivering computers to schools around our country. We have provided an education tax refund of up to $1,500 per child per year, at a cost of $4.4 billion over four years. We have provided $2.5 billion towards trade training centres in schools and of course an $11 billion Education Investment Fund. These are real commitments. This is a real desire to try and improve our education system. The current bill before the House and the trial which is inherent in it have to be seen in the context of that suite of measures to try and improve education in this country.

In conclusion, let me say that the Rudd government is utterly committed to improving the state of our nation’s education system—an education system which, frankly, was allowed to fall into a state of disrepair over the 11 years of the Howard government. The 20,000 unenrolled children in this country—and their futures and what that means for our nation—are crying out for action. They are the clarion call for action within this area. It requires that decisive action be taken in this area. It requires that innovative action be taken and, yes, it also requires in certain circumstances that tough action be taken. But at the end of the day those children, and the potential for themselves and for our country that they represent, absolutely deserve nothing less, and so I commend this bill to the House.

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