Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008. It is legislation aimed fairly and squarely at ensuring that kids get to school. As previous speakers have said, there is nothing more important in life than ensuring that kids—our children—get the best education and the best start in life. Part of that is making sure they get to school.

Having listened to this debate, I have heard arguments about this legislation being seen as something in isolation. The reality is that there are plenty of programs being run by the state governments already which are about supporting kids at school and supporting parents. What this measure is about is providing another weapon in the armoury of government and of schools to support and encourage parents to get their kids to school. One of the things that the Rudd government have embarked on is an education revolution, because we do recognise that education does have to be looked at holistically. But this legislation is just one part of what we are doing in education. As part of our education revolution, we are looking at education from early childhood, primary, secondary, vocational education and training through to university. We recognise that we need to make additional investments and additional commitments to support our education sector, but this bill is an important reform as part of that overall package.

If you do not go to school and you do not get an education then you are really setting yourself back in terms of your long-term prospects in life. Sadly, it is estimated that in Australia there are up to 20,000 children of compulsory school age who may not be enrolled in school; there are even more who are enrolled in school but who are not attending regularly. Research indicates that kids who are not going to school and who are not getting an education are more likely, as I have said, to end up unemployed. More importantly, they can also end up homeless. I believe that in certain circumstances they are also more likely to end up in the criminal justice system and, sadly, in jail, because if you do not have a good basis in life then you often do not have the self-esteem and the other life skills that enable you to participate fully within the community. This legislation needs to be looked at within that whole broader education and social context.

I know that there are many kids in my electorate of Leichhardt that struggle to get to school. I have a very diverse and broad electorate. It ranges from the border of Papua New Guinea, including the Torres Strait, through Cape York Peninsula, including the great city of Cairns, to smaller regional towns like Mossman and Port Douglas. I have a broad spectrum of schools in my electorate, and I love getting around and visiting those schools; I have some fantastic schools. This year I have been up to Boigu Island and I visited a school up there. They are running a fantastic cultural program where kids come and get involved in dance. That encourages kids to come to school; they enjoy it, but they also get involved in reading, writing and arithmetic. Their benchmarks are improving.

Tagai State College, which has really clustered many of those Torres Strait schools, is doing a great job, but there are still kids up there who are not getting to school, and we need to look at ways that we can actually encourage and support parents to get their kids to school. But, in the end, if they are not getting their kids to school, we need to investigate new ways of ensuring that that happens. That is what this legislation is about. It is about establishing a trial in the Northern Territory and in a couple of other locations to look at those other measures. Coming down Cape York Peninsula—it is a great part of Australia—there are real issues with attendance at school in that area. Members may not realise, but the reality is that welfare reform in relation to school attendance is already occurring in my electorate. Welfare reform is happening in Cape York Peninsula. The Aurukun, Hopevale, Coen and Mossman Gorge communities are already engaged in welfare reform. As part of that welfare reform program, parents who do not send their children to school can have themselves referred to the Family Responsibilities Commission.

The Family Responsibilities Commission is led by Commissioner Glasgow, a retired magistrate, and is made up of Indigenous elders from those communities. It is a trial at the moment in those four communities in my electorate. It recognises that, if you do not send your kids to school, if you are having issues with child safety, if you have issues with the rent and maintenance of your property or if you are in trouble with the criminal justice system, the community needs to engage with you. There are community elders on the Family Responsibilities Commission who will work with you and look to encourage you to make changes in your life and provide you with support services.

This has been controversial, but there is a clear difference between what is happening in my electorate on the Cape York Peninsula—and I see the member for Lingiari here—and what is happening in the Northern Territory intervention. That difference is that it is not about punitive measures against the whole community; it is about working with people who are doing the wrong thing and are not effectively getting their kids to school or are breaking the law and having some other problems in the community. It is about working with them in partnership with the community and working with the community to develop different norms. So it is a different approach, and I think that it is an approach that we need to trial and we need to tackle in my electorate. It is an interesting situation that we already have that reform going on in my electorate of Leichhardt and now we are looking at trialling a different measure in other parts of the country. But it is important that the House does realise that the Rudd government is already trialling these types of programs in other parts of the country.

Turning to the more mainstream schools that we have in Cairns, it is obvious, when you get around there, that there are kids who do not often get to school and kids from difficult backgrounds who struggle at times to get to school. This measure is not going to impact on those schools. But I believe that, if we are looking at Indigenous children falling within this net, then we should also be looking beyond them to the broader population. We need to ensure that we are not just targeting Indigenous parents and kids but looking across the spectrum. Non-Indigenous parents can also have social problems and difficult situations, whether to do with alcohol or other things, and we need to ensure that we are providing them with support mechanisms and that they are providing their kids with every opportunity to get to school.

So linking school attendance to income support through welfare reform is already happening in my electorate of Leichhardt, and this legislation demonstrates a further commitment of the Rudd government to trial and look at how we can introduce measures to get kids to school. The approach will initially be trialled in six communities in the Northern Territory as well as in two metropolitan locations in other jurisdictions. One, I understand, is part of the Cannington region in Perth and the other location is yet to be finalised. The impact of the measure will be minimal for those parents who do the right thing and have their children enrolled in school and attending regularly. We need to be clear: parents in those areas should not be frightened. If you are working with the school then you have nothing to fear from this legislation. Parents who actively engage with their school, who actively engage with their kids and look to get their kids to school, are not going to fall into the net of this legislation.

However, truancy is a complex and difficult area, and there are kids who do not always do what their parents say and who do not always get to school, for a whole range of different reasons. They may have confidence issues. It may be about bullying. It may be about mental illness. There may be a whole lot of reasons why they do not get to school. What we want to ensure with this legislation is that parents are actively engaging with their schools and with their children and trying to ensure that they do make every effort to get their kids to school.

So, as part of that, all parents receiving income support in those areas will have to ensure that their children are registered with a school and that they report that to Centrelink. I do not think it is too much to ask of parents who receive income support to demonstrate to Centrelink that they have their children enrolled in school. Parents who fail to provide enrolment information without a reasonable excuse will need to engage further with Centrelink. Those parents may have their income support payments suspended until they enrol their children or provide information that that has occurred. So we are asking parents in those areas to enrol their kids in school and to demonstrate that to Centrelink. If they do not, then Centrelink will look to engage with them further. But if they do not enrol their children in school then there is the real risk that they will have their income suspended for up to 13 weeks.

Parents receiving income support will also be expected to ensure their children are regularly attending school. In instances where a child is not attending regularly, the relevant state or territory authority can inform Centrelink. Parents who are not taking responsible steps to improve their child’s school attendance may have their income support payments suspended until such time as they can show they are doing so. So parents need, first of all, to enrol their kids in school and to demonstrate that they are enrolled in school, and they need to get their kids to school. As I have said earlier, where a child is attending for less than one in five days a week, or 20 per cent, then there is a real chance that they are not going to reach their benchmarks. So we need to work with those parents and those schools to ensure that we are doing all we can to get those children to school.

The previous speaker, the member opposite, seemed not to be sure whether they were supporting or opposing the legislation in their argument, even though, at the end, they said they were about supporting this legislation. But I would say to them that it is important to remember that there are already programs out there working with parents and children. Obviously, the states are already doing work on this, and we want to work cooperatively with the states in terms of this type of legislation. As I said, I travel extensively in my electorate and visit schools, and I talk to school counsellors about engaging with parents and engaging with kids. The ‘You Can Do It’ program is a fantastic program that is running in a number of schools in my electorate. Schools have breakfast programs to encourage kids to get to school. So there are already programs out there that are supporting and working with parents in encouraging kids to get to school. It is very simplistic to argue that this legislation is looked at in isolation, particularly in terms of the broader arguments, because truancy is already a problem, states are already making efforts, the Commonwealth is looking to support those efforts, and we need to work cooperatively. Just saying, ‘Oh, it is the states’ responsibility,’ is again going back to the old blame game. Well, we are not interested in the blame game. We are interested in improving educational outcomes for kids, and one of the first things we have to do in terms of that is to get them to school.

If parents do not comply they can have their income support payments suspended for 13 weeks. But if they do start to engage, if they start to work with schools and start to work with their kids, then Centrelink has the capacity to reinstate those payments and back-pay them. This is not about being punitive; it is about providing a carrot. We are recognising that there are carrots in the system but that, in certain situations, there may need to be a stick involved. And we will use the stick, but only as a last resort.

In the most extreme cases—of parents who do not cooperate, and where there is no evidence of a reasonable excuse or special circumstances, and then only after a minimum of 13 weeks of suspended payments—it may be appropriate to cancel income support payments completely. So, in certain circumstances, where the parent has had payments suspended and yet continues not to engage, then there is an opportunity to suspend the payments permanently. But, again, we are not looking at this legislation in isolation, and I would expect and imagine that state governments would engage with this. And, really, if a person is not getting their child to school then we need to have child protection and those sorts of organisations start to look at and work with that family. Again, we need to recognise that this is about looking holistically at the education sector.

So I am supporting this legislation. I think it is important legislation. It is not about taking punitive measures against parents; it is about looking to provide a framework where if you are not engaging with the school and you are not engaging with your child then you do run the risk of having your welfare payments suspended. I support the legislation and I commend it to the House.

Debate interrupted.

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