Chris Trevor (Flynn, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Schools Assistance Bill 2008 and the Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008. The Schools Assistance Bill 2008 will appropriate $28 billion for non-government schools and non-government bodies for 2009 to 2012. This bill will also implement the Commonwealth’s commitment to providing funding certainty to non-government schools for 2009 to 2012 through the continuation of the existing socioeconomic status funding formula and indexation arrangements. This bill will appropriate funding for all non-government schools for 2009 to 2012, including specific funding for schools and students in rural and regional areas under the remoteness loading for recurrent grants and through the provision of Indigenous supplementary assistance weighted to provide additional support for schools’ campuses in remote or very remote areas; it will also fund the Country Areas program.

This bill will address the funding of non-government schools for 2009 to 2012 as part of the Rudd Labor government’s overall agenda for delivering an education revolution to all schools whether they are government or non-government schools. This bill will also meet the Rudd Labor government’s election commitment to continue the current SES funding. The Schools Assistance Bill 2008 will appropriate $28 billion worth of Commonwealth funding for recurrent capital and targeted assistance for non-government schools and bodies, including supplementary assistance for Indigenous school students, as well as establishing an Indigenous funding guarantee to ensure that non-government education providers are no worse off under these arrangements. This bill will combine Indigenous-specific school education programs into a single streamlined Indigenous supplementary assistance element, align the indexation and remoteness classifications of this funding with those which apply to mainstream recurrent funding and provide for maximum recurrent funding for non-government schools with a very high proportion of Indigenous enrolments.

A positive example of this in my own electorate of Flynn is the Harmony in Between program, which was launched at the masses for the opening of the 2008 school year across the Rockhampton diocese, which takes in my electorate of Flynn. The project is focused on presenting Indigenous perspectives to all learners in our diocese. The mission statement for the project declares:

With Jesus as our guide it is our purpose to enrich the experiences of all our learners with different ways of knowing and doing, to lead them to reflect on these perspectives and to act in inclusive and socially just ways.

Indigenous perspectives are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s ways of knowing, doing, being and relating to the world. For Indigenous people, the relationships between individual, country, law and spirituality are not easily separated, as each informs the other.

For us to fully appreciate contemporary Indigenous issues, it is vital to gain an understanding of Indigenous world views and how historical events continue to impact on and live with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. Intergenerational experiences, both positive and negative, are manifest in the behaviours and attitudes of many young Indigenous people in our care. To gain a deeper understanding of Indigenous experiences, we need to develop relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Schools are encouraged to form genuine partnerships with members of their local Indigenous community so that the most authentic of Indigenous perspectives can be presented to our students. To support these personal interactions, teachers will have access to a class page on Mysuite, our intranet service. It contains internet links which have been evaluated using criteria formulated for this project, along with other resources to support teachers within the classroom and in their own professional and personal development.

At the masses, each school received a print of the Harmony in Between artwork, which was created by local Indigenous artists Howard and Kaylene Butler. The painting tells the story of how we are honouring the past, enriching the present and shaping the future in partnership with our Indigenous communities. Schools have been asked to hang the print in a prominent place to indicate that they are places where Indigenous peoples and their cultures are valued and respected and that together we are working for harmony between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

Unravelling some of the mystery surrounding the hidden history of Indigenous Australians was the focus of the Crossing Cultures workshops held in all schools across the diocese over terms 1 and 2. Indigenous education coordinator Coral Way and liaison officers Phillipa Johnson, Hazel Hill and Katie Wragge presented the in-service, which detailed the last 220 years of Australian history from an Indigenous perspective. The in-service taught that most people today have a reasonable knowledge of Aboriginal culture before 1788 and also of what is happening now but that there is a great void of knowledge surrounding the two centuries in between, that this period of history has shaped the complex and diverse issues that Indigenous Australians now experience and that open, honest dialogue and further education will pave the way forward.

Crossing Cultures aims to improve understanding of issues affecting our Indigenous students and, in doing so, our teachers and staff are in the best position to provide an education for these students specific to their needs. The Schools Assistance Bill is a major building block in that shared national agenda. It appropriates funding for non-government schools during the 2009 to 2012 period in a way that will give funding certainty, focus on quality, and apply transparency and accountability requirements that are consistent with government schools and with Labor’s election commitments on transparency.

As well as meeting these commitments, the bill will make important changes to funding for Indigenous students in non-government schools. The Education Legislation Amendment Bill 2008 has three main purposes, that is to say, continuation of appropriations for 2009 to 2012 for a range of targeted programs and projects under the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000 to support improvements in Indigenous education outcomes and assist in closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

The second purpose is to provide appropriations for supplementary assistance to preschools and vocational education and training providers with Indigenous students from 1 January 2009 as transitional arrangements until alternative legislation associated with early childhood and vocational education and training specific purpose payments and national partnership payments become operational in 2009. The purpose is making a number of amendments to the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000, the Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Act 2005, the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Act 2004, and the repeal of the States Grants (Primary and Secondary Education Assistance) Act 2000.

This bill will provide the government with capacity to work with Indigenous communities, parents and families to improve their engagement with education providers so that they can be supported in becoming informed consumers of educational services. Indigenous parental involvement in decision making is an essential element to improving educational outcomes. For example, in my home town of Gladstone in Central Queensland, the Gladstone South State School has been through a holistic program we call Working Together, making a brighter future that invests in the growth and development of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and their families. A major innovation is the involvement of an Adopt-an-Elder project by the Gladstone South State School and looking at a total package for improving the education and employment outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Their main focus has been on improving the education outcomes of their students by targeted work and the monitoring of this on a weekly basis. The school has seen an improvement in the reading, spelling and writing ages of these students on average from 12 months to two years growth in a six-month period. The Gladstone South State School has, through this careful monitoring, identified a number of Indigenous students to be included in their school’s gifted program extension. This success has also resulted in improved self-esteem and self-concept for these students, creating a positive cycle that will continue to see their learning improve through regular attendance.

Another example can be found in another part of my electorate of Flynn, Biloela. Biloela State High School, a member of the Biloela Indigenous Education Advisory Group, has successfully conducted Parent School Partnership Initiatives programs over the last two years. Both projects have had a different focus and Indigenous students and their families have benefited from these programs. The major focus has always been literacy, numeracy and attendance, with a number of different strategies utilised. Engagement of the local Indigenous community has been paramount to the success of the program and has resulted in much greater communication between participating schools and home with positive results in the area of attendance. Students have been provided with opportunities through the PSPI program such as Successmaker, individualised student support in literacy and numeracy via an interactive computer package Cultural Calendar, a literacy and numeracy research activity on the local Indigenous culture.

The success of these programs can be best measured by the outcomes of the students supported. An excellent example is a year-10 male Indigenous student from Biloela State High School who was identified through the 2007 program. This student had not successfully passed either his English or maths programs at school and had no clear career direction. Through the intervention and support of the PSPI program this young man completed Access 10 studies, resulting in a pass in both year 10 English and maths and he also completed a valuable work experience. This work experience placement then led to a full-time traineeship position as a mechanic with a local employer.

The PSPI funding provides a full-time Indigenous project officer who supports students through their families and coordinates the involvement of participating schools across the state, Catholic and independent sectors in all aspects of the program. The PSPI coordinator for 2008 was also very pleased with the results of Indigenous students at Biloela high school in the year 9 national literacy and numeracy assessment program in which 75 per cent of Indigenous students were above the state mean in grammar and punctuation and 75 per cent of Indigenous students were above the school mean in spelling. Both of these areas are covered extensively by the Successmaker program.

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