Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to continue speaking on the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2010but without my phone today, which caused me considerable grief last night! I will not go over what was said last night, due to time constraints, but I do want to talk about the Clontarf Foundation and the role that it plays in Indigenous education, which is quite outstanding and involves strong mentoring by leading Aboriginal figures who come to the academies. The foundation is under the strong leadership of Gerard Neesham and a board of directors led by Ross Kelly. They have had some huge success stories, including this year Lewis Jetta, the 14th pick in the AFL draft. The staff include former AFL players such as Dale Kickett and Shannon Motlop.

This program began in 2000. When it commenced, there were only 25 students enrolled at the Waterford academy. I was pleased to go there with Mr Philip Ruddock, who was then the minister with carriage of Aboriginal affairs. ATSIC at the time owed the academy something like $30,000 and they would not hand the money over. When the minister turned up, that encouraged the ATSIC commissioner at the time, Farley Garlett—I actually went to school with Farley—to hand over the money. It was the first tranche of federal funds, realistically, that went into this program.

From that fledgling single academy in Waterford, there are now 36 academies across Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Victoria, educating some 2,300 students and employing some 106 staff. In Western Australia the academies are far-reaching, established in places such as East Kimberley, Casuarina, Halls Creek, Derby and Esperance. There are 1,174 students in Western Australia, 856 in the Northern Territory and 150 in five academies in Victoria—and the numbers are continuing to grow. On that note, I will be doing my best to make sure that there is an academy in the Armadale area of my electorate, because there is a large Indigenous population there. I will be doing my best to speak to the Western Australian Minister for Education, Liz Constable, about that.

These academies attach themselves to existing high schools. It is a really good model, because the high school enjoys the attachment of the football academy and obviously there is infrastructure there for the academies in terms of buildings, administration, playing fields et cetera. One of the three schools in the Armadale area—Armadale Senior High School, Kelmscott Senior High School or Cecil Andrews Senior High School—would be a very good fit for this academy. I know that Gerard Neesham sees the potential.

As I said, there is a large Aboriginal population in Armadale, and this would be an opportunity to have a lot of these boys who do not attend school to attend school and in a meaningful way engage with the education system. As Gerard has said to me, many of these Indigenous boys have lost the pattern of sociable life. For example, their sleep pattern is totally out of kilter. They sleep most of the day, get up late in the afternoon and then are attracted to nefarious activities in the evenings and at night. If you can get them back into the proper sleep pattern of people who operate during the day, they can engage in meaningful work and education.

The member for Brand last night gave a number of case studies and successful examples of involvement in the lives of individuals in the academy. All the staff are passionate about the program and its success. These people vigorously apply for positions with the Clontarf Foundation, and why wouldn’t they when it has results like these? The Clontarf Foundation, since its inception 10 years ago, has consistently placed 75 per cent of year 12 leavers into employment within the first 12 months after leaving school—typically into traineeships and apprenticeships. At one stage in Western Australia, when the foundation had been going for just a few years, one in four year 12 boys of Indigenous origin was in Clontarf. Getting Indigenous boys to finish year 12 was a real problem and yet, with such a small operation, Clontarf had one in four in its program.

This program also supports a healthy lifestyle, reduces petty crime among Indigenous youths, encourages discipline, improves self-esteem and teaches general life skills. Student numbers completing school consistently increase each year that the program operates in any location. Student numbers are typically low in senior years in the first few years at the new location but they increase steadily. In 2009 there were 112 year 12 graduates across Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Clontarf’s school retention rates average over 90 per cent, compared to 2009 overall retention rates for Indigenous students of just 46 per cent. What a successful outcome. Over 75 per cent of year 12 graduates transition successfully to full-time employment within six months of graduating. That is one of the points that need to be made—that there is a pathway after school through this program, that people find apprenticeships and jobs through so many of the foundation’s sponsors.

Clontarf are quite clever in the way that they arrange their funding. They get federal funding, which we are talking about today; funding from the state governments that they are involved with and the Territory government, obviously; and corporate funding. I remember going to the opening of the Broome academy. They had Michael Chaney there on behalf of the National Australia Bank and a representative of Goldman Sachs. Corporate funding is very important as well so that you are not compromised by one source of funding. Having that diverse funding stream also allows you some sort of autonomy, because you are not reliant on just one group of people.

Projected year 12 graduates in 2010 are over 200, with close to 400 year 12 graduates expected by 2011. Clontarf has a development plan to expand the program significantly and reach even more corners of Australia. If Clontarf remained as it is now by 2012 it would have 2,500 students in Clontarf programs at schools and 400 students completing year 12. But they want to exceed this and the Prime Minister asked them to come up with a plan to do so. They did, and now it is up to the Prime Minister to make sure that this money flows. If this Clontarf plan was implemented the outcomes more than double to 5,730 students in Clontarf programs in 2012, skyrocketing to almost 10,000 students in 2014, with 1,600 of those Indigenous students completing year 12. Those are the projections that we would like to see. These are grand but very achievable plans with worthwhile results. But it all comes at a cost. To reach that level of expansion will take operating costs to $65 million in 2014 to be divided between the federal government, state governments and the private sector.

Historically Clontarf have always battled to secure funding. In 2003 I was pleased to be a part of the announcements when then Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Hon. Dr Brendan Nelson, granted the program $500,000. I recall Ross and Gerard flying from Perth on the midnight horror and turning up to Brendan’s office with me trying to convince the minister that was a good thing to fund. And he did. He continued to see the merits of this program and continued the funding such that in 2005 he announced federal funding of up to $1.92 million over four years. This was continued by the coalition government through the next minister, the Hon. Julie Bishop, the member for Curtin.

After ignoring non-recurrent items of a capital nature—buildings et cetera—the cost of doing this in 2009 was assessed at $17.75 million, an increase of $9 million over the previous year. But this needs to be put into context. This must be understood by not only governments but those in the community who say: ‘Why do we have a specific Aboriginal program? Why isn’t there a program for migrant kids or kids from disadvantaged backgrounds?’ It is because of the massive incarceration rate of Aboriginal men. The figures vary from state to state, but a recent figure from Western Australia suggested that the cost of keeping somebody in prison for 12 months was heading towards $200,000. When you look at that and then look at this program, which has so many young Aboriginal men in it whose lives are being focused rather than drifting, you can see why this is money well spent. We owe it to the next generation of Indigenous young men and their families. We have had what seems to have been a lost generation of Aboriginal direction. Now, programs like this are putting these boys in particular on a sound footing for the future, not only in terms of the education process which allows them to see a better way but in terms of their role in the community and in employment—in the workforce. This is money well spent.

I could go on about all the figures et cetera, but in my last minute I want to say that the federal government in the budget seems to have rolled over the recurrent funding. But, as I have outlined to you, this is a growing program. I know that Gerard and the whole Clontarf Foundation are very nervous about the future funding that is needed to expand this program all around Australia. The same is going to be asked of the corporate world and state governments. I know that the Prime Minister is supportive of this program, as is his minister. I ask that they ensure that the funding does flow for this very worthy program. Those of us on this side of the House support this initiative.

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