Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is vital to get the economic development framework right. We on this side of the House are strongly committed to improving the opportunities and the life outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We deliver an annual Closing the Gap report. We have to continue to consider the full picture when it comes to Indigenous economic development. One part of that picture is mining. That has been brought to the fore over recent years. In the last decade, the price of alumina—one of the key minerals in the Cape—has risen by more than 50 per cent. It is important that we remember the role that mining plays in economic development. The national picture for mining is that it contributes 5.6 per cent of our GDP but employs only 1.3 per cent of the total labour force. The same picture shows up in the Cape. The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures from the 2006 census show that there were 19 Indigenous people in the Cape who were employed in mining. That is 0.7 per cent of Indigenous employment in Cape York. We should be open to the possibility that mining has a bigger picture to play in the employment base for Cape York. We should always be looking to possibilities, but we should be clear-headed and guided by the facts that we can see in the most recent census data. Mining is an important part of our economy, and is helping produce record terms of trade, but it produces fewer jobs than its share of the national economy.

I agree with Noel Pearson who says that education has to be at the heart of Indigenous policy, that education has a critical role to play in overcoming inequality and disadvantage. The role of education in economic development was reinforced to me when I visited Cape York last year and this year. As part of the committee's hearings I had a conversation with Ms Yunkaporta about Noel Pearson's Cape York Aboriginal Australian Academy, which is an initiative championed by the Minister for Families, Housing, Communities and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin. The program offered by the academy has four components focusing on class, club, culture and community. As Noel Pearson recently wrote, the Class program immerses students in numeracy and literacy using the Direct Instructions programs. Students need to achieve a mastery of 90 per cent at their level before they can move on. Tests are done every five to 10 lessons and both the students' and teachers' performances are carefully monitored.

Club ensures that kids do not miss out on those future opportunities, providing extracurricular activities that many children in non-Indigenous communities already enjoy—including the hope to one day include foreign languages and Shakespeare classes. Culture helps children learn the local Aboriginal languages and their culture and traditions. In-school activities are supported by the Community program. School attendance and readiness for school are carefully monitored. A food program provides meals during the day—

Mr Katter interjecting—

I hear the member for Kennedy laughing, but education is an important part of Indigenous economic development. For those of us on this side of the House, Indigenous education is no laughing matter. This program provides meals during the day and families are helped to manage funds to cover educational expenses. Pearson states in his essay Radical hope:

Man cannot live by bread alone, but he does need bread, and in the modern world the broader economy is where he'll earn it.

That is why education is so important for the economic development of Cape York and the economic development of our nation.

Boosting the quantity and quality of education in Australia will flow on to improve the level of innovation in the economy. It will allow for more rapid diffusion of new technological changes. The boost to living standards that we get from improving our education system will rival any of the big economic reforms in Australia's history. It will rival floating the dollar, bringing down the tariff walls, enterprise bargaining or competition policy. Education then flows on to new jobs in Cape York. You can see the opportunity for that if you drive from Bamaga north to the very tip of Australia where you will see the ecotourism lodge which is, alas, now something of a wreck, but which offers great potential to be a new ecotourism centre for Australia. The white sands are breathtaking. The area has great potential to be a tourism destination. Not everyone in Cape York will be employed in the tourism industry, but it is a critical part of Indigenous economic development—the broader issue into which our committee inquired.

The causes of disadvantage in Cape York and the Gulf are complex, and we need long-term, considered approaches. We need to provide real opportunities, real jobs and sustainable development. I believe addressing disadvantage and creating opportunity through education are perhaps the most important thing we can do. The government respects the views of Aboriginal leaders in the Cape York area—

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