Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on this most important bill, the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2013. I understand the member for Lingiari's concerns about Indigenous education. As he stated, he represents a very significant proportion of Indigenous Australians in Central Australia. I too represent a significant number of Indigenous Australians, in my electorate of Murray.

The thing that made me very concerned was that during the period of the Labor government student school-retention rates declined, right across the country. They declined in the Northern Territory, all across the eastern states, in both remote and rural areas, and in metropolitan areas. I find that absolutely appalling. It is not right that a developed nation like Australia—a country that boasts having doubled the education budget over the last 15 or so years—stood by and saw, particularly over the last six or seven years, a decline in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander retention rates in schools.

The statistics from my own electorate are sad, if not compelling. In 2010, some 6,000 Indigenous Australians were in Shepparton, in my electorate. In year 7, 58 Indigenous people were enrolled in Shepparton in the secondary school system but, by year 12, there was not one. There were no year 12 secondary school Indigenous students enrolled in Shepparton in 2010. You would expect primary students and children still to be there in grade 6, but in Shepparton we went from 50 enrolled in preschools to only 44 in grade 6, a decline. Some might have shifted away; that could be the case. But it is sad that in the secondary level 58 started in year 7 and none were still there in year 12. That was on Labor's watch, in 2010. So I do not think we can stand up and beat our chests and say that the previous government was amazing and 'What's going to happen from now on in?'

I remind this place and the public of Australia that this is the first time we have had a Prime Minister who has said that he will be the Prime Minister specifically—amongst his other duties—for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs. This is a Prime Minister committed to making sure that in Australia we no longer have this extraordinary gap between the life experiences and expectations of our first Australians and those of other Australians. It is not acceptable, and it is not going to be tolerated by this government, which takes its responsibilities towards all of our children very seriously. We take particularly seriously our responsibilities towards disadvantaged children—among whom, unfortunately, are our Indigenous Australians.

The Prime Minister has declared that this government has three main planks in its Indigenous platform: the first and most relevant to this bill is that we will get the kids—meaning our Indigenous children—into school, and we will keep them in school; the second is that we will make sure that there is meaningful work for our Indigenous population—and, as the previous speaker noted, unless you have had a formal education in Australia and have learned functional English, it is virtually impossible to get employment in Australia; and the third plank is a commitment to creating safer communities for our Indigenous Australians.

We are going to make sure that it is not just a case of standing back and saying, 'Look at us; we have thrown more dollars at Indigenous education.' Dollars are not, unfortunately, the answer to the problems in Indigenous education, outcomes and school retention. Dollars are not the answer to the problems in non-Indigenous education and student numbers either. The introduction of Labor's Building the Education Revolution program, which spent billions of dollars on bricks and mortar, neglected the fact that the most important factors in educational outcomes for students are not bricks and mortar but teacher quality, parental support and the socioeconomic status of the children themselves.

As this bill makes quite clear, we now have to address school retention. We have to make sure that Indigenous students in particular, when they begin their years of formal education, hopefully at preschool level, are supported all the way through and that any issues they have with their health—their development, their hearing, their eyesight or their nutrition—are dealt with at the very earliest age; even, in fact, while their mother is still bearing them in the womb.

We need to make sure that children are not forced into schools—no-one can really force a child to stay in school—but rather that they choose to stay in school because the education offered there is relevant to them and because the teachers and teachers' assistants who educate them are skilled and offer meaningful engagement using the students' first language, whether it be a creole language or a traditional first language of our first Australians, if that is what the child presents with at school in the first instance.

I commend to all a report of an inquiry undertaken during the term of the last government by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, where we looked at the languages spoken across Australia by our Indigenous Australians. We noted that one of the biggest problems associated with lack of school attendance and failing at school was the fact that young Indigenous students who were presenting at preschool level often came with English as a second or third language—or with no English at all—but were taught as if they had arrived with functional Standard Australian English. The teachers were not qualified or experienced in teaching English as a second language. Often there was no respect for or understanding of the fact that the children were arriving to learn with a language other than English. No doubt the parents of some children, in looking at their children's experience, had a terrible historical backward glance at when they were forbidden to speak their native languages. Some of the children who arrive in the pre-schools and remote Australian schools are not allowed to learn in their first languages; they are taught as if they have English. We know that that is detrimental to the educational outcomes of these young students.

So there is a lot we have to do, and our government will do it because we do not simply yell loudly about trying to change policies which do not work and we do not simply quote budgets and say, 'Look: a lot more dollars spent; it must be okay.' We actually look at outcomes. We are going to carefully measure the school retention rates and educational outcomes of our Indigenous students. How are they going in the NAPLAN scores? How are they comparing with non-Indigenous students in the same remote areas or suburban schools? Are they able to stand toe to toe on their outcomes in maths, literacy and all of the other key parameters which show that a student is succeeding in their school?

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, we have shocking evidence that school retention rates among our Indigenous students are falling. Sadly also, we have data which shows that on almost every front our Indigenous students perform at a level far below that at which our non-Indigenous students perform. IETA funding of programs is intended to achieve equality in the educational outcomes of Indigenous students. We are not being discriminatory. We acknowledge that there have to be special measures for Indigenous students. Such special measures do not trigger the Racial Discrimination Act, because they are forms of affirmative action designed to give support to our minority groups.

As I said, our Indigenous students are underperforming compared to non-Indigenous students. In 2010, the proportion of Indigenous 20- to 24-year-olds who had completed year 12 or equivalent was around half that of the proportion of non-Indigenous students in the 20- to 24-year-old age group. Participation rates in the NAPLAN, the National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy tests, were much lower for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students than they were for non-Indigenous students in 2010. In remote areas participation rates were similar among Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. Of Indigenous people aged 15 years and older, 34.1 per cent reported year 9 or below as their highest level of schooling—in other words, they are probably still functionally illiterate and innumerate and therefore have no hope of getting a job. This 34.1 per cent compares to just 16 per cent of non-Indigenous people of the same age reporting year 9 as their highest level of schooling. About one third of Indigenous students achieved the minimum proficiency level in international tests for science, maths, reading and literacy in 2009 compared to two thirds of non-Indigenous students—so, among the Indigenous, there was half the number of students who achieved minimum proficiency compared with non-Indigenous students. These statistics are intolerable and unacceptable in a country such as Australia, which declares itself egalitarian, all-caring and all-knowing.

Of course, attendance rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students are well below those of other students in every jurisdiction and year level—and, unfortunately, no sustained improvement has been observed over the last 10 years.

So let's be absolutely serious about this. Let's not just take a partisan view and try to beat up on the government of the day and say, 'It's all the fault of the states, so why isn't the Commonwealth beating up on the states?' We have a significant problem in Australia where our teaching quality, our teaching resources and our parental support for our Indigenous students, both Torres Strait Islanders and Aboriginals, is not adequate. It is not anywhere near the standards which non-Indigenous students expect in schools.

I was saddened recently. I was at the graduation in Shepparton of my Ganbina student support group. This is a magnificent program, which began some 17 years ago. Mr Adrian Appo has been the chief executive officer right through the time of that program. He is now moving on to other things. I note in this place the excellent work of Mr Adrian Appo, himself an Aboriginal person, as he has mentored literally hundreds of young Indigenous people in my electorate. He has mentored them, given them a sense of what they might achieve and helped them with special leadership programs. I was saddened when I talked to him about the aspirations of the young people. As they went up on stage to receive their awards, they gave a brief talk. One said, 'I want to go to university.' A second said, 'I want to go to university too. I want to study engineering or teaching.' I said to Adrian, 'Isn't this wonderful?' He turned to me and said, 'Yes, but they won't get there at the moment with their results.' I asked, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'It used to be the case that at Mooroopna and Shepparton high schools, when we talked to the teachers, they said, "Your Indigenous students are underachieving because they're not going to school. Their retention rates are very poor. Their attendance is very poor."' He said, 'Now these students are going to school. They're not missing school. These Indigenous students are there every day, but their results are not significantly improving in many cases.'

We talked together and agreed that the problem is too often that teachers' aspirations or expectations of the students had not changed. Too many students were still not gaining sufficient support in the classroom or sufficient recognition of their deficits as they began each new year level in order to give them special support. So it is not just a case of getting the retention rates up; we also have to make sure that the teachers in the classrooms recognise where extra help might be needed, that they cast away their stereotypes about Indigenous students in the classroom and that, if a young person aspires to go to university and she or he is in year 10 or 11, they are actively supported to gain the results they need to succeed in tertiary education—first gaining entrance and then succeeding. I want to commend the Ganbina project for working so well. They have had some stunning outcomes with young Indigenous people from the Murray electorate going on to university, completing apprenticeships, going into small business and exceeding in some very high-tech areas. But, unfortunately, we still have too many in our schools who do not even make it to year 12.

This is a bill which, on the surface, looks like it is just process—it is noncontroversial; it is just administrative—but behind the pure process of this bill is a deeply serious matter: the business of equal opportunity for our Indigenous Australians, our First Australians. This bill is about making up for the earlier generations of neglect. This is a bill to make up for the stolen children who were removed from their parents, who were supposed to be educated in the broader Australian education system to a point where they could gain useful work, when in fact too often they were taken to institutions, like the Alice Springs institution or the Darwin institution, where their education was ignored. They received next to no education or training except in the most menial of tasks. We have a lot of catching up to do in this country. Our government is committed to that; our Prime Minister is committed to that. I commend this bill to the House and say: let's get away from party politics here—that is just cheap tricks. Let's look at realities. I commend this bill to the House.

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