Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2014 and in particular will be focusing on the measures to support boarding schools for Indigenous students. I am the member for all of South Australia's remote Indigenous schools: on the APY Lands—Ernabella, Fregon, Indulkana, Amata, Pipalyatjara, Mimili and Nyapari; in the west of the state—Yalata, Oak Valley, Koonibba; and in the north—Coober Pedy, Marree and Oodnadatta. I also have in my electorate a significant number of urbanised Indigenous populations at places like Ceduna, Port Augusta, Whyalla, Port Pirie, Port Lincoln and even Point Pearce on Yorke Peninsula.

In urban areas, while there is plenty more to do, we have come a long way in the last 10 or 20 years and are slowly closing the gap between Indigenous and mainstream Australia. As I said, we have much more to do. There are lots of specialised services in those communities, particularly in the health sector. But in the main, education is mainstreamed, and there are good option for students to, firstly, engage in primary school then secondary school and gain a good quality education as it should be in the local high school or area schools.

In remote Australia, it is different not because the schools we have are bad—in fact there has been a huge amount of money invested in the schooling system and teaching resources over the years—but the whole package is bad. It is just not delivering for those students, despite huge investments, as I have said, in housing and health. Children are born into communities where due to poor hygiene, for instance, most suffer some level of hearing loss by the time they start school.

I remember vividly visiting a community on the APY Lands about two years ago where the principal pointed out that they had recently had hearing tests done on the students. Out of 260, they found three good ears. How difficult must it be when you start school: you can't hear properly and are actually speaking in a different language, and so the gap is there before they start? In fact the teachers in these classrooms now use an audio surround fill-in system where the teacher wears a microphone. There is a speaker in each corner of the classroom just so the students can hear what is going on.

Children in these communities are born into households where no-one works, or at least not regularly, in communities where the only work is in government employment programs or being employed by the government to deliver services—often in the health sector and perhaps in the education sector, normally not at the top level but as assistants in the schools as SSOs and perhaps in environmental programs funded by governments. But it is not the norm to have industry operating in these communities and it is often not the norm to have somebody from that household going off to work each day. Violence, alcohol abuse and sexual abuse are, unfortunately, common—not in every household but in enough that the children can consider such behaviour to be the norm. It becomes the general form of the way that community operates. I have often been into communities and have seen violence occurring in the street and the children standing around watching.

There are many issues, and governments of all persuasions have tried to hard to address them. In those remote communities there are far more police now living on site. There is new housing, health centres, art centres, family centres, youth centres, employment programs, civil works, environmental programs and tourism. But, unfortunately, we are still losing ground. It is one of those great conundrums. When I go into these communities and I speak to the people who are delivering these myriad programs, they will all convince you earnestly—and I believe them—that they think they are doing a good job and are making a real difference, whether it be in education, health or family management. But, in fact, the overall outcomes are getting worse. So we are collectively losing ground.

In the APY Lands, which I mentioned earlier, there are more than 100 organisations and programs operating. Many of them do not know what the other is doing, but most of them are convinced they are doing a good job. But we are not making progress. So what do we do to break this cycle? I see absolutely no answer—and I know the minister concurs with this—but in education; a path to empowerment. I hope an empowered next generation will have the confidence to leave the remote lands and venture into mainstream society and take their place there full of confidence—that they will have, as I think Noel Pearson has said, the confidence and ability to walk in both worlds.

Once again on the APY Lands, about 2½ thousand people live there. They occupy 10 per cent of the state of South Australia on freehold title. It is not the most fertile ground. Most people would consider it to be desert. But it is valuable pastoral land. Probably 50 years ago, 200 or 250 people would have been employed to run the cattle properties—good grazing country. But, now, if those properties were operating properly you would probably need a staff of about 10 to 20—with modern mustering methods, motorbikes, computer and telemetry controlled operating water systems and automatic drafting yards on the watering spots. What this means is that this country can still be very productive but it is unlikely ever to employ hundreds of people to operate those industries.

Apart from that, there is no natural economy. We might get lucky. Perhaps a prospector will discover a major resource project and get it off the ground—but, considering how difficult it would be in that part of the world, it is not highly likely. So, generally, speaking there is no natural economy. As I said, most employment is subsidised by the government in one way or another. Probably the best operating private businesses out there are the art centres, which do provide an income for those who spend the most hours there and get the best at their job—so it is a very good signal—but they do not operate without government support.

So if the inhabitants, the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people, want real jobs for their children, like many parents in the country—like myself and my wife—probably the best option is to get them into a boarding school. It was not something I particularly enjoyed when our children were growing up—to send them away to school at the age of 15. Some have lived back at home in my community for short periods since, but it is highly likely that none of them will choose to settle there. I must say, too, that, as a third-generation farmer, in my family there is a strong feeling of affinity to our land. I do not claim to have the same religiously significant affinity as the Aboriginal communities, but it is certainly a tear for children to move away from their families and their land.

Coming from that point of view, I understand, as much as I can, these issues for those who live in remote Indigenous communities. They do not want their children to leave. But as parents we also had to make the tough decisions and say, 'The best opportunity for you is to go forth in the world and have a go.' In the case of my family, that has meant that three of them have professional qualifications and are spread from Canberra to the Riverland and to Adelaide, and they come home and visit us. I know it is a tough question for those who live on the lands. When I sit down with the elders there—with the women and the men—they say that they would really like their children to be employed and to come back to their communities. But, as I went through before, there is no natural economy.

It also concerns me greatly that so many of the programs of governments generally across Australia have been to maintain these communities in their natural environment. But, as I see the breakdown of culture, with another 20 years of what we have been doing, there will be no culture left to protect. In fact, it is being eroded daily. There is a lack of respect for the elders. Drugs, alcohol and violence are riddling these communities. The opportunity of boarding school not only is an opportunity to get a good education but also provides a circuit breaker. The kids can actually have a look at a different life—a life where they know they are safe; a life where success is the norm; a life where people go to work five days a week and maybe more. That is what these kids need to see. Then they need to think, 'I want a piece of that.' And when each one of them makes a move into the wider world and says, 'I am going to change my life,' I celebrate that as a great outcome. We cannot do that if we do not have good schooling systems, and we cannot get them into secondary school and into boarding schools where they can compete unless we can break the conundrum of getting them to a level at year 5. Once again Noel Pearson says, 'I want the children that go through the Cape York schooling system to be able at the end of year 5 to go into any school in Australia and be able to operate on an even standing with the other children as they approach year 6.' I think that until we can reach that level, we have not made it.

There has been some reference made to the school attendance officers on the lands in the remote communities around Australia. The minister has announced that in 200 communities next year a form of direct instruction, or basic phonetics education, will be introduced. I must say when I went to Cape York, Aurukun and Hope Valley I was greatly impressed with the direct instruction model; it seemed to me it was actually making a measurable and very large difference. If I can see that in my remote communities, I will be very pleased. The member for Lingiari said the school attendance model is not working as well as it should, but if it is six per cent or 11 per cent, that is six per cent or 11 per cent more than we had going last year. From what I have seen on the ground, these programs work where we have the right leadership, and they work less well where we have resistance from within the particular school or poor leadership on the ground for the school-attendance officers. We have to keep working at that. If we have resistant principals or resistant teachers in the school, then perhaps they are the ones who need to go. If we have poor leadership on the ground, let us get rid of the ones we have and find some new ones. Unless we can break this model we are consigning these people to an ever-worsening outcome for their descendants. For me that is simply just not good enough.

I have been to have a look at Wiltja in Adelaide, which is the government boarding school. This extra funding is not aimed at that particular facility at the moment. I must say I am impressed with the boarding school there, where the students from the APY lands in particular, but also those from other remote communities I mentioned earlier, are being well looked after. I do somewhat question whether a boarding school that has a 100 per cent Indigenous enrolment is actually preparing these kids properly for what they are going to find outside the school gate and the boarding house gate. I do like the model that sees students being enrolled in private schools—but they could be government boarding schools if we ran that type of arrangement—where they are mixed. When I say 'mixed' I mean mixed by background, mixed by race. I think the reality of the outside world is that Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians have to work together shoulder to shoulder. I applaud the minister for this move in supporting boarding schools and their ability to engage Indigenous students, and I hope it leads to more construction of boarding schools and higher numbers of students.

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