Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Hansard source

It was a great pleasure recently to join Labor's candidate for Swan, Tammy Solonec, at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University in Western Australia. There we met with the many students and hardworking staff at the centre, including the Director of the Centre for Aboriginal Studies, Professor Marion Kickett. I thank her for her hospitality.

It was a great pleasure to speak to third-year students undertaking the Indigenous community development and management degree—a unique program designed for Aboriginal leaders, teaching them frameworks to develop and manage their communities in a way that enables them to meet other Indigenous leaders from around the county. Taught in blocks, the Indigenous community development and management program provides the opportunity for Aboriginal people from regional and remote areas right across this country to access a tertiary education while remaining in their communities.

Unfortunately, though, I was informed on my visit that this program was a victim of the $500 million cut made to Indigenous programs around this country. I heard firsthand from students the impact that this will have. It will mean that there will be less face-to-face teaching time. The response to the centre has been that they should encourage students to do it online. Of course, as these students rightly pointed out, they do not always have access to fast broadband in their communities or a regular time to study. This is an incredibly important program and these cuts should be reversed.

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