Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

You might. Well, you will not if you do not listen. I will continue on. I want to point out, about the home life, that we now have one in seven children going to school without breakfast. It is very hard for a child to have a creative mind if they are hungry. My mother is a schoolteacher, my sister is a schoolteacher, my other sister is a schoolteacher and my two aunties are school teachers. It seems to be in my family you are either schoolteachers or farmers. They are very engaged in working with some of the more disadvantaged children. They will tell you that if a child is not fed, then they are not able to concentrate on their education and they are not able to develop.

When we start talking about education funding, I believe there is an argument for the federal government to be directing money towards breakfast programs. I commend James Merlino, who is the Victorian Minister for Education. To his credit, they have put $13.7 million into a breakfast program that will address 500 schools. Many of those schools are in my patch; I think there are about 30 of those schools in my patch that are getting this breakfast program. It is something to be rolled out; it is something to be really considered. In the area that I represent, which is a large food producing electorate, it hurts me that children are not going to school after having been adequately fed.

There is some work that can be done to bring those things together. I am really pleased to say that, a couple of days ago, I met up with FLO Connect in Swan Hill, which provides flexible learning options. They are taking some the children who have dropped out of the traditional education stream and are trying to re-engage them. One of the ways they are re-engaging them is that Woolworths and the local supermarkets in the community are donating food to that organisation, so those children are coming up there. They are coming up because they are getting fed and they are getting breakfast. Often, they would not have turned up. That was their motivation: they can come and get breakfast. They are then able to be engaged in the long-term programs that take those children, who I believe the system has failed, and get them re-engaged.

There is also the next challenge for us. A few weeks ago, I had a breakfast with the business community and they were saying, 'We cannot find skilled labour or low-skilled labour for the great opportunities that we have developed through the free trade agreement.' However, we also have these children. I went and met with them. They are saying, 'We can't find the next step for employment.' I think there is a link that needs to be made between the two. We are taking these children who are from homes where they have not had breakfast and the community is donating the food and the children are eating it. They are now getting engaged. We need an extra link in there, somehow, to take those children from that level to having enough sense of self-worth to be job ready.

I think the pathways program has some merit. It is, essentially, saying that we are going to train these young adults so that they pass the OH&S level and get a sense of some job skills. We are then going to put them in an intern-type program in an active workplace and then subsidise the employer to keep them on. That is something I hope will work. Many governments, over many periods of time, have tried different policies. I do not think anyone has hit the nail on the head yet for the perfect policy. I think this will breathe life into it.

Regarding school facilities and school culture, we have a lot to be proud of. Home life is a great challenge for us, and I strongly believe in breakfast programs. There are great ideas happening in our rural communities, and adopting those is a lesson the opposition could learn from.

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