Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge and thank the member for Gilmore for her contribution on this report. At the outset, I want to acknowledge that this inquiry was held over two parliaments—the 44th and 45th parliaments. In the 44th Parliament, the chair of the committee was Dr Sharman Stone, who's no longer here, of course. We made a set of interim recommendations in that parliament which were referred to by the member for Gilmore. I want to also acknowledge the chair-but-one, who only resigned as the chair last week, Melissa Price, the member for Durack, for her leadership, support and collaboration with the other members of the committee in producing what I think is a good document. I acknowledge that the member for Gilmore is to be the new chair of the committee, so welcome. You've been on the committee, but welcome to being chair of the committee. I would also like to thank and acknowledge the hard work and forbearance of the secretariat, Melanie Brocklehurst, Casey Mazzarella, Louise Milligan and Megan Jones, and the secretary in the 44th Parliament, Dr Anna Dacre, and the research officer, Ms Lauren Wilson. It is important, I think, to acknowledge that to get the sort of report that we've had now over two parliaments requires a consistency of effort. To see that this report, in its recommendations, reflects the recommendations of the interim report is indeed a good thing.

Most importantly, as the member for Gilmore said, we have to acknowledge and thank the many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people around the country—we traversed the country—for giving evidence to the committee, expressing their point of view and making sure that we understood their priorities in terms of the education of their children.

Also, of course—even though we are critical of some of the pedagogies which have been used, and I think in this report there's implied if not explicit criticism of the number of kids going away to boarding school without a result—I think we need to acknowledge the massive contribution and effort which is being made across this country by educators. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that for the people that we met in the classrooms right across this nation, whether it was in North Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, the Northern Territory, South Australia or Western Australia—it didn't matter where they were—their dedication to the task before them was clear. Some had better tools than others to use. We refer to some of those things in this report. Some didn't have the resources they should have had. Some may not have been as equipped as they might have liked to be to deal with the kids that they were confronting in their classroom—those with hearing loss, where there was no proper acknowledgement within the structure of the school of the hearing loss.

This report actually recommends that the federal government establish a capital works fund to allow schools with a substantial number of Indigenous students to equip all classrooms with sound field amplification technology by 2020. That is really very important, because the number of kids with middle ear infection across this country having their education impaired as a result of that handicap is enormous. It's something which I don't think the broader population properly understands, but it is important that we acknowledge it, deal with it, address it and provide the capacity for these kids to learn as we would want them to do and as they would desire to do.

We also pick up here a concern which has been expressed in previous reports from this committee around FASD. It's very difficult to describe the importance of us coming to terms with the chronic aspect of FASD across schools in remote parts of Australia. It does exist in urban areas, and this is the point. Too many of us believe that FASD is really just a thing to do with blackfellas, but it isn't. We still have middle-class mothers in urban areas of this country using alcohol whilst they are pregnant. It ought to be understood by now, as a result of the publicity around FASD in northern Australia, that alcohol, particularly in the early stages of pregnancy, is a real issue and can confine the yet-to-be-born child to an impairment which is extraordinarily difficult to overcome.

So acknowledging the importance of FASD in the context of Aboriginal kids is really important. We need to make sure that screening for FASD is available for all students who are deemed to require it. I know of a place in Australia—I won't name the place, but you could guess it at some point—where certainly 18 months ago there was only one psychologist capable of assessing FASD in a community of 30,000. That affects the capacity for people to be diagnosed. Of course, most GPs—I know we've got a couple of eminent medical practitioners in this parliament; one has just walked into the joint—historically have had no idea how to identify FASD. It's only over the last 12 months, really, that a diagnostic tool for the evaluation of FASD has been available in medical practices across the country, and it should be used. We should not walk away from the fact this is an issue that needs to be addressed. Of course it can be prevented by doing a whole range of issues around alcohol consumption, child maternal health and neonatal health. All of those things need to be addressed, but at the same time we need to acknowledge that we have a chronic problem with FASD in parts of Australia that needs to be fixed.

In conjunction with that, what is clear to this committee, and a recommendation in the committee report reflects it, is the importance of having—in this case, in Aboriginal communities in remote Australia—local health services available and accessible to the schools, and of information about the health of the students being passed between the health clinics and the schools so that the schools can be aware of the health needs of the child. Conversely, there needs to be a capacity for the teachers, health professionals and other educational professionals in the school environment to be able to converse with medical practitioners and other experts about the issues confronting their students in the school.

We make recommendations that I think were borne out, in particular, by our visit to the Acacia Ridge State School, an Aboriginal school in Queensland. On their site they have an Aboriginal clinic, a full-time clinic operating in the school. It is very important. There are clinics in most remote Aboriginal communities, but often the relationship between the schools and the health services is that they don't talk much. We need to emphasise the importance of knowledge sharing in the health domain in order to provide more opportunities to address the issues of concern around the education of children, because health is a primary concern in that space.

Before I go to the issue of gender equity, what we also need to understand—and this is reflected in all the work being done around getting good outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids across the country—is that there must be appropriate cultural safety and that the kids in these schools must feel safe—must feel safe in their Aboriginality and in expressing it—and not be denied the opportunity to have their languages and their cultural priorities understood.

Ms Price, the member for Durack, has just walked into the chamber. I wanted to tell her that I thank her for her contribution in her capacity, previously, as the chair of this committee. I want to thank her whilst she is here. I think we all worked well together, and it was largely due to her leadership. So thank you.

We need to make sure that, where Aboriginal languages are the primary languages of these kids and English is the second language, we provide opportunities for the staff and teachers of the schools where those kids are going, particularly where there is a dominance of Aboriginal population in those schools, to have the capacity—if they have the desire and interest, but they should be encouraged—to learn an Aboriginal language and to get the cultural education that's required to deal with their particular group of kids. We should understand that there is a diversity of cultures across this country. There is not one Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. There is difference. The fact that you can be very good working with a group of Aboriginals in Nowra doesn't mean you're necessarily going to be any good at teaching a couple of kids in Balgo. They are very different populations. It is important to recognise that if you have the skill to work cooperatively with people in a cross-cultural way, and you open up your eyes to the possibilities involved in learning in teaching, then, if you are a committed person, as I know most of these teachers are, you will find a way. We can't deny the opportunities that exist for Aboriginal kids.

I won't go any further into the discussion from the member of Gilmore about Direct Instruction. I thought she covered it adequately. But I do want to go to the issue of gender equity. The member for Gilmore raised that issue, and properly so. You summarised the situation very well about the next generation of mothers being the drivers of the next generation of kids. If this country doesn't come to terms with the fact that it is largely Aboriginal women who will determine the fate of the next generation of kids, then we are blind to the past. We need to appreciate that the opportunities we give to every Aboriginal person must be equally shared. Young Aboriginal women need to have the opportunity to make informed choices about their lives so that they don't have to have children when they're 15 or 16, so that they can have a choice about their education and so that they can make decisions about their own personal space and relationships and behaviours. We've got to make sure they have that capacity. That requires us, as leaders in this country, to ensure that we are investing in programs that promote the engagement of young women in schools and make sure they understand, within that context, that they are safe. We need to ensure that they are given an opportunity to be educated about their own health and wellbeing and the opportunities that await them should they make a particular choice.

I support 100 per cent the investment being made in programs like Clontarf, but programs of equal importance to Aboriginal women have not been so well funded. We need to make sure that programs like the STARS program, of which I'm a great advocate, are given the funding to provide the same level of programs in the schools where these boys' programs exist. As you pointed out, Member for Gilmore, it is ludicrous to walk into a school anywhere in Australia and find that boys, young men, are being given these fabulous opportunities, with these committed full-time mentors in the school, but the young women don't have that same opportunity. We can't be that stupid! We do know the importance of these programs in engaging kids in school. The evidence is very clear. Where these programs operate, attendance increases, academic opportunity increases, educational outcomes are better and life-course opportunities become greater. That seems to me to be what we should be all about. I again commend the member for Gilmore for her words. To those who are listening: if you didn't hear the member for Gilmore, try and get a copy of the Hansard and see what she had to say about the importance of educating young women. I think it highlights it very well.

One of the key issues we addressed was that of boarding. Some people in this country are fixated by the notion that, if you send some kid to Scots College, or Wesley or St Ignatius, they will come out as brain surgeons. Well, the evidence before us was very clear. For a very small number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids, that is absolutely the way to go. We as a nation are investing a hell of a lot of money in the educational outcomes for those kids. At the same time, we are not investing the money that is required in the local educational outcomes that could be theirs in their home communities. All power to those kids who can go away and survive the process and last for five or six years in a high school in a remote environment away from their family and culture. If they are able to survive and do well, good on them. And good on those schools for looking after them. But what we know—and this report reflects it—is that too many who start on that process jump out very soon after. Six, 12 or 18 months later they are out of the system—back home, alienated and with nowhere to go.

In this report we make a recommendation about local regional boarding colleges that are state owned. There are some very good examples. I want to commend our colleagues in Western Australia—the current Western Australian government, the previous Western Australian government and governments before it—for having the foresight to establish these places.

We saw one in particular which bears talking about, and that's in Broome. You walk into the grounds of this boarding facility, and it would be as good as any boarding facility in the country—as good as any boarding facility in the country, and probably better than most. It was full of engaged Aboriginal kids from all over the north-west of Western Australia. They had a very close working relationship with the local high school. They had programs set up for those kids, and the kids were staying in school. They were getting the educational outcome they required and, regionally, they were in their home environment—a lot easier.

As I say, while we commend those who are fortunate enough to go to those very elite boarding schools, for most that's not an opportunity, and it shouldn't be. We should be able to find it within ourselves to ensure that the educational opportunities for Aboriginal kids and Torres Strait Islander kids are available as locally as they possibly can be, and if that means providing, as we've got at Wadeye, a boarding facility which is evolving over time, we should.

I note that we visited the new boarding facility at Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory. It was not so successful last year but again, like the one in Broome, a very nice facility, and hopefully this year they will have kids—they've got capacity for 40 or 60 kids—on the high-school grounds, effectively. If we can attract the kids into that school, they will get the support they require, and they will come out educated and have better life opportunities. But if we don't, as sure as night follows day, those kids who would have otherwise been at that school won't be at school. They will have left school when they were 13 or 14, and they will face a lifetime of pedalling the welfare bike. Because they won't have the skills to get into the workforce, their opportunities to get a job are going to be very difficult.

Instead of providing remedial services for older kids and adults, we need to invest in the education of our young kids, and this report highlights the need for that local investment. It is very important that we across the parliament recognise that this is our responsibility. If we ever really want to close the gap in this country, in any form—in health, in anything—kids must have a good education. It's as simple as that.

I won't mention the school, but we visited a particular school—it no longer operates as a boarding facility, I don't think—where the boarding conditions were absolutely appalling. They were shocking. I wouldn't have sent my worst enemy there. I hope I don't have too many enemies! But, if I have one, I'll send them there and see what they think! No. I certainly wouldn't have sent one of my children or a friend's children or recommend to anyone to send their children there. It was awful. So we've got to try and provide the best for young people, and that means making the investments that are required. We know that, if we do that, we will get a better outcome.

I was at a school opening last Friday, as it happens: Haileybury school in Darwin. It used to be Kormilda College. Now, it will have its challenges—no question. They hope to attract 80 Aboriginal kids from remote parts of the Northern Territory into that school this year; they've got 40 so far. But they have done something which I think will make a real difference. In the three or four months since Haileybury have taken over the school, they've invested a huge amount of money in upgrading the boarding facilities. God forbid, they've even got air conditioning—in Darwin! What were you thinking, providing air conditioning! Surely, you don't need it! My God, why do they need to be comfortable! They did some landscaping. They put in new furniture. The rooms are terrific. If you want to get people there, they've got to be comfortable. I want to commend Haileybury for the work they've done.

Mr Speaker, I could go on for ages. We do refer to Abstudy and make recommendations around Abstudy. I say to the government and indeed to my opposition colleagues: we need to reform Abstudy because it isn't working. Kids are being alienated; they should not be. Families are finding that their kids can't start school, because the Abstudy process hasn't been entered into properly. Parents who are illiterate need assistance. It's very important that we go through this process and understand that we should be facilitators of access to school—and that is what this report highlights.

I'm very proud to have been part of this committee inquiry. I know that my colleagues on the government benches who are on this committee—who aren't here, as it happens—share the view that this was a good inquiry. We would have gone on and on. The truth is that, if we had had our way, we would have been doing this for another 12 months because we were having such a good time—and I don't mean that in the sensational sense. We were actually learning things that we needed to learn, and so this inquiry could have gone on and on and on. But, as the chair rightly said—she put her foot down—'It's time for this to stop.' We all bemoaned and cried and carried on like pork chops, but she was right.

This report is evidence of a great deal of hard work. I hope that the government takes heed of the recommendations and we get positive responses to them, but, most of all, I hope those people who were part of the inquiry can see that we've properly considered what has been put to us and that they can have faith that the processes of the parliament are not all that they appear from the outside but rather can be very productive internally. This is a good report, and I commend it to the House.

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