David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Jagajaga has moved as an amendment that all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment (2007 Budget Measures) Bill 2007 and support the second reading amendment moved by my colleague the member for Jagajaga in the following terms:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: “whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House commits to the following goals to:

(1)

eliminate the 17 year gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation, so that every Indigenous child has the same educational and life opportunities as any other child;

(2)

at least halve the difference in the rate of Indigenous students at years 3, 5 and 7 who fail to meet reading, writing and numeracy benchmarks within ten years;

(3)

at least halve the mortality rate of Indigenous children aged under five within a decade; and

(4)

a long-term, bipartisan national commitment to work with Indigenous Australians towards achieving these goals, and overcome generational disadvantage.”

The bill amends the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000 by appropriating additional funding of $26.1 million over the 2007 and 2008 calendar years for Indigenous students in the school, vocational education and training and higher education sectors. This funding will be used for the expansion of the Indigenous Youth Mobility Program, the expansion of the Indigenous Youth Leadership Program, the provision of infrastructure funding for boarding school facilities and, where government and non-government education providers agree, the conversion of Community Development Employment Project—CDEP—places into ongoing jobs in the education sector.

The proportion of young Indigenous people living in remote areas who reach year 12 is half that of their metropolitan peers. Only one in 10 actually completes year 12. Approximately one in four 15- to 19-year-old young Indigenous people lives in a remote area. The expansion of the two programs, the Indigenous Youth Mobility Program and the Indigenous Youth Leadership Program, is expected to impact on over 1,500 Indigenous students. The Indigenous Youth Mobility Program will be expanded by around 860 places over the next four years, 2007-08 to 2010-11. In the 2008 calendar year, $2.6 million will be used to increase the number of places available in that year.

The Indigenous Youth Mobility Program currently provides assistance to around 600 young Indigenous people from remote areas with access to a broad range of training and employment opportunities on offer in major regional centres in Cairns, Townsville, Toowoomba, Newcastle, Dubbo, Canberra, Shepparton, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin. The program’s focus is on accredited training options, including Australian Apprenticeships across a range of occupations and post-school work, and study opportunities in nursing, teaching, accountancy and business management.

The bill also provides for an increase in the number of scholarships available through the Indigenous Youth Leadership Program. The Indigenous Youth Leadership Program currently provides 200 secondary school and 50 university scholarships for young Indigenous Australians. The budget increases these by a further 750 over four years, from 2007-08 to 2010-11. This will bring the total number of scholarships to 1,000. Four million dollars will be used to increase the number of scholarships available in the 2007 and 2008 calendar years.

The increased funding for these two programs will provide support for Indigenous young people to relocate from remote and regional areas to access education, training and employment opportunities not otherwise available to them. Funding of $14.1 million over two years will also be made available under the bill to provide infrastructure funding to existing boarding schools catering for Indigenous students. In addition, funding of $5.3 million will be made available, where government and non-government education providers agree, to convert CDEP program places into ongoing jobs in the education sector, such as teacher assistants and training assistants. This is expected to impact on approximately 200 Indigenous people. The CDEP provides activities for unemployed Indigenous people that meet community needs and give them a stepping stone to employment outside of the CDEP program itself.

Labor support these initiatives. We believe these measures will go some way to lifting the educational attainment levels of Indigenous Australians, in turn lifting the employment rate of Indigenous Australia. But these measures are only a modest, part-recognition of our national responsibility to Indigenous Australia. At all levels, we see Indigenous Australians falling behind the rest of our nation’s educational attainment levels. According to the Higher education report 2005 produced by the Department of Education, Science and Training, the number of Indigenous higher education students at Australian higher education providers decreased by 5.9 per cent in 2005, from 8,895 students in 2004 to 8,370 in 2005. In particular, Indigenous commencements in nursing, initial teacher training and medical practitioner courses also declined. Total commencements in these and related courses declined overall in 2005 by eight per cent. In its Higher education report 2005, the department said:

Continuing declines in Indigenous involvement in higher education will perpetuate disadvantages experienced by Indigenous Australians and hinder their full participation in Australia’s economic and social development.

While the situation in higher education is parlous, it is worse in those areas many Australians today take for granted. Simply put, too many Indigenous children continue to fail to read, write or count at a basic level. Indigenous children fall further and further behind the longer they stay at school. Fewer Indigenous students meet year 5 and year 7 benchmarks for literacy and numeracy than Indigenous children in year 3. According to the National report on schooling in Australia 2005, the proportion of Indigenous children who meet the reading benchmarks falls from 78 per cent in year 3 to 63.8 per cent in year 7, and the proportion of Indigenous children who meet the numeracy benchmarks falls from 80 per cent in year 3 to 48 per cent in year 7. In 2005, fewer Indigenous children in years 5 and 7 met basic literacy and numeracy benchmarks compared to years 5 and 7 children in 2002. Compare this to year 7 non-Indigenous students, 90 per cent of whom meet the reading benchmarks and 73 per cent of whom meet the numeracy benchmarks—nearly twice the rate of their Indigenous counterparts.

Poor educational attainment levels impact directly on employment prospects and on health and wellbeing generally. Poor education levels mean that it remains a tragic fact that, today, Indigenous Australians are the single most disadvantaged group in our nation. This applies across the full range of social and economic indicators. Indigenous Australia is confronted by greater inequality than just about any other single sector in our nation. The impact this has on social and economic behaviour should be unsurprising.

Tellingly, Indigenous unemployment levels are many times higher than the national record lows. In the Elizabeth area of North Adelaide, Indigenous unemployment is as high as 34 per cent. In Macquarie Fields in Sydney, it is 30 per cent for Indigenous residents. In Brisbane, Inala recorded an Indigenous unemployment rate of 35 per cent. In my own state of Western Australia, now subject to historic record low unemployment, Indigenous unemployment is over 15 per cent. In regional and rural Australia, the level of unemployment varies.

Given the proximity of many Indigenous communities to the booming minerals and petroleum resources industries that are helping to sustain our now 16th year of continuous economic growth, we should recognise the good work that has been done to date by that sector in improving the job prospects of Indigenous Australians. The release yesterday of the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining’s report into Indigenous employment in the minerals industry highlighted the steps taken to date in this area. The report has been supported by Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Newmont, Zinifex, Roche Mining and Ngarda Civil and Mining. It highlights the benefits for our society, our nation and the industry of taking a long-term view to providing employment opportunities for Indigenous Australians and working with local communities to address the root causes of Indigenous socioeconomic problems—the key issues of education, health and poverty. Like so many other reports, it also stated that much more still needs to be done, concluding that:

Unless the critical issues of education and health are addressed, Indigenous people, especially those living in remote and rural areas are likely to remain a marginal and largely unskilled labour force.

This just draws attention to the fact that as a nation we need to do much more to educate and train Indigenous people and get them work and job ready. More must be done to create jobs and economic development opportunities for Indigenous people. This is the most obvious and the most graphic indicator of neglect and disadvantage.

In an economy experiencing near record low unemployment of 4.4 per cent, Indigenous Australia has been left out in the economic cold. In 2005, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma said:

... what data exists suggests that we have seen only slow improvements in some areas ... and no progress on others over the past decade. The gains have been hard-fought. But they are too few. And the gains made are generally not of the same magnitude of the gains experienced by the non-Indigenous population, with the result that they have had a minimal impact on reducing the inequality gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians.

Reinforcing this is the fact that, going into the second decade of the 21st century, Australia today has a 17-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The life expectancy at birth for Indigenous men is 60 years, while for Australian males it is close to 80 years. For Indigenous women, life expectancy at birth is 65 years, while for Australian females it is 82 years. Compare this to the life expectancy gap between indigenous and non-indigenous people in comparable countries: in the United States and Canada it is approximately seven years and in New Zealand it is 7½ years. In Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, approximately 70 per cent of Indigenous Australians who died between 2000 and 2004 were under the age of 65. This compares to 21 per cent for the non-Indigenous population in those states. Tragically, current rates of Indigenous life expectancy are comparable to the life expectancy for all Australians born in the 1920s.

The demographic characteristics of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population demonstrate that the only way to address the life expectancy of Indigenous Australians is to begin with young Indigenous Australians. Indeed, the Indigenous Australian population is proportionately younger compared with non-Indigenous Australia. The percentage of Indigenous Australians under the age of 10 is more than double that of the general Australian population.

Labor recognises the fundamental importance of investing during a child’s early years. This applies to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous young Australians. The international evidence shows that the best investment a government can make is in the early years of a child’s development, whether in health, family and community support or education. Through providing greater and better access to education during a child’s early development, we can provide the very best start in life. This does not diminish the importance of providing continuous educational and learning opportunities throughout life. Indeed, lifelong learning has many benefits, and this bill goes some way to acknowledging that, but it falls very far short of where we need to be. We must recognise that more must be done to lift the educational standards of all people, and in particular Indigenous Australians.

In many respects, in relation to Indigenous Australians this means that we have to go back to basics, particularly when it comes to literacy and numeracy. We have to assess the things that we as the Commonwealth have done in the past and where we are at today. When we do that, what do we see? We see that the education outcomes for Indigenous Australians, like the health outcomes for Indigenous Australians, are going downhill.

There are some things on the ground that we know work in practice. These include accelerated learning for literacy and numeracy, getting early intervention and providing early childhood literacy and numeracy activities. But to ensure they are effective we need a long-term, bipartisan approach. It is in this context that the Leader of the Opposition spoke only a few days ago, on the 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, of the need to set new, national, bipartisan goals to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia—goals that are achievable, measurable and that fulfil the spirit of the referendum.

Labor is committed to the following bipartisan goals, as the second reading amendment reflects: to eliminate the 17-year gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation; to at least halve the rate of Indigenous infant mortality among babies within a decade; to at least halve the mortality rate of Indigenous children aged under five within a decade; and to at least halve the difference in the rate of Indigenous students at years 3, 5 and 7 who fail to meet reading, writing and numeracy benchmarks, within 10 years.

Labor is committed to meeting these goals and, along with a range of health and family initiatives, education is a key plank in achieving this. Under Labor all Indigenous four-year-olds will be eligible to receive 15 hours of government funded early learning programs per week for a minimum of 40 weeks a year. Labor will provide nearly $17 million over four years to support the rollout of the Australian Early Development Index in every Australian primary school. This will be adapted to establish a culturally appropriate and nationally consistent means of addressing key aspects of Indigenous children’s early development which are central to their readiness for learning at school.

Labor will ensure that every Indigenous child has an individual learning plan based on each child’s needs. Labor will ensure that every Indigenous student has an individual learning plan, which will be updated twice a year for every year of schooling up to year 10. These plans will be based on the individual child’s needs, as determined by the teacher’s professional judgements, the results of assessments—including national literacy and numeracy testing in years 3, 5, 7 and 9—and through new initiatives such as the Australian Early Development Index, to which I have just referred.

The plans will identify the individual strengths and weaknesses of every child and set out the areas the student and the teacher will target for improvement across the basics of reading, writing and numeracy. Labor will spend $34.5 million over four years to provide professional development support to teachers to enable them to complete these learning plans. Through their child’s teachers, parents will be able to access these plans so they can be part of their children’s learning improvements. Once children’s learning needs have been identified, clear and precise intervention programs can be better implemented. Data available through teacher assessments will be pooled along with other student achievements and demographic data already available, and an independent analysis will be commissioned annually in collaboration with the states and territories to provide governments with the best quality foundation for policy decisions and resource allocations.

Labor will expand intensive literacy programs and develop a new intensive numeracy program to assist underachieving students to catch up to the rest of their class. Literacy and numeracy are the building blocks upon which every individual builds his or her participation in society and capacity to work and lead a healthy and active life. The underperformance of Indigenous students against the national reading, writing and numeracy benchmarks must be substantially improved. Labor wants to halve the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students’ performance in reading, writing and numeracy achievement within a decade.

Labor will provide $21.9 million over four years to expand intensive literacy and numeracy programs in our schools. Intensive literacy programs, such as Accelerated Literacy, Making Up Lost Time in Literacy and the Yachad Accelerated Learning Project, provide a heavily structured approach to teaching literacy within a nationally consistent framework that assists underachieving students to catch up to the average level of the rest of their class. These programs use a range of learning methods, including phonics and decoding in combination with whole-of-language and textual understanding. What is important is that each student’s level is identified and all relevant methods are used. It is critical that students who are falling behind be given extra help to help them catch up.

As part of this commitment, a new intensive numeracy program will be developed and implemented. The educational gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students is widest in numeracy—up to 33 percentage points in year 7—yet there are regrettably few structured programs in this area. Intensive literacy and numeracy programs will focus on these foundational literacy skills which are essential to success in school. These skills will be part of the English component of the national curriculum and will underpin effective participation in all learning areas.

I was interested in question time that, in response to a dorothy dix question, the minister for education sought to criticise those programs that Labor announced over the weekend by saying that they were based on a document agreed by the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs in 2005, that MCEETYA had adopted similar or like-minded proposals in 2006 and how shocking and terrible it was that Labor had made express detailed, funded, costed election commitments in this area. I could not quite understand the point the minister was making. The minister was herself on the ministerial council in 2006. She signed up for these proposals, which she says Labor based its commitments on, but which part is she actually criticising? What did she agree to in 2005-06 that she is not agreeing to now, or is there a more central point? I think the central point is this: the minister signed up in 2006 to these proposals that she outlined at question time but has done nothing about them. Not one Commonwealth appropriation to effect these measures do we find in the budget. That is the reason for the minister’s dorothy dixer in question time today.

Labor supports measures to lift educational retention rates and provide assistance to those most in need to help themselves. Labor strongly believes that more can and must be done. It is insufficient to look at only one aspect of Indigenous Australia when what we need is an overall perspective—a perspective that acknowledges that, after years of neglect, Indigenous Australia has a manifold series of issues that require a comprehensive approach; a perspective that acknowledges that education is crucial and that this begins with a child’s early years to help build the foundation stones for a successful life; and a perspective that acknowledges that health is crucial and that more must be done to bridge the gap at every level between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. On that basis, I commend the bill and the amendment to the House.

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport, Roads and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to address what I regard as an important bill. It goes to the fundamental requirement for us as a nation to get serious about Indigenous education and our failings as a nation over many decades on that front. In that context, I also stand in support of the second reading amendment. This amendment, moved by our shadow minister, Jenny Macklin, former deputy leader, goes to something we all have to front up to: how we start getting a bipartisan approach to what is a major national problem. There is a crisis not only in Indigenous education but also in Indigenous health and employment, and we all have to accept that, 40 years on from giving the Indigenous community the right to fully participate in the Australian democratic processes, we have made very little progress on a lot of social indicators.

The Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment (2007 Budget Measures) Bill 2007 is a practical endeavour supported by both sides of the House to get some of the fundamentals right. I think those fundamentals are right because the bill is about amending the current legislation by appropriating an additional $26.1 million over the 2007 and 2008 calendar years to do something about education and training. It is pretty fundamental because it goes to what we do with additional funding—to do something about Indigenous students in schools, vocational education and training, and further investment in the higher education sectors. If you get the education fundamentals right, then you have a greater capacity to do something about what is equally important—that is, the issue of jobs. I want to seriously address some of those employment issues today because I note the mining industry is having its annual meeting in Canberra this week and its mining industry dinner is here in Parliament House tomorrow evening.

Some of the issues I have had responsibility for over the last couple of years range from mining and resources to forestry, tourism and now back to transport, the construction of roads and railways, and the issue of ports. All these sectors represent tremendous employment opportunities, especially in Northern Australia, for our Indigenous community. It also requires partnership and better cooperation between state and territory governments, the Commonwealth government and the private sector to make serious progress on that front. I say that because this bill is about assisting the private sector to start to make that progress. We have to do something about education so we can get the Indigenous community job-ready. It also requires the private sector, as they are now realising, to accept that the Indigenous community represents a wonderful opportunity to supply workers with respect to the issue of labour shortages in Australia at the moment. Migration is not the only solution to the shortages that confront Australia on the skilled labour supply front.

The Indigenous community is a valuable resource that we have neglected. I think it is a disgrace that as a nation we have neglected them as a community for so long. Our Indigenous community, like all indigenous communities in the world, is no exception with respect to the problems that it confronts in Australia. If you go around the world, you find that for the vast majority of people, regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion or age, employment provides a source of income that can facilitate financial security and independence both in the short and long term. For many it is not just a source of personal satisfaction today but a means through which they can define their future. We as a community still define ourselves by our will to work. In electorates, in the suburbs of our capital cities and our regions in rural and remote Australia, you do not have the same sense of pride, the sense of belonging to the community, unless you have a job. To have a job, you have to have the fundamentals which make you job ready, and that is about education.

A lot of research papers clearly suggest there is a strong link between a person’s propensity for employment and other aspects of social wellbeing such as community interaction, the risk of involvement in crime and general health. One flows in to the other. If you have no education, no job, then you tend to get into social difficulties, crime and the associated problems of drugs, alcohol, domestic violence—the lot. We have got a whole jigsaw of difficulties which go back to first base: we need to do something fundamental about housing—how many people live in a house; whether or not there is access to broadband to assist in education; how good the local school is; what the class sizes are; and whether schools are properly resourced with appropriately qualified teachers. If you actually start to do something about that then, in a social sense, you start to make progress in employment. So it is, therefore, a disappointing reflection on all of us that our nation has for so long failed to appropriately engage with and address issues of Indigenous employment, health and social wellbeing.

That is why the member for Jagajaga has appropriately signalled in part (4) of her second reading amendment that we all have to set aside some of the political issues that have come between us over the last couple of decades and decide on a long-term bipartisan approach to a national commitment to actually do something about Indigenous Australians. We need to actually work towards reducing the gap in life expectancy between the Indigenous and the non-Indigenous communities and address the issues of literacy and numeracy, mortality, health and unemployment so that, irrespective of who is in government—and governments come and go because there is a natural life of governments in a modern democracy—these programs will continue. I suppose I mean bipartisan support in the same way in which, in the past, up until the issue of Tampa, there was a fair degree of bipartisan support in the Australian parliament on the issue of migration. We used to go from election to election trying to make sure that it was not a political football. Tampa changed that, and I hope we never go back to the Tampa debate.

On the question of our Indigenous community, we have to get to a point of bipartisan support for programs to be able to debate what the programs are, what they seek to achieve and then make sure that, irrespective of who is in government, those programs are properly financed and resourced. We must also set in place a process of accountability which means that we regularly review our performance and outcomes and seek to improve our performance on the ground.

That is squarely of major importance to all Australians because none of us like an Australia in which there are second-class citizens. We pride ourselves as a nation on the sense of mateship—what is right and wrong; we think ‘I actually like to try to give people a leg-up who are doing it a bit tough from time to time.’ That is why we have always held our heads up high as a nation: we like to do something to assist those in our own families, streets, suburbs and nation at large who are doing it a bit tough or a bit rough.

So investing in education is about trying to come to terms with the fact that, unfortunately, there are difficulties in terms of employment in Australia for our Indigenous communities. This is reflected in the relatively low labour force participation rates for Indigenous people, coupled with a rate of unemployment that was two to three times higher than that for non-Indigenous people in 2001. Further, government employment programs account for a significant proportion of Indigenous employment, with this proportion generally higher in very remote areas—the old CDEP program. The combination of these factors, however, means that the relatively poor employment outcomes among Indigenous people are generally regarded as a major factor contributing to their disadvantaged status in society. I do not think anyone can question that suggestion.

In Queensland, where there is a large Aboriginal community, as the member for Herbert appreciates, particularly in Far North Queensland, recent figures showed the unemployment rate for Indigenous males was 13 per cent higher than the rate for non-Indigenous males. Similar patterns were evident for Indigenous and non-Indigenous females, although the gap between the two groups was only 10.3 per cent. Unfortunately, however, in a national trend, unemployment rates were highest among young people. Joblessness among Indigenous males and females in the 15 to 24 age group in Queensland was roughly twice that of their non-Indigenous counterparts. These rates provide a guide to the level of underutilised labour in the Indigenous population in Queensland and are reflected nationally. However, evidence suggests that these figures may not reflect the true level of underutilised labour. Some Indigenous people are likely to be out of the labour force because they believe there is no work available or they cannot get a job—they do not have the skills required to actually get a good job so they give up.

The irony of this is disappointing because over one-quarter of unemployed Indigenous people in Queensland were classified as labourers or related workers compared with only 10.9 per cent of non-Indigenous workers. I say that it is an irony because so many sectors are crying out for workers as a result of the national skills shortage: from regional areas that need fruit-pickers, farmhands and harvesters, to the forestry industry that needs assistance on its plantations, to tourism businesses that desperately need staff of every kind.

I know through my work as the shadow minister for tourism and my constant consultation with the industry that there are no chefs—they are in short supply—and hotels and motels cannot find people to make the beds, look after the gardens and grounds, attend to reception, clean the rooms and maintain the facilities. There are jobs out there but we do not have people job ready because we have not educated them and given them the confidence to pursue an employment opportunity. It also says to Australian business that they have to invest more themselves, in partnership with the government, in trying to train people to overcome some of the skills gaps that prevent them from gaining proper employment.

On that note I refer to a search of the Australian government’s Job Search website today which revealed that in Northern Queensland there were 872 food, hospitality and tourism jobs available. In the Northern Territory there were 649 jobs in this field, while in regional Western Australia, outside Perth, there were 739 job vacancies. Just think about those job vacancies and the high level of Indigenous unemployment.

Yet, despite the clear need for workers in a range of fields, Indigenous employment remains low. It has become, unfortunately, a vicious cycle that is hard to break, not just in terms of identifying a framework for a viable solution but also on the ground, for the people who live with this lower quality of life. Every day these people must negotiate a way through an existence that is fraught with politics. We must not forget that they yearn for things that we in other sections of Australian society take for granted—to be able to enjoy our children’s and our grandchildren’s laughter, to share the company of others, to be satisfied with our achievements, to go home to a home, to be able to educate our own children and to have food on the table. For a lot of these people that is unknown to them. They struggle from day to day because they have not got a job, because they did not have the educational capacity in years gone by to get the skills required to be gainfully employed and hold down a job over time. The issues I raise today are the normal aspirations of any human being and, in a country as prosperous as Australia, they are aspirations that deserve to be attained by every Australian—Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

All too often the human face of Australia’s Indigenous issues is either forgotten or painted by the brush of history to present our Indigenous people as a community immobile in time. Some groups that claim to act in their interests seemingly forget that these communities cannot stay static, bound in time by political correctness. Let us also break down the debate on political correctness and work on practical solutions to major problems. Indigenous communities need and want to become self-sustaining and embrace and engage in all aspects of the Australian way of life, including our national businesses and industries.

Last year, when I held the portfolio of resources, I was pleased with the developments made in the mining sector. There was a dramatic commitment and a change in attitude to increasing the Indigenous workforce. Research undertaken by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University shows that in Northern Australia, particularly in regions such as the Pilbara, East Arnhem Land, east Kimberley and Cape York where there is significant mining activity, the Indigenous population is growing at a rate of between two and four per cent per year and is conservatively projected to increase by some 100,000 people, or 39 per cent, by 2016.

In fact, late last year, the 500,000th member of the Indigenous population was born, which for the first time took the Indigenous Australian population back to the level they were at when the First Fleet sailed into Australian waters 219 years ago. It is a pleasing trend that means that, by 2016, people in their prime working years, those aged between 15 and 45 years old, will comprise 50 per cent of some Indigenous populations. Some of the communities in the Northern Territory such as Wadeye will be bigger than longstanding towns such as Tennant Creek. If you compared the services available in Tennant Creek with those in Wadeye, you would shake your head. There is no equality of opportunity in towns—especially with formalisation and shires being created in the very near future in the Northern Territory—between that which you see in the Aboriginal shires dominated by Indigenous people and that which you see in council areas such as those in the Tennant Creek area. We have a lot to do.

It also means that companies have to work better with us. In the mid-1990s, less than half of one per cent of Rio Tinto’s Australian workforce was Indigenous, despite the fact that their mining sites are more often than not located in close proximity to local Indigenous communities. Now—and it is terrific to see—approximately seven per cent of the company’s employees, around 850 people, are Indigenous. The retention rate for new Indigenous employees beyond 26 weeks exceeds 80 per cent. What a terrific achievement. In some mines the retention rate is actually higher than that for the non-Indigenous workforce, who usually cannot sustain the fly-in, fly-out lifestyle of many of these positions.

At the Rio Tinto Argyle Diamonds mine in Western Australia, the pink diamonds unearthed from the ground may be exceptionally rare, but, in going against a historical trend, Indigenous employment is not. In fact, the diamond mine plans to increase its Indigenous workforce to 40 per cent by 2010. This target is seen to be achievable thanks to a change in the company’s human resource practices at the remote Kimberley mine. This operational change has lifted the ratio of Indigenous employees from 4.5 per cent of the workforce to 25 per cent in the first three years of the program.

Rio Tinto, which admittedly is the largest mining company in the world, is just one of a growing number of resource companies to adopt this model of greater integration with the local communities that inhabit the area in which they mine. It is a model that provides more equitable distribution of the wealth generated through mining while delivering sustainable economic benefits, such as enhanced local community capacity through education and training. It is a trend that goes some way towards correcting the disparity of much of Australia’s economic wealth being produced in areas populated by its most disadvantaged. While many of us enjoy the benefits of record progress, profits and employment, Indigenous economic and business development languishes sadly.

But the resource sector is just one example. Equally positive examples can be seen within the tourism industry, although, as with the mining sector, there is still a long way to go. The tourism industry has suffered from a significant growth constraint in recent years, primarily due to a skills and labour shortage. The traditional core workforce—that is, young people working in the resorts, hotels and tourism businesses—are tempted by the high-paying jobs offered in the mining sector. Unable to match these wages, the tourism business owners and operators themselves are forced to carry out the necessary day-to-day jobs in the absence of workers. But progress is being made. The industry is also learning about the importance of the Indigenous community. More than ever they are trying to work out culturally and socially how to crash through the stereotypes and overcome the long-defined difficulties of employing Indigenous people in the tourism industry.

By way of example, I want to refer to the Accor Asia Pacific group, which has developed innovative thinking and a commitment to this challenge. This company, as a result of its decisions, has lifted Indigenous employment in the tourism industry. Tourism is a foreign concept in some Indigenous communities because often many of them have never travelled as tourists and they do not appreciate the importance of the industry. That is why, through its Indigenous employment program, the hotel runs a variety of familiarity programs, including inviting Indigenous families to become a tourist for a day. The initiative sees families stay in the hotel for a night, eat in the restaurant, swim in the pools and play golf and tennis—just like other typical tourists.

It is an interesting program which, more importantly, is reaping results. Accor Asia Pacific last year employed about 150 Indigenous people—a huge improvement on five years ago when it commenced its program and only about 10 Indigenous people were employed. They are getting a return on their investment. It is not only smart from a business point of view because it means they are lifting the size of their workforce but also terrific for Australia because Accor and companies such as Rio, BHP and Xstrata are now doing something in partnership with government to overcome the fundamental social problems of Indigenous unemployment and lack of education. As a community we ought to talk up these examples. We ought to give credit where it is due. Many companies in Australia have actually realised the errors of their ways in days gone by.

I say on behalf of the opposition that we welcome the additional funding. It is about trying to do something positive in a very difficult area to improve educational performance in our Indigenous communities and therefore do the right thing by the Australian community at large to help to correct an unjust imbalance and bring about true equality in Australia. But it goes back to the fundamentals: do not dwell on the past and the mistakes but think about positive programs, think about education, literacy and numeracy; get the fundamentals right and take the politics out of it. As the member for Jagajaga stated in part (4) of her second reading amendment—(Time expired)

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to pick up on what the member for Batman said in his contribution to this debate. I am, and have been for the last two parliaments, a member of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Workforce Participation. In a previous inquiry, that committee received evidence that detailed some of the activities of Rio Tinto in the Northern Territory in training apprentices to work in their mines and also, after the training had been completed, providing ongoing employment. I think that those types of activities and commitments should be recognised and replicated throughout Australia and that they should be used as role models by other employers.

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Workforce Participation is currently doing an inquiry into tourism. The thing that has been most evident there is that there is a resource—our Indigenous Australians—that is being well and truly underutilised. I would like to encourage all of those employers and operators throughout Australia that work in the tourism industry and quite often make a living from the works of Indigenous Australians—and also from the fact that Australia has an Indigenous population—to make a bigger commitment to our Indigenous Australians and provide them with the opportunity to actually obtain employment with them. That is one area that has not been developed nearly enough, even given the comments that the member for Batman made—he highlighted the activities of a very good employer that was making a commitment in this area.

The Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment (2007 Budget Measures) Bill 2007 amends the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000 by appropriating additional funding of $26.1 million over the 2007 and 2008 calendar years for Indigenous students in schools and also for the vocational education and training and higher education sectors. This funding will be used for the expansion of the Indigenous Youth Mobility Program and the Indigenous Youth Leadership Program, the provision of infrastructure funding for boarding school facilities and, where government and non-government education providers agree, the conversion of Community Development Employment Projects—CDEP—places into ongoing jobs in the education sector.

I do not think that anyone in this parliament would disagree with more money being given to Indigenous education. I think that for a very long time it has been an area where there has not been enough spending and there has not been recognition of the implications of having an Indigenous population that does not have the same educational opportunities as other Australians. I am a firm believer in the idea that education is the key to success in life and that those people who can access and are able to obtain a good education are those people who have the opportunity to succeed and enjoy a fuller life in our society. Unfortunately, many of our Indigenous Australians—most of our Indigenous Australians—actually have not been in this position.

Also, I was very disappointed to hear the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs talking last week about forcing all Indigenous Australians to learn English. To me that showed a lack of understanding of the issues. I think that, rather than helping with education, it will create more problems and work as an obstacle or barrier to Indigenous Australians undertaking education.

I would like to refer to the amendment moved by the member for Jagajaga. The first point that she highlights in that amendment is the 17-year gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The amendment points to that and highlights that. The Labor Party is committed to eliminating that gap within a generation.

I would like to bring to the attention of the House the fact that the first inquiry I was involved in in this parliament was an inquiry that produced a report called Health is life. That report detailed the level of disadvantage that Indigenous Australians have and the morbidity or mortality rate that existed back at that time—the report was actually tabled in this House in 2000. At that time all of the members of the committee were overwhelmed by the level of disadvantage and the poor health outcomes that actually existed in those communities. There were a number of recommendations. It was a bipartisan report and it was one that we all felt very strongly about. I look at the issues that were raised there, I look at the issues that are being raised today and I look at the action of the government. I really think it is a disgrace that here, in a country like Australia, we have our Indigenous people living in Third World conditions and at the same time having Third World access to education.

Today in question time the Minister for Education, Science and Training referred to the Labor Party’s new directions statement, An equal start in life for Indigenous children, and sought to ridicule it. As I see it, in adopting that approach she is, to an extent, not taking Indigenous people seriously. The directions statement details the problems that exist for Indigenous Australians: the health gap that currently exists; the high rate of infant mortality; the high rate of low birth weight amongst Indigenous babies; the continued presence of Third World diseases such as rheumatic fever; the high rate of hearing loss; the high rate of chronic diseases such as renal failure, cardiovascular disease and diabetes; the continued high rate of poor health among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander infants; far too frequent occurrence of middle-ear infection; the continued tendency of poor access to primary health care; the high rate of sexually transmitted disease and the high rate of unhealthy and risky behaviour.

I again refer to the Health is life report. The health issues identified in An equal start in life for Indigenous children are exactly the same issues that we looked at in the inquiry. It is so sad that I am standing up in this parliament today referring to figures about diseases that are affecting our Indigenous population which have not changed in seven years. If you look back beyond the Health is life report, a similar report was brought down by a committee chaired by the Attorney-General. It came up with very similar recommendations. And the same issues still exist. An equal start in life for Indigenous children highlights a number of approaches that are needed to address these issues. Of course, one of those issues is education, because we recognise just how important education and access to education are for establishing a healthy lifestyle.

When we looked at the experiences of other countries, we saw that they were very different to that of Australia. New Zealand, Canada and the United States have made significant improvements in the health of their Indigenous populations, whereas that has not occurred in Australia. An equal start in life for Indigenous children also highlights that the life expectancy difference between the Indigenous population and the remainder of the population is seven years in the United States and Canada and 7.5 years in New Zealand. So action has been taken in those countries and it has worked. I encourage the government to look to overseas examples to see ways in which they can change what is happening in Australia. They can actually move forward—not just talk about it—and look to do more than what is outlined in the bill that we have before us today.

The Health is life report refers to a Commonwealth strategy that had been released: the Education Strategy for Indigenous Students. The strategy was to look at a number of the issues that are important for improving education. It focused on the literacy and numeracy skills of Indigenous students and other factors influencing their level of achievement. An equal start in life for Indigenous children highlights the problems that Indigenous Australians have and the difference in the levels of literacy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The document shows that the literacy and numeracy levels of Indigenous students are much lower than those of the rest of the population.

The proportion of Indigenous students in year 3 achieving reading, writing and numeracy benchmarks is much lower than that of non-Indigenous students. Twenty-two per cent of Indigenous students do not meet year 3 benchmarks. In year 5, the percentage of students falling below it is even higher. And by year 7, one in 10 students achieves the benchmark. One in 10 students is below the benchmark for reading, one in 12 students does not meet the benchmark for writing and one in five students does not meet the benchmark for numeracy. If you equate that to students looking for employment, you will see that education has failed Indigenous Australians and, by failing Indigenous Australians, the education system is inhibiting their opportunities in life.

The strategy I spoke of earlier highlighted six key elements, including the lifting of the school attendance rate to national levels and addressing hearing and other health problems. One of the key things to think about when you are looking at literacy and reading is the ability to hear. Unfortunately, the problem that our Indigenous Australians still experience in relation to hearing has not gone away. Seven years after the report, the recommendations it made are still unaddressed and the Commonwealth strategy has not delivered.

The strategy also talks about enhancing preschool opportunities, and I would draw members’ attention to the Labor Party’s plan to give all four-year-olds access to 15 hours a week of preschool. I see this as an opportunity for Indigenous Australians to have that preschool experience. We all know that education in those early years is absolutely vital. Quite often if children miss out in the early years then they miss out all through their lives. I think that both access to preschool education and intervention in cases where a child might have a hearing problem are absolutely vital for Indigenous children.

Whilst the legislation before us does address some issues in relation to Indigenous education, I do not think it addresses the fundamental issues that I have highlighted throughout my speech. We need to ensure that all Indigenous students have real access to education. Instead of paying lip-service to this issue, the government needs to actually get out there and do something about it. The government is very good at coming up with rhetoric but it is not very good at solving problems, and it is not very good at helping Indigenous Australians overcome the health problems that they have had for years and years.

The member for Jagajaga rightly highlighted issues surrounding the mortality rate of Indigenous children and the need for that to be addressed. The report An equal start in life for Indigenous childrenwhich I think is very important—refers to the issue of maternal and child health. I would refer the minister also to the ‘child and maternal health’ section of the Labor Party document that I know she has in her possession. I am currently involved in an inquiry that is looking at breastfeeding and the need for mothers to breastfeed their babies. It has been very interesting during the inquiry to have contact with Indigenous communities and Indigenous mothers living in the Cairns area. I believe that it is fundamental to ensure that Indigenous mothers have the right support, antenatal care, and information about baby care and nutrition. Mothers need to have proper accommodation when they have a baby, and support systems need to be in place, including home visits. These things need to be addressed in the beginning. We need to make sure that the baby is healthy when it is born. Once you have a healthy child, you have a child that will grow, flourish and be able to access and process the educational information that they are given. The same things were identified in the Health is life report—problems with child and maternal life—and nothing has changed. It is time to stop talking. It is time for action and it is time to do more than what is outlined in this legislation.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In summing up the debate on the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment (2007 Budget Measures) Bill 2007, I take the opportunity to thank members for their contributions to this debate on a very important policy issue. This year, 2007-08, the Australian government will invest almost $600 million in Indigenous-specific education programs. I can speak on behalf of all members in this House—and I am sure all Australians would agree—and say that we want to see the gap between education outcomes for Indigenous Australians and those for non-Indigenous Australians closed. The Australian government are committed to that goal. That is why the 2007-08 budget focuses on programs and initiatives that are already working to close that gap. We have enhanced those programs.

This bill amends the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Act 2000. We are increasing the appropriations over the 2007-08 calendar year to provide $26.1 million of additional funding. This represents a number of policy initiatives based on programs that we know are working for Indigenous people. In particular, there will be an additional $4 million for the expansion of the Indigenous Youth Leadership Program, with an additional 750 scholarships over four years. That will mean a total of 1,000 scholarships for young Indigenous people who have been identified as having leadership potential within their communities. I have met a number of the young people who are taking part in the Indigenous Youth Leadership Program, and they provide us with great hope for the future of Indigenous people in this country. They are wonderful young people.

There will be $2.6 million for the Indigenous Youth Mobility Program, with an additional 860 places over four years. Again, the Indigenous Youth Mobility Program is working. Young people who need to leave the remote or rural areas in which they live to pursue a trade, a qualification or a career have been identified by their communities and, through Australian government funding, are able to take advantage of this opportunity—with the hope that they will then go back to their communities and use the skills that they have acquired for the benefit of the community.

There is also $14.1 million in funding for urgent repairs to boarding school facilities. This is in addition to an allocation of $50 million from this year’s budget surplus for non-government boarding schools, including in rural areas, that accommodate Indigenous students. I make the point that that $50 million has come from a budget surplus. You are not able to allocate that kind of funding from budget deficits. The Australian government has consistently run budget surpluses so that it can make these one-off payments—in this case $50 million in additional funding for boarding schools that accommodate Indigenous students. There is also $5.3 million to support the conversion of the CDEP positions—the Community Development Employment Project positions—into jobs in the education sector. The new funding of $26.1 million to be appropriated through this bill is only one element of the broader package of $214 million over four years announced in this year’s budget for Indigenous education and training. It will support increased choice and mobility in education and training for Indigenous young people. It will support the CDEP participants to move into ongoing employment within the education system. It will build on the successful programs that the government already has in place. Spending on Indigenous specific programs has increased by almost 50 per cent in real terms over the past decade. Education is the key to providing Indigenous people with greater opportunities and the opportunity for economic independence.

I listened to some of the debate on this bill and noted that some of the statements made in this debate by opposition members were rather ill-informed. I will take this opportunity to make a number of points, particularly in response to the proposed amendment. The Commonwealth do not own or run any schools. We provide significant funding to schools across Australia. In fact, we are providing a record $33 billion for all schools for the period 2005 to 2008. Australian government funding—that is, our share of schools funding—has increased by about 170 per cent since 1996.

In relation to Indigenous education, as I said, the Australian government’s goal is to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous educational outcomes. That has long been a goal of the Howard government. We already have in place a strengthened Indigenous education performance monitoring and reporting framework. The proposed amendment puts this forward, but we already have it in place for the 2005-08 quadrennium. The framework includes standard performance indicators for vocational and technical education, schools and preschools; a revitalised monitoring and reporting process; and new approaches to target-setting and sanctions for noncompliance with Indigenous education agreements. Those agreements are with the state and territory governments and non-government education providers. So this is already in place and endorsed, and agreements are in place with state Labor governments. Realistic and challenging targets have been negotiated with education providers for significant and measurable progress towards closing the educational divide between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people through per capita supplementary funding. This is already happening.

In relation to the provision of intensive support to raise the literacy levels of Indigenous young people, the Australian government already has underway in 150 schools a series of accelerated literacy pilots that provide proven methodologies and build teacher capacity. Labor puts this forward as if it is a new idea. It is already in existence. Over $19.3 million has already been invested in taking to the next level successful methodologies and approaches, such as accelerated literacy and MULTILIT. For example, the accelerated literacy program is training 700 teachers in 100 schools in the Northern Territory in the successful methodology which is improving the literacy outcomes of up to 10,000 students, including in remote schools. I have visited schools in the Northern Territory and I have sat in on classes using the accelerated literacy program. I can attest to the fact that it is working. The approach is being replicated in 15 Western Australian Aboriginal independent community schools, six Catholic schools in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, 12 schools in the Aboriginal Lands District in South Australia, and the Shalom Christian College in Queensland. Either the opposition is ignorant of existing, established programs or it is just playing catch-up and trying to dress up existing programs as new initiatives. We have seen federal Labor do this on a number of occasions in relation to education policy—that is, take other people’s ideas, put an ALP repackaging brand on it and call it ‘fresh thinking’ in education. The Australian public will see through that.

The Australian government is also supporting professional development for teachers through the Dare to Lead project. There are 4,300 school leaders already committed to improving educational outcomes through that program. That is already happening; it exists. Through the Australian government What Works project, some 35,000 teachers have already participated in professional development workshops to expand their skills in improving educational outcomes for Indigenous students.

In relation to Labor’s idea of individual learning plans, in July 2006 all education ministers—federal, state and territory ministers for education—endorsed a policy document that had been thoroughly researched called Australian directions in Indigenous education for 2005-2008. All state and territory Labor governments have already committed to delivering personalised learning plans for all Indigenous students that include targets against key learning outcomes and incorporate family involvement strategies and provide professional learning for teachers to enable them to adopt approaches that result in high levels of academic expectation and achievement by Indigenous students. The opposition is just playing catch-up. That is fine, as long as it does not pretend that it has new ideas, fresh thinking or new policies.

One of the many prevention and early intervention initiatives supported by the Australian government is the Australian Early Development Index. This index is a community based measure of the health and development of Indigenous children at the beginning of their first school year. The Australian government announced in the 2007-08 budget that $3.7 million over three years has been made available for the index—the AEDI—in up to 61 current AEDI communities, and a further 14 disadvantaged communities will develop and trial an Indigenous Australian Early Development Index. An Indigenous index will more accurately assess the early development needs of Indigenous children and will take into account cultural and language differences.

In relation to the amendment proposed by the member for Jagajaga, while I am pleased that the opposition supports the measures that we have introduced that are opening up opportunities for young Indigenous people in education and training, the government will not be supporting the amendment as proposed by the opposition. The Australian government is already vigorously pursuing objectives to close the educational divide between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. Good progress is being made. More must be done. This bill introduces measures that will go some way toward achieving that goal. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.