Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The point I have been making is that the blame game mantra used by the government in relation to what are state government responsibilities has meant that basically everyone is responsible and, therefore, no-one is responsible, particularly when Labor is in power at every level. The government likes to talk about the buck stopping in particular places, but we have found that the buck is in a constant search for where to stop under the Rudd government. This buck is in perpetual motion, as it moves around this chamber and around the country and is unable to find a home. This is a homeless buck when it comes to responsibility on issues that relate to state governments.

In Australia now, in what is called the end of the blame game era, we do not have competitive federalism and we do not have cooperative federalism; we have collusive federalism—a collusion between the states of mates. There is a convenient silence on issues. If we want to do something serious about truancy in this country, our first step must be to ensure that state governments do their job of ensuring that our kids stay in school, that our kids are effective in school and want to be in school, and that we move forward on that basis. In New South Wales, my home state, there are a range of issues which are very concerning. The Auditor-General’s report echoes many of the national statistics. It talks about retention rates being below national averages. It talks about at-risk groups—in particular, Aboriginal students and students from low-socioeconomic-status backgrounds—all having falling retention rates. This is of great concern in my home state. Literacy and numeracy standards, the tests of the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008, are suffering as a result of not only truancy rates but also, I suspect, the way that schools are run in that state.

To be fair, I should confess that recent initiatives have brought about legislative changes in New South Wales that have resulted in 154 attendance prosecutions involving 191 children being launched since April. This is a positive matter, a positive step forward, and I commend the New South Wales government at least for doing that. Prosecutions do have an effect under state laws, under state responsibilities, of making parents more aware of their responsibility. However, as I was alluding to in my earlier comments, the answer is much closer to what is happening on the ground than what is happening here in Canberra.

I believe that the solutions in our schools need to be community based. In 2004, a report entitled Disenchantment, disengagement and disappearance was prepared by the Australian Council for Educational Research. That report proclaimed the need to deal with issues relating to parental responsibility, which I would support. However, some of the measures it talks about for reducing truancy rates relate to matters that are much more local. Some of the recommendations of this report are a whole-of-school commitment to effort in reducing absenteeism and suspensions; provision of options for any suspended students allowing their learning to proceed; changing a school climate to emphasise cooperation and to encourage active learning to take place in and out of the classroom; cultural inclusiveness and sensitivity to learning cycles, languages and traditions amongst minority ethnic groups; smaller schools where values and expectations are shared and clear, both in policies and in their enactment; a thorough system of pastoral care and counselling which reaches parents as well as students. I note that there is only one counsellor per 1,000 students in high schools in New South Wales and only one counsellor per 1,500 primary school students in New South Wales, which is a matter that needs urgent attention. Further recommendations of the report are dynamic classrooms led rather than ruled by their teachers; classrooms which respond flexibly to students’ stated and perceived needs rather than a rigid qualifications-driven process; and strengthening teachers’ skills with in-service education which enables them to function more professionally for a wider range of student abilities and interests.

The ‘heavy lifting’ on truancy is in how schools are run. If we allow our states to absolve themselves of their responsibilities simply on the basis of adopting a blame game rhetoric, I think we are seriously letting children and families down. To bluster on in this place about measures designed to try and send a message but not really do anything effectively on the ground—we already know they will be ineffective because the data will not be provided—is of great concern. It is in the context of reducing truancy through actions in our homes, our schools and our communities that I think we need to consider what level of support we give to community based non-profit organisations that are in our communities, in our clubs and often in our homes and see what role they can play in providing the answer.

For a period of time I worked in New Zealand and was responsible to the New Zealand government for sport policy. One day, when on the South Island of New Zealand, I saw a great sign not far out of Picton. It had been there for a long time. On a big billboard, in painted letters, it said ‘A kid in sport stays out of court’. A few older people in our professional ranks of sport these days may be struggling to live up to that mantra, but I think the mantra of getting kids involved in sport is a positive thing. Why? Because that is where role models emerge. And by ‘role models’ I am not talking about highly paid sportspeople. I am talking about the coach that they meet. I am talking about the parents that they meet. I am talking about the opportunities they have to engage with someone who has taken a clear interest. If that influence is not in the home, then it has got to come from somewhere else. So who are the mentors and role models for these kids at risk? Who is taking an interest when the parents do not? What support, encouragement and recognition in hard policy are we providing for them to work in their communities?

We can go on about these sorts of measures in this bill, which at the end of the day really amount to bluster and headlines, but if we are going to be serious about truancy then we have to look at our schools, homes and communities, not look to Canberra. These are state responsibilities. We have to hold the states accountable for what they are paid money to do. The minute we allow them to walk away from those responsibilities is the day we allow them to walk away from our responsibilities to our own children. (Time expired)

Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like most members in this House, I have a deep interest in education. I genuinely believe that education is essential in how we actually perceive the development of our society for the future. I am genuinely committed to improving the educational outcomes of our young people. It is a simple fact that, if children are to benefit from education, they must attend school. Kids of school age must attend school. Education is the key to developing the potential of our kids. To deprive a child of education, to me, is nothing more than neglect, and one that will continually serve to deprive development of a child right through to adulthood, with consequential effects on a community generally.

I make it clear from the outset of my contribution on the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008 that I am concerned about the number of children not attending school for various reasons. Any policy measure which purports to deliver more of the same, as the member for Cook might have us do, quite frankly, is not acceptable. Central to any policy reform in this area must be a focus on children. The Deputy Prime Minister noted in her second reading speech:

... it is estimated that up to 20,000 Australian children of compulsory school age may not be enrolled in school. Many more are not attending school regularly enough to meet any reasonable benchmark.

We must act now to transform this statistic. Education is a priority of this government and that can be seen through this legislation. Of more concern to me is that this is not just another statistic. The 20,000 kids who are not enrolled for school, and the many more who are not attending school regularly, are real kids who are at risk of losing their future.

This bill is designed to increase the enrolment and regular attendance of kids of compulsory school age and to improve parents’ recognition of the importance and benefits education has in respect of their child’s development through to their later life and the outcomes that brings in employment, financial independence and social inclusion. This bill introduces the concept of mutual obligation as opposed simply to a conceptual position of rights based welfare. Why? That is pretty simple: this is because of kids. This bill will introduce conditions on the recipient of income support whereby parents are obliged to ensure that their children of compulsory school age are enrolled in school and, what is more, that they take reasonable efforts to ensure their children attend school regularly. As a final step, this bill provides for those parents who fail their responsibilities of enrolling their children in school or having them attend regularly. Only after all efforts have been pursued, and in extreme circumstances, parents will put their welfare payments at risk. As I said, this bill introduces a concept of obligation. No-one is trying to hide behind that. I think the member for Cook had the view that the responsibility is somebody else’s and that we should impose that on state governments. I am sure that they also have responsibilities, but we ourselves have a very clear responsibility for welfare payments and income support payments. What we are saying through this legislation is that we intend to impose a responsibility on recipients of those payments. Their obligation in respect of their children is to ensure that they have the benefit of gaining an education.

In this bill it is proposed to trial this welfare based approach to truancy in eight communities. This will be a genuine trial. There is no predetermined outcome with it. Quite frankly, simply doing nothing is not acceptable. All it means is that kids will continue to miss out. That is simply not an acceptable position for us. And we are not just talking about kids in Indigenous communities; we are talking about all kids. At the end of the day, we want children to go to school. It is vital in setting themselves up for the rest of their lives. It is a fundamental responsibility of parents to make sure that their children attend school. I understand that there may be excuses from time to time. Some of those excuses may be acceptable; some are otherwise.

Let me tell you a little bit about my community. I live in and represent people in the south-west of Sydney. People would probably refer to it as a working class community. We have 41 government schools, nine Catholic systemic schools and eight non-government schools, all of which have very committed principals and teachers who do a wonderful job of educating the kids of my area. Generally, the kids who participate in education there do relatively well, as you would expect in any area. The dedication of the teachers is second to none. As a matter of fact, in some areas that are probably a little bit more sensitive, specifically those based around housing commission areas, I am overwhelmed by the commitment I see from principals. These are schools such as Sarah Redfern High School, Robert Townsend High School and others that put in day in and day out. They do wonders to ensure that these kids participate in and actually benefit from education. I know the principal of James Meehan High School, Gail Taylor, and I know much work goes on out of school through her facilities in Macquarie Fields to ensure that kids do not fall through the cracks.

Education, quite frankly, is the key to escaping the welfare cycle. It seems to me that simply doing nothing is going to put at risk the future of young people and will probably commit people to another generation within that basic cycle of welfare. Research suggests that students who are absent from school are those at greatest risk of dropping out of school early, becoming long-term unemployed, becoming dependent on welfare and interacting with the criminal justice system. That is the research and I do not think we need to challenge that. We would each know that from our own electorates. Education is what empowers young people to participate fully in our communities as they develop. I know for a fact that the majority of parents in my electorate are doing the right thing because they believe in education. I would particularly like to acknowledge that I have a very high proportion of immigrants in my electorate, particularly Bangladeshi and Islander immigrants. I take my hat off to those parents. In coming to this country they know the importance of changing outcomes in their lives and in their children’s lives. They are quite forthright in their commitment to education. They know education is the tool for breaking the poverty cycle.

On the other hand, I know there are also some parents who are neglecting their children for all sorts of reasons. Unfortunately, some of their problems are now being passed on from one generation to the next. The preliminary findings of the ongoing School Attendance Project show that reasons for poor school attendance essentially fall into three major categories: school related factors; home and student related factors; and demographic factors. The demographic factors include the socioeconomic status of the student’s family, and particular issues have also been identified in communities and families with a high level of dysfunction and welfare dependence.

There are a number of relevant international studies that support the correlation between low socioeconomic status for individuals and poor school attendance. For example, a recent one was a report from the National Centre for Children in Poverty in the US, compiled in October 2007, entitled A national portrait of chronic absenteeism in the early grades. This report found that the lower the family income, the higher the student absentee rate. Living in a low-income family generally increased the risk of high or chronic absenteeism. More recently, a report commissioned in Ireland concluded that a social mix is predictive of truancy patterns, with students attending schools in disadvantaged communities significantly more likely to truant than those attending fee-paying schools. I cannot put that down to anything more than taking an interest in the education of one’s children. As I said, in my area a significant proportion of the population are immigrants, and they make it very clear that a significant aspect of their family’s plight in their country of origin was that they lacked education. These are probably the most profound advocates of education that I have ever seen out here.

We cannot keep on talking about kids as though they are statistics. The kids that are missing out are missing out not only now—and not only tomorrow—but also on their futures generally, and that is why what we do is so important. It is not, as the member for Cook was saying, that it is sending a message. This is actually making a real statement about parental responsibility, and we can make that statement about those parents who are presently receiving welfare. My personal view is that this position should be put for all parents. Regrettably, there is no course that parents must do before they conceive a child. It seems to me that a lot must be learned by parents in bringing up kids to make sure that we give them every right and every chance to fully participate in our community as they grow.

A series of articles in the Australian this year focused on suburbs where there is intergenerational welfare dependency. An article on 28 July highlighted one suburb in my electorate. The article states:

The issue of welfare is one spoken about openly in Macquarie Fields. One Salvation Army welfare officer says: The education of people in Macquarie Fields is education in the welfare system.

With that way of thinking, something must change if we are going to move on from this cycle of dependency so as not to condemn future generations of Australians to a lifestyle of welfare addiction.

I found out that 17.9 per cent of the people in my electorate are infants or primary or secondary students. I would like to think that the more we can do for people in that category the more that we will be the society that we dream about, not only for our future but also for the future of our kids. I would also like to remind people that not all children in Macquarie Fields re-enter the welfare cycle, but certainly some do. It is those ‘some’ that I am committed to helping.

The article in the Australian interviewed a Macquarie Fields resident, Julia Willmott. She indicated that she is committed to improving the situation in her local community. I note that she welcomes the attempt by the Australian government to reform welfare so as to try to prevent future generations from becoming, in her words, ‘welfare hooked’.

A person mentioned in another of the articles is a young woman, Wendy Cocks, who is also a resident in Macquarie Fields. Unfortunately, she has already had four of her children removed from her care by authorities in New South Wales because of her addiction to amphetamines, or ‘speed’. I was touched when Wendy spoke out very bravely about her belief that she has beaten her drug addiction. She has been drug-free for the last two years. She is hoping that she can keep her fifth child, who is aged seven. Wendy only went to year 7. This did not empower her with the ability to gain employment, further education or anything else. Wendy left school early and this has locked her into a life of welfare dependency. When Wendy was asked about her ambitions for her seven-year-old child, she replied that she wanted them to have a good education. She went on to say that she hoped ‘he not be a ratbag’. I thought it was interesting that what she wanted for her child was something that she had not had—a good education.

Another person referred to in this article is Mathew Boan. He is also a resident of Macquarie Fields. Due to the curse of drugs, along with stress and an inability to break the cycle of despair, he lost custody of his children. Ordinarily, you would expect these people to speak out against the system; they certainly speak out against certain aspects of the system from time to time. But when Mathew was confronted with the reality of the quarantining plan, within the spirit of this legislation, his position was: ‘I would have liked that.’ Mr Boan took the view that had this been in existence at the time when he was having his problems it might have caused him to sit up and take note. It might have caused him to spend less money on drugs and other vices and to have regard for his kids. Hindsight is all well and good, but here is a person who is freely coming out now and saying that this plan might have caused him to wake up. Once again, he acknowledges the benefit of education, which was something that he had missed out on.

In the brief time remaining to me, I would like to mention a couple of other people who have made a contribution to Macquarie Fields. Andrew McDonald is a local paediatrician, who has worked and lived in the area for almost 20 years. I am proud to say that, since March 2007, he has been the state Labor member for Macquarie Fields. In the article, Dr McDonald is quoted as saying:

The day the new Federal Government spoke about welfare reform “it was just like the fall of the Berlin Wall—it was music to my ears”.

Further in the article, he is quoted as saying that he welcomes any examination of the way welfare works and what makes him sad is seeing kids without options. According to Dr McDonald:

You see a kid with potential who doesn’t have options and the most common reason for that is social dislocation, being itinerant, away from your family, away from the extended family. Family breakdown and lack of options is the thing that I find most distressing.

These stories are occurring right smack bang in the middle of my electorate. My electorate is probably not too dissimilar to many other electorates. As I said at the outset, Macquarie Fields is a working-class suburb, and the people who live there want the best for their kids. In the past, people might have referred to that notion as being aspirational. I think it is almost incumbent on us as parents—(Time expired)

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to rise today and speak about this bill. As well, I want to pick up some of the points that the member for Werriwa raised. As a father of two young children who attend the local state primary school in my electorate, I would like to try and raise my children guided by the example that my parents set me. Trying to be the best possible person I can be, I consider the example provided by my parents and try to improve on it. I think this is the way of the world. As a father, I know that if I lie, if I swear or if I cheat, those are exactly the sorts of examples that my children are going to take forward in their dealings with everyday life as they grow up. I also know that, if I live my life by the highest personal standards and provide good examples to my children, the chances are going to be far better that they will grow up to be good and productive members of society. There are of course no guarantees that they will always make the right decisions, but the odds are greatly improved when they are shown a good example.

So, when I see parents providing bad examples to their children, I really do fear for the future of those children. For example, I have witnessed children being verbally abused by their parents, with the f-word used loudly. It is little wonder that those children grow up to think that it is common and even appropriate to use foul and offensive language in dealing with their peers or with other persons they come into contact with. I recently intervened in a fight in a park in my electorate. It was a fight between a number of females from two different racial groups. It always surprises me when I hear graphic and foul swearing from children. In particular, there was a girl of around 10 years old who was using not only the f-word but another extremely offensive word that is even beyond that one.

It is my view that parents have a fundamental job to do. It is their priority to look after and raise their children. It comes before all other priorities and, while there may be a debate as to the methods used or the actions taken along the way, providing a safe and healthy home physically and morally is beyond question. A child will have a great chance of reaching their potential if they grow up in this sort of positive and nurturing world. No child should grow up in a home where they witness illicit drug use, drug abuse, pornography, sexual activity or crime, because these are examples of where parents or carers are failing their children.

It was with this philosophy in mind that I made some comments at the doors of the House of Representatives back in February. I said that there are places right now in this country, in the suburbs, towns and communities, where children should be taken away from their parents because these children are at risk. I have just given some examples of such risks. It is my view that infertility is now such a problem for so many couples in this country that there are many homes where children would be loved and nurtured and where they would be far more secure. I stand by this position and oppose the view that there is something desirable about a child remaining with biological parents when those people place the child at risk by having illicit or illegal activities as priorities above their children.

I would now like to come back to the substance of the bill—that is, education, which is really, in my mind, about opportunity and the chance for a person to reach their potential. When I go to schools in my electorate I like to say to the children, particularly the primary school children, that one day any one of them could grow up to be Prime Minister, to be a pilot with Qantas or another airline, to be a brain surgeon or a doctor or anything. I like to say that and I enjoy saying it in the schools in the lower socioeconomic areas of my electorate because I genuinely believe it. I believe it because I have faith in this country and the opportunities of education, training and employment that this great democracy holds out to each and every one of us. Regardless of the colour of the person’s skin or their religion, if an Australian wants to work hard to achieve their goals the means are there to achieve success.

Australians, of course, respect hard workers, but I also say to these children that they should not just wait for success to be handed to them; they must work hard to achieve their goals. Again, I say these things to children because they are true. I have no time for those who want to talk about the past and seek excuses for young people not trying or accepting failure or defeat. I have no time for those who stake their future on the big Lotto win. I believe that it was Gary Player, the golfer, who said:

The more I practice, the luckier I get.

I believe that it is accurate to say that destiny is in the palm of our hands. The principle, therefore, is that if you work you can achieve your goals.

For a young person the main work is education, which begins with the building blocks of literacy and numeracy that set up the acquisition of higher knowledge across the arts and sciences, leading to applied skills able to be used to produce work. Education, therefore, is the basis for achievement in life and a route to a life of effective working rather than welfare dependence. This is an opportunity to achieve goals, to acquire assets, to live a life you want to live. But children need to grow up seeing their parents or carers demonstrating a commitment to and encouragement of education. Parents are failing their children if they do not encourage them to go to school, learn and achieve to their potential. This has to happen from birth, when parents play with their children, teach them to make sandcastles, build with blocks—in many ways children just learn from their parents. This has to happen when they first start at school. The child has to be encouraged to learn, and a positive attitude towards education is needed firstly by the parents so that the child grows up knowing that this is a normal and integral part of life. Homework must be done and ambition must be encouraged. Parents should not only talk about the obstacles but also concentrate on the opportunities. This is the duty and responsibility of parents.

I was recently in the pharmacy at Koondoola, a suburb in my electorate. I was speaking to the pharmacist, and he told me that one day a mother had come in with a number of children. The pharmacist asked why the children were not at school, to which the mother replied, ‘They didn’t want to go; I gave them the day off,’ as she laughed it away. The 12-year-old girl wanted to enter a competition in the shop to guess the number of jelly beans. The pharmacist said, ‘Just guess the number and write your name down.’ She was 12 years old and she could not do it.

I really wonder about such parents. What do they think is going to happen in the future? Who are they going to blame for an illiterate child? Are they going to blame society, the education system or the principal of the school for not telling them that education is important? It would be great if we had a society where parents did not let down their children with neglectful attitudes. It would be good if parents first looked to remedy their own faults before trying to blame others or creating excuses of some or other disadvantage. Sadly, sometimes they just do not know any better.

Ultimately it brings us back to what can be done to save children from the negative influence of parents who have the wrong attitude towards education. This bill offers an option that may be proceeded with only in the case of those on welfare payments in some circumstances. Suspension or cancellation may occur. It would appear that the schools would have to be told, or know, of which family was on welfare payments and then make the decision to inform the department. The department could then issue a notice requiring improvement in the attendance of the child. In the past, when the coalition government tried to get these sorts of figures from Western Australia, I heard that the Australian Education Union refused, saying that such information was bound by privacy restrictions. It will be interesting to see if the AEU still feel the same way now that their team mates are in government.

I do not oppose this bill, but I do wonder whether it will be effective. I expect, of course, that the minister will regularly publish the improvement in attendance figures so that the parliament can judge the success of the measure. What does concern me is the truancy of other children: what is being done to address the truancy problems of children whose parents are not on welfare payments? Is the minister saying that, with regard to their children’s education, the only bad parents are those on welfare payments? This is a big leap to saying that truancy is confined to welfare recipient families. I am not sure if it was the minister’s intention to scapegoat just one element of our society. I do believe we need to think about the risk of truancy to any child and what can be done.

The trouble for this federal government is that, by addressing the whole problem, it then clearly becomes a state responsibility. It is pretty hard for the minister to blame John Howard or the former coalition government for this problem. Yet we have already heard from the Parliamentary Secretary for Early Childhood Education and Childcare, who has laid the blame at the feet of the Howard government. Clearly, she claims and believes—falsely—that if a young person does not turn up to Logan High School, the Queensland state run school, that is the fault of the former coalition government. How can that be? The Howard government was there for national testing and standards. The Howard government was there for $700 vouchers to help children attain standards. But how is it that a child not showing up to Logan High School is somehow John Howard’s fault?

Consistent with the ‘no blame’ attitude to any Labor government, there is of course no responsibility or accountability for those whose task it is to address this problem. I sometimes wonder whether state ministers for education are even needed in this country with the way this federal government is acting by not holding them to account for their jobs. In Western Australia, the schools only seem important to the Carpenter government for photo opportunities and to make announcements for the coming election. Morley Senior High School has been in desperate need of a complete renovation of a student toilet block that is old and decrepit. Over the last 7½ years something could have been done by the Labor state government in response to my letters, the P&C’s letters, the school’s letters and letters from my state colleague, the Hon. Donna Faragher MLC; yet it takes this election campaign, just three days away now, to see the state Labor government actually making an announcement. I think that the people of the state electorate of Morley would be very cynical that the Labor Party interest in their high school exists only at election time.

It is a bit like the announcement of the new policy of cooling systems for schools made at Landsdale Primary School this week. Over recent years, the Carpenter Labor government was happy for P&Cs to save up and fundraise for air conditioning or to use the Howard government’s Investing in Our Schools program to help pay for that air conditioning, but yet again in the last few weeks before the election it suddenly makes an announcement about cooling for schools. Surprise, surprise! It is election time. It is probably no surprise that these easy announcements, these glossy brochure photo opportunities, are the priority for the Carpenter Labor government in Western Australia, while it ignores fundamental problems such as truancy and school maintenance.

The neglect of key issues, such as truancy, by the state government is not going to be fixed up by this narrowly focused bill—this tough on welfare recipients illusion. We already know that the Minister for Employment Participation has ordered Centrelink and job agencies to back off on negligent job seekers. The minister said:

We are not going to allow children to be affected adversely because of a breach by the parent.

I am all for accountability; I am all for responsibility. Parents have a duty that must be fulfilled. They must be held accountable for their actions and for their omissions. If this bill helps reduce truancy, then great—let it roll on. But when are the states going to take action? This federal government, in the name of stopping the ‘blame game’, does not hold the states responsible for doing their core business. If these state education ministers do not want to do their jobs, then they should get out of the way. In Western Australia let people like Colin Barnett and Peter Collier, as Premier and education minister, get on with the real jobs and get education back on track.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008. People that know me well would know that, by nature, I do not really favour punitive approaches. Those that know me who have heard this bill described that way might wonder why I am standing to support it. I would like to explain to those people that I, too, was concerned when I first heard about this bill in brief. I went digging, well and truly, into the detail of it. I found a bill that is not punitive by nature—in fact, quite the opposite. It provides a quite interesting approach to assisting parents who are clearly struggling with the role of parenthood. True, it has that punitive action of the suspension of welfare payments for 13 weeks, and that is probably the loudest bit, the bit that is most easy to understand and the part of the bill that has attracted the most attention. But it also has quite interesting ways for the community at large to identify children who have currently, effectively, fallen off the earth—fallen out of the system altogether—and to identify children who because they are not attending school. It provides a capacity for Centrelink to assist parents to do better in a range of ways over a considerable period of time and, as a very last resort, it provides the capacity for Centrelink to remove welfare payments until the parents comply. I would say that it also allows Centrelink to reinstate those payments with back pay when the parents do comply, in most circumstances.

I would like to spend the time that I have explaining what I see as the positives of this bill and what protections are in the bill to guard our community against those excesses that the critics are most afraid of. For a start, there are at least 20,000 children in Australia who are not attending school—I say ‘at least’ because it is very difficult to collect figures on children who are not enrolled at school. I think everybody would agree, both critics of the bill and those who support the bill, that as a community we must act to find ways to improve the lot of those children. I think we would all agree, including those who support the bill, that there are a range of reasons, explanations and circumstances, and sometimes just excuses, why parents fail to provide their children with access to school.

There are no doubt a small number of parents who just do not care but there are also others afflicted with drug and alcohol addictions, people with mental illnesses, some parents who are so drowning in the role of parenthood that they are unable to cope, people suffering depression and people just lacking the skills of parenting. Of course, some parents have children with issues of their own that elevate the degree of difficulty of parenthood to the point that they simply cannot cope. I think we would also all agree that it is best that we have options to deal with the range of issues and conditions which leads to such bad parenting and that we have very careful case management that allows for flexibility in the application of those strategies. In this bill we have that. This is not simply a punitive bill. It allows for the identification of children who have fallen out of the system; it allows for the assessment of the conditions under which those children live with their parents; and it creates pathways to assist those parents to improve their parenting skills; and, as a last resort, it allows the punitive action of suspending welfare payments, with the incentive there as well of the reinstatement with back pay of those welfare payments when the parent complies.

It is, of course, the last resort that worries people—that suspension of payments. I would like to point out two things about that. Firstly, the suspension of payments is not unique to these circumstances. Throughout the Centrelink system that mechanism is used in a range of ways. There has been at times, under the guidance of different governments, a quite aggressive, one-size-fits-all approach to that; and there is no doubt that, when that approach has been taken, it is an extremely aggressive and destructive method. But that is not always the case. There are cases in the Centrelink system where that last resort is used with quite some sensitivity and with effect. Also, there is already a last resort at state level, which is called prosecution, for failing to send your children to school. It is not something that historically has been used much in recent years, but since April this year in New South Wales, where there have been legislative changes, there have been 154 attendance prosecutions launched for 191 children. That is 10 times the number that were launched in the same period last year. My personal view, and I suspect others would agree with me, is that that particular punitive approach which is growing so quickly in New South Wales is a far harsher regime than the one which I am describing. In this bill, as I said, suspension of payments is a last resort. A pathway to that last resort is available to Centrelink from that identification of the child who is not enrolled. Many opportunities will be provided over a long period of time to assist parents to move themselves off that path and put their children back in school.

There are two essential elements to the strategy. The first is enrolment in school itself and the second is attendance. In seeking to improve both, this bill introduces Centrelink into the equation. That is really quite interesting because it expands the responsibility for educating our children from just the parents and the school to a larger organisation within the community. I think that is incredibly important. In our communities there are two institutions that wear the greater problems that surround them. One is hospitals and the other is schools. With hospitals, for example, if there are not enough aged-care beds, if there are not enough community nurses, if there are not enough doctors working 24 hours or if you cannot get enough bulk-billing then the hospitals actually wear the consequences of failure in policy surrounding that area. It is the same with schools. If there is insufficient attention paid to supporting people with mental health issues or with increasing drug and alcohol problems, or if there is insufficient attention paid to large policy failures like the decisions made long ago to build large public-housing estates, then all of these issues come to rest in our schools—they are first visible to the broader community in schools. But schools do not cause them and schools alone cannot solve them. So I am incredibly glad to see that the responsibility for assisting parents and children in this area is being expanded to the greater community.

It was not always possible for Centrelink to be involved. This bill makes it possible. Back in 2005 there was a trial of a welfare truancy program. In fact there have been a number of recent trials but the one I am referring to in 2005 was at the Halls Creek school in Western Australia. The remote area service and Centrelink commenced a trial of a no school, no welfare program and around 16 parenting payment recipients and their children with attendance problems were asked to attend an interview at Centrelink. Those who did not turn up risked having their payments suspended. A number of recipients had their payments suspended during the two-month period when the trial was running. But the trial was stopped because of concerns that there were no provisions under the SSAA to suspend payments for failure to turn up to an interview when the interview was not regarding payment eligibility or participation related issues. In other words, the trial was stopped because Centrelink did not actually have the authority at the time to participate in this area.

This bill brings Centrelink into the picture and it does it in the following way. The first element is enrolment. All parents receiving income support who have children of compulsory school age who receive income support and who live in the selected locations for this trial will need to provide Centrelink with information about their child’s school enrolment. This is not just about one parent. Any parent who has custody of a child for at least one day a week will have to provide Centrelink with that information. Parents who fail to provide enrolment information without a reasonable excuse will need to engage further with Centrelink and Centrelink will engage further with them. Those parents may have their income support payments suspended until they enrol their child or provide information acknowledging that that has occurred. For that first stage of simply enrolling your child, there is a rapid imposition of that punitive action. That stage involves simply enrolling your child or having a reasonable excuse as to why you have not.

The second element, which is attendance, is much more complex, as you would all appreciate. Parents receiving income support will also be expected to ensure that their children are regularly attending school. In instances where a child is not attending regularly, the relevant state authority can inform Centrelink. At this point, Centrelink is able to and is required to interact with the parent or parents to develop a plan which improves the parenting capacity and which ensures that the children are enrolled or attend school.

Centrelink must now help parents by raising the issue through letters, phone contact, referrals to appropriate services and Centrelink social worker support and must give parents the incentive to do their best to ensure their child is receiving the best possible education. Parents who remain in contact with Centrelink and remain on that path, who work with their child’s school and who do their best to keep their kids in school will continue to receive the financial and other assistance that they require. But the government will not stand by and do nothing if the parents are enabling their kids to wag school or are not participating in improving their capacity to be good parents. Parents who are not taking reasonable steps to improve their child’s school attendance may have their income support payments suspended until such time as they can show they are doing so. So, again, there is a pathway between the identification of a child and that last resort where Centrelink provides considerable assistance to parents.

There is debate on the last resort, as there should be. There should always be debate on issues of children and education. Children, of course, do not wait. A year in an adult’s life is one thing, but a year in the life of a five-year-old or a six-year-old impacts on that life forever. So we cannot stand around and wait for adults to get it right. Some believe that the program will work and some are quite dismissive of it.

I wish to point out again that this is a trial and a very important one. Results in the selected locations will be carefully monitored and evaluated to provide an evidence base for further action. So if this program is expanded nationally it will be done based on the evidence from this trial. As I said earlier, there have been other trials and the results have been quite interesting. In the case of the Halls Creek trial in 2005, which suspended welfare payments for those persons who failed to attend an interview, there was a reported increase in school attendance rates from 54 per cent to 80 per cent, which is quite significant, although I would point out that the numbers in that trial were quite small. A subsequent trial—the engaging families trial—also involving very small numbers, did not see improvement in school attendance rates. The results of those two trials were mixed.

Some critics of the bill state that case management, rather than sanctions, is most effective in preventing truancy. But, again, this bill does not provide for one or the other; it actually provides for a combination of both. It provides Centrelink with both options. It allows for the identification of children who are at risk of falling outside the system. It allows for case management and the development of strategies with parents to improve their parenting abilities. It provides sanctions as a last resort. There are three steps. Two out of three are relatively easy. Identifying the children is relatively easy and the last resort is actually easy. The most significant part in this bill is the part that allows Centrelink to engage with parents. That middle part will develop over time as well, as we look at best practice and we identify mechanisms to assist families in distress. The legislation puts in place the capacity for case management and the options available to assist the full range of parents to do better in their parenting. I commend the bill to the House.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In joining this debate on the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008 I want to associate myself with all the remarks that have been made from this side of the House from the opposition’s perspective. As has been said, the opposition are not opposing this bill. The principle of mutual obligation was introduced into this parliament by the former government. It did so against the strong opposition of those who now form the government. But as previous speakers have pointed out, the current government’s approach to this bill highlights a chaotic policy approach on their part, it highlights inconsistency and it highlights something that we have seen in the now almost 10 months of the Rudd Labor government—that is, an incredible focus on announcements and very little focus on detail or implementation. We have seen it in so many areas. We have seen it with Fuelwatch and through so many other areas: the real focus is the headline, the announcement; but, when it comes to actually implementing the things that they announce, there is always trouble.

We do not oppose this bill. We absolutely agree with the principle that it is the responsibility of every parent to ensure their son and daughter are at school. That is a principle that unites all members of this parliament, and every measure necessary to ensure that kids attend school obviously needs to be taken. When a child is deprived of an education at school, they are deprived of rights. They are deprived of their best opportunities. They are deprived of all of those things that will give them an equal say and a great future. That is why it is absolutely vital that every child be at school and every parent meet their responsibility to have their kids at school.

However, when this measure was announced—or should I say reannounced—a week or so ago, the public were entitled to be sceptical about the government’s motives and about what their real purpose was. We saw that in the announcement itself. It was not an announcement—or reannouncement—from the minister here in the parliament. It was not a ministerial statement. It was announced in the Daily Telegraph, which is fine for the Daily Telegraph but very clearly reminiscent of that new comedy series which those opposite obviously believe to be a documentary: The Hollowmen. Clearly this was dreamed up on the Sunday afternoon at the Lodge. Something needed to be announced and the solution was: ‘We’ll reannounce something that was in the budget and we’ll ring Malcolm Farr.’ That goes to the priorities and motives of this government.

The member for Parramatta, who just spoke, talked about state truancy laws and said, rather casually, that up until now they had not been used very much. That is the nub of this debate in so many ways. It is the law of every state and territory that children attend school, yet we have heard nothing about that from those opposite. We just heard then, very casually, that these state laws had not been used very much, as if they were some sort of optional advisory requirement. Those opposite cannot bring themselves to say that the state laws are either ineffective or not being administered. If all of those state laws were administered, we would not have 20,000 people, as the minister says, not attending school. They casually say, ‘Well, the state laws are not administered; that’s a shame,’ as though the bus did not turn up and that is just the way it is. Those opposite turn a blind eye. Forget the fact that all the state governments are Labor governments; they should be honest enough to say that the failure to administer state truancy laws is an absolute disgrace. Did we hear even a mention of that when this was reannounced? Of course we did not.

The other point previous speakers have made in this debate is about inconsistency. This is the problem those opposite have when they are in a Hollowman huddle making up announcements for the next day. As they met, presumably at the Lodge, on that Sunday before they rang Malcolm Farr, they forgot that, on the issue of suspending payments for those people who are on unemployment benefits and who refuse to attend job interviews, they had taken a directly opposite approach. As the shadow minister next to me, the member for Boothby, has pointed out, the new minister has acted and has criticised the process whereby someone on unemployment benefits who refuses their mutual obligation to attend job interviews will no longer have their payments suspended. At the very time he is reversing this position and arguing how important it is to act, two of his other ministers are racing past him on the other side of the road, heading in the other direction. That itself highlights the chaotic nature in which this government makes policy and the reasons why they make announcements.

We see it in the lack of detail in this announcement. This is the truly amazing thing with this reannouncement. The ministers opposite say it was first announced on budget night, and that is true. But three months later it was reannounced through Malcolm Farr in the Daily Telegraph. There have been three months to do all sorts of things, but still there is no detail about the regulations—that is to be worked out later. Even in those three months, the minister responsible has done precious little work. First it was announced on the budget night, and that was the end of it as far as the minister was concerned. Then it needed to be reannounced to occupy some headlines on a Monday morning before a parliamentary sitting week. When we look to the detail, we find that all of the key detail on reasonable excuses—on how this legislation will actually work—is not there yet. That is all to be developed in due course.

Amongst those opposite speaking in this debate—we are told through the media were members on the back bench concerned with this legislation. Those speaking in this debate cannot in good faith look their constituents in the eye and not mention the failure of state governments. We are going to support this bill; we are going to vote for it. But those opposite should also be banging the drum on state government failure. It is important that every single child attend school. This measure is designed to put pressure on those parents who are on unemployment benefits. Only the state truancy laws and their effective administration can have the effect for which they were introduced—to put pressure on all parents who do not meet their responsibilities.

Those opposite cannot say that they value the education of every child, and that is why they are putting this bill forward to deal with children of parents on unemployment benefits. At the same time, those opposite are covering up and concealing the states’ failure to implement truancy laws that apply to all parents. I think there are some members on the other side who believe that. I know it will not be in the dot points that are circulated by the Prime Minister’s office. It will not be in the spin manual. It will not be in the speakers notes. But I do have some faith that there are some over there who do believe that every child has a right to an education and that state truancy laws should be enforced.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to make a contribution to this debate. The Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008 is all about making sure that more children go to school. It is also about making sure that parents fulfil their responsibility to make sure this happens. As I said in my first contribution in this place, education is the most powerful cause for good in this country. It is what gave a boy from Cabramatta Public School the chance to speak in this parliament, and it is what gives the children at Cabramatta Public School today the chance to read, write and do everything that they have ever dreamed of.

I am still a regular visitor to my old primary school. John Rice, the principal of that school, tells a very revealing story about the power of education. He tells me that 80 per cent of the children who turn up at kindergarten every year can barely read or write. A few of them can spell their name. But, within three years, when they sit the basic skills test, those children are outperforming the rest of the state in literacy and numeracy. It is a powerful story and evidence of the importance of education. It is education that gives these kids a chance in life. It is education that breaks the bonds of disadvantage that otherwise would bind them.

Unfortunately, kids from disadvantaged backgrounds do not always get a crack at education. The Prime Minister understands this. He spoke about it at some length in the Press Club last week. In that speech, he said:

In Australia, socioeconomic status is more strongly associated with educational achievement than it should be.

He went on and referred to OECD research which found:

… students in the lowest socioeconomic quartile lagged those in the highest socioeconomic quartile by 2½ years.

Further, he said:

If Australia is to be the land genuinely of the fair go, we must do a better job in ensuring that every young Australian gets a decent education.

He is spot on. It is a question of fairness. Fairness is at the core of what we believe in and it dictates what this government will do in office. Follow the thread. We believe in fairness in the workplace; that is why we are abolishing Work Choices. We are committed to closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. We are equally committed to helping the 100,000 people around this country who will be homeless tonight—that of itself is a national disgrace. We are also committed to helping people with a mortgage to keep a roof over their head. Fairness is also key to what we are doing in education. The Deputy Prime Minister said in her second reading speech that up to 20,000 Australian kids are currently not attending school regularly. That is not acceptable. It just entrenches the type of disadvantage I was talking about. That is why this bill is so important: it gives these kids a chance. It will do something for these 20,000 kids.

This is not just my opinion. Last week, one of my constituents, a gentleman named Tony Re, wrote to me about these matters. Tony has been a schoolteacher in my local community for many decades, and he recently retired as the regional director of education for south-west Sydney. I value his opinion on these and many other measures, and I think it is important that his contribution and experience be incorporated into this debate. This is the letter from Tony:

Dear Jason

I wish to give my full support to the decision by the government to halt welfare payments to the extremely small number of parents who deliberately prevent their children from attending school.

For most people, it is incomprehensible that some parents would do this to their offspring. We find it very difficult to put ourselves into the position of these parents. Unfortunately such parents exist as I discovered when I was the Director of Education for a large cluster of schools in the New South Wales state school system.

The reasons these parents give for keeping their children from school can be quite bizarre but I am unwilling to outline the most unusual as it could be a breach of privacy. At times they can be humorous, but usually they are very saddening.

Action that can be taken to force the parents to send their children to school is actually quite limited. The threat of a jail sentence achieves very little. I found it very frustrating dealing with these parents. A return to school would be negotiated but the parents would change their mind within a short time. Very unfortunately, some of these parents need a dire threat before they act correctly in the interests of their children.

I accept that the parenting skills of parents who do this to their children are often limited and that their lives are generally quite dysfunctional. I assume that these parents are, or will, receive assistance from the appropriate agencies. I expect the threat will achieve the desired result and that there will be an absolute minimum of cases, if any, when welfare payments will actually be halted. This might be the one way that we can break the cycle of educational poverty for some children.

Yours sincerely

Tony Re

27th August 2008

As I said, Tony has some experience in these matters. He has worked at the coalface. He probably knows these things, I think I can say quite fairly, better than anyone here. I am pretty lucky. I am the first person in my family to have gone to university, but I did grow up in a household that appreciated and understood the importance of education. I find it very hard to imagine what life must be like growing up in a household where education is not valued—the type of home that Tony describes in his letter. I hope that he is right. I hope that the monetary implications of the measures that are outlined in this bill will help ensure that more parents take their child’s education seriously and that it forces them to give school attendance the important attention that it well and truly deserves.

The Deputy Prime Minister said when she introduced the bill last week:

The majority of parents do the right thing by enrolling their children in school and endeavouring to support their children’s attendance at school. They do everything in their power to make sure their children are enrolled and regularly attending school. This legislation acknowledges the efforts of these parents by placing a minimal impost on them.

However, for parents who refuse to send their children to school, this bill gives Centrelink the power to suspend payments to force parents to fulfil their responsibilities to their children. This in itself is not a new innovation to the transfer payment system. It is already available to Centrelink in a number of different circumstances, and it is designed to ensure that the person who receives the payment meets their appropriate responsibilities.

As the representative of an electorate with many families who rely on these types of payments from week to week, I am obviously interested in how the provisions of the bill will work in practice. The bill does not target parents who take their kids to the Easter Show on the last day of term; it is about long-term unsatisfactory attendance. Schools currently work with parents in addressing these sorts of problems but, when a school is frustrated by a lack of cooperation from the parents, the school will now be able to notify Centrelink of the problem. From there, Centrelink will work with parents in receipt of payments, offering them assistance to overcome the barriers to their child’s enrolment and attendance at school.

The suspension of payments in effect is a last resort. I hope this power is never used, but if its existence breaks through in just one case, if it means there is one more child learning in a classroom, then I think it is worth a try. If 20,000 kids are not at school at the moment then obviously something is not working, and doing nothing is just not good enough. So it is worth a try. Any family that relies on transfer payments as their primary source of income is going to find a suspension of payments really difficult; I appreciate that. But hopefully it will sheet home the seriousness of school attendance. If progress is made towards a resolution within the 13-week suspension time, then the parents will be able to have their payments paid back to the beginning of the suspension period. That is a good thing. I think that is fair.

I know that sometimes, despite the best efforts of parents, some young people just refuse to go to school. Parents might wake them up, pack their lunchbox and get them off to school—even drive them to school—but the child may never find themselves inside the classroom and just refuse to cooperate. In these circumstances, parents will not be punished. If you take reasonable steps to ensure that your child attends school, then you will have satisfied the requirements.

I think a trial is the right approach. If the bill works, it will allow for it to be rolled out across the country into communities like the one I represent, and I welcome that. A trial is an evidence based approach. The best evidence is real life. So I welcome the decision of the minister to introduce this legislation and look forward to the results of that trial.

Any bill that supports disadvantaged kids in our education system has my support. It would be remiss of a Blaxland boy to do otherwise. I welcome the government’s commitment to education, and I am encouraged by its commitment to ensuring disadvantage does not determine opportunity. When these two ends come together, as they do in this bill, we get policy that will greatly benefit my local community.

The Prime Minister talked about this at the Press Club last week, but he did not just talk about it. He did not just talk about helping the most disadvantaged schools in our community; he promised to back it with real money—half a million dollars for the average sized school. This is what will help turn disadvantaged schools around, and this is what will help ensure what the Prime Minister said he wants:

… the next generation of Australians to be the best educated, best skilled, best trained in the world.

That is real reform. That is economic reform. And it is big ambition. But I believe in the ambition of a guy who was once a kid in a disadvantaged school in rural Queensland. The kids of Blaxland need their political leaders to have this kind of ambition. That is why I support the measures in this bill that will allow the benefits of education to be shared by all. I commend the bill to the House.

Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure, Roads and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank you for the opportunity, Mr Deputy Speaker. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to speak this evening to the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008, because it is something that I have been deeply concerned with for my 10 years in this place. This bill is not before time. It ought to have been considered back in about 1967. And it is with some regret that I confess that not a lot of progress was made in the eight years prior to the last two, if I can put it that way. But, in the last stages of the previous government, the Hon. Mal Brough had the intestinal fortitude to take policies like this to the people, having been badgered by me for the previous eight years.

The problem that exists currently in rural and remote Western Australia—and I will speak passionately about that location on behalf of the constituents of the federal seat of Kalgoorlie—is a shortage of labour, and especially a shortage of unskilled and semiskilled labour. We are talking today about how we can possibly solve the labour shortage—perhaps by granting working visas to Pacific Islanders. We had hoped to have East Timorese as well, but that is not going to come to pass, it seems. And writ clearly in the public mind presently is that we are abusing the opportunity to work for Australians. But my experience indicates that nothing could be further from the truth.

In my electorate I have horticultural industry, I have vineyards, I have restaurants, I have roadhouses—I have a multitude of employers in the low-skilled and semiskilled areas screaming out for employees. I also have, in most of these areas where they are crying out for the opportunity to have an employee come through their door, a large number of able-bodied, very capable, Indigenous people. And very rarely do the two come together to form some sort of workable solution, because the majority of these unemployed people do not have the foundations of education and the ‘three R’s’ skills that we speak of. You will excuse me, Mr Deputy Speaker, for generalising to some degree. But the problems are most obvious where the situation is most extreme—that is logic. In Broome, I see restaurants with half of their tables roped off because they cannot get waiters and waitresses to serve their public. I see roadhouses that apologise for their atrocious service because they cannot get somebody to fill the pie-warmer and take the cash. The situation makes some of my small business people literally weep.

This bill will go some way, I believe, towards encouraging Aboriginal parents to be concerned about the attendance at school of their children. So many of my Aboriginal couples have no interest whatsoever in whether or not their children attend school, because there is nothing in it for them. They have no interest in education because they see the outcomes of education as having no significance. Certainly there are never going to be jobs provided to Indigenous people living in communities, because there is no commerce as such; therefore, why bother with all the rigmarole of sending kids to school, getting them out of the house, getting lunch for them, making sure they have clean clothes, making sure they go to sleep the night before and mucking around with homework and all the other humbugs? Education has never, ever had significance for a great number of my Indigenous parents in communities.

This legislation, hopefully, will change that. But the solution is not going to be achieved with just this single tool. I am very tired of educational situations in my communities where the principals of the schools spend the majority of their time rounding up students to get them into class and apologising to parents for having to do so. I am sick of seeing the destruction of any sort of discipline or rigour within the classroom because teachers have to pander to the students to keep them in the classroom—fearful of imposing any sort of discipline, or rigour, as I said, for fear the children will simply up and walk out because it is no longer entertaining and fun. I go into so many classrooms where I see kids with runny noses and skin sores, and scaly, infested dogs. Why are the dogs there? The teachers say, ‘If I shunt the dogs out, the kids are going to leave with the dogs.’ There is no imperative for those children to attend school. Truancy officers throughout the majority of my lands are a joke; they do not exist, or they finish up with a patch of thousands of square kilometres. It is unworkable. I am sick of teachers having to play the role of truancy officers.

We need to tie this legislation into a whole package, where the message is sent to communities and parents within those communities that it is imperative, for various reasons, that their children attend school and that that involves feeding and housing them satisfactorily and giving them an environment where class work can be kept up with because there is an opportunity to attend to homework.

When teachers go from a suburban or high-standard country educational facility to some of my lands, communities are absolutely gobsmacked at the fact that they do not really teach anything; they just spend their time rounding up kids, occupying them, breaking up fights and keeping the skin rivalries under control. At the end of the day, or should I say at the end of the perhaps 18 months or two years of the teacher’s residence in the community, the exchange of information and knowledge has been from the members of the community to the teacher, in the main. The teacher goes away having experienced a very unusual environment and they dine out on it for the rest of their life. What do they leave as far as knowledge of the three R’s in a competitive sense in their students? Very, very little. The teachers have a lot of fun learning the local language. But do they equip their charges for whom they are responsible for the next grade, for job training or for financial independence so there is a high level of self-esteem and mobility, so those people can go out into the cities around Australia, possibly the world, and attend tertiary institutions? No. The great failure is because there is no motivation presently for children to attend school. This bill, as I said, will go some way towards providing that motivation.

It is time we used a little bit of stick, but there needs to be consideration of a carrot as well. In what form? I am not qualified to suggest. But it has to be practical. It has to say to parents, ‘Yes, there is a reason to send your kids to school, because there is a future for your children.’ Those parents might just be given an understanding that in the future welfare will not be automatic or, dare I say, mandatory; that there will be an opportunity for financial independence and an increase in self-worth; and that there will be consideration by government that you cannot, as an Indigenous person in league with others around you, choose to live where you want to simply because of some cultural attachment and expect the taxpayer of Australia to support you in your lifestyle.

Pastoralists in the industry have gone out, taken up land, leased it and built all of the infrastructure out of their own pocket in the past. But we are faced with this expectation by Indigenous people—handed to them, I might add, by various governments over time—that they may simply elect to live where they wish and they will be sponsored for every requirement. Blessed be the day when we decide to send the message that there will be a point in time when, like every other Australian, Indigenous Australians will be expected to move to where there is employment.

Consider, if you will, why we have our towns and population centres in mainstream Australia. They are there because of some geographical feature. We have cities based around old shipping ports, cities based around resource rich areas and cities based around agriculturally rich areas, and we have huge bodies of people that are where they are in Central Australia and north-western Australia simply because they choose to be. There is no supporting job infrastructure; there is no commercial activity. The taxpayer of Australia pays.

We live in a wonderful nation where many are heard to say that, as Australians, we have a safety net called welfare, and you may choose to work or you may choose not to work. I do not subscribe to that. But I believe the situation that exists in so many of my Indigenous communities today is there simply because there has not been any insistence that real employment be found. That takes me back in the full loop—if you are not having to work, you do not particularly want to work and you are fed and watered with a fairly substantial welfare payment, why would you worry about having a job?

The day will come, I trust, when individuals will not automatically think of being on welfare as they mature but will consider that this existence may not be sustained forever and that there may be a requirement—as there is in the rest of the population of the nation—that one moves from a community, finds real work and is self-sufficient. When that day arrives, there will be true motivation for parents to say to their children, ‘You are going to be very poorly off indeed if you don’t go to school, get an education and be job trained and ready when the time comes so as to have a job, have financial independence and have improved self-esteem as a result.’

There have been many innovative ideas about getting children to school. Under the previous minister, Mr Andrews, there was a proposition to link welfare payments to school attendance that was put in place in Halls Creek in Western Australia in my electorate. This was a process that was very local, but word got out—goodness knows how—that if children did not go to school then their parents would not receive welfare payments. School attendance went from about 58 per cent to 85 per cent and that was a great thing. Additional classrooms had to be brought in to accommodate all these people. Very sadly, this program came to the attention of Canberra and it was analysed and found to be unacceptable, because one could not tie welfare payments—at that time—to school attendance. It was attacked by the Aboriginal Legal Service in Western Australia as being discriminatory on the basis of race. I would have loved to have seen it introduced in all schools, quite frankly. But that was what happened in that case.

It got so bad—even though, do not forget, that this meant so many more children were getting an education than had done previously—and it became so unpopular that the Western Australian education minister issued an edict to educational staff that no attendance figures were to be provided to the Commonwealth. That leads me to the question in relation to this bill: what are we going to do to guarantee the on-the-ground support from the education departments in the states and territories—especially my state—to make sure that there is a flow of information in relation to attendance? What guarantees do we have that this—what I see as the beneficial aspects of this legislation—will ever be practically put into place? I have not heard any strongly expressed point of view so far that that will be the case. There are so many unanswered questions as to how this is going to be applied exactly.

I have already said that I do not have all of the solutions that would make sure children attend school. But the one thing I am absolutely passionately emphatic about is that children must attend school. And parents must be involved in that process. There must be a degree of carrot as well as stick. In that regard, at Balgo Hills recently the experience was—or, should I say, the decision was taken—that, because there was such a problem of truancy and that was leading to petty crime around the community, something had to be done. The corporation—with elders’ leadership, of course—to their great credit, decided upon something quite innovative. They have the control of these communities. The decision was that the store would not open on any day until such time as a certain percentage of the total school enrolments had attended school. For the first few days when, by 10.30 in the morning, none of the parents could make a purchase at the shop because the shop was closed, there were a lot of kids very quickly rounded up and sent to school so that the basic commodities could be purchased. I commend the Balgo Hills community for such innovative ideas. I would recommend that leaders of many communities take a leaf out of their book—not perhaps in the use of the opening or closing of the community store but at least in thinking about the problem.

I would like for this government today to send a signal to communities that says, ‘The future may not be as the past has been. There is a future for your children in real employment, gaining meaningful jobs and maintaining personal self-esteem.’ I would like a message to be sent that says, ‘We will not impose upon the taxpayers of Australia, from now until day dot, to support the individual Australian who simply chooses with others to live where they want to live.’

I would love the opportunity to be fed and housed and accommodated—with sewerage, electricity and running water—where I would like to live. It would be a special spot, believe me! But I do not expect that as a right. Indigenous people today do because they have been led to believe that they can, they may and they ought. I believe changes have got to be made. The sooner those changes are made, the sooner the message is tweaked to give some indication that the future does not hold the agonies of the past and that there will be a requirement of mutual obligation, the sooner we will have a real future for Indigenous people in this country.

I have gone so far as to say in the past—and I will say it again—that to deny this future for children is in fact an act of genocide. If we do not think about the malaise that besets Indigenous people in remote communities today and do something about it quickly, we will lose those people and it will be at the feet of the government of the day.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008, which is a bill that seeks to amend the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999, the Student Assistance Act 1973 and the Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986. In amending those pieces of legislation, this bill will allow for the measures that were announced in the most recent budget under ‘welfare payments reform’, which enables the implementation of the improving school enrolment and attendance through welfare reform measure. This is a measure that is intended to be initially trialled in eight locations, six of which are in the Northern Territory, one of which is in Western Australia and another location is to be determined. It is a trial which will affect parents and carers who are in receipt of income support and who have children who are of a compulsory school age.

At the outset, I think it is important to understand the framework of this bill and the trial which is contained in it—in a sense, to understand what it is and what it is not. This is not a bill or a trial which will seek to punish children or parents. This bill seeks to link the support that is received from our society through income benefits with a basic obligation in our society to send one’s children to school. It is a bill which accepts that, despite concerted efforts by some parents, there will be some children who will continue to have unsatisfactory levels of school attendance. At the end of the day, it is a bill that balances the expectations of the community with the obligations and the abilities of parents to ensure that their children are attending school.

This bill—and the trial contained within it—acknowledges the power of education. This bill acknowledges the power of education to change our society. It acknowledges the power of education to uplift those in our society who come from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. It acknowledges the power of education as being the single most fundamental way in which we provide opportunity in our society to each and every citizen. In acknowledging the power of education, what this bill will do—and what this trial intends to do—is provide and ensure that the right of every child to have an education exists.

Given the discussion on this bill that has occurred publicly, I want to briefly go through the precise terms of the bill so that we are clear about what we are talking about. In the event that this bill becomes law, the bill will provide that, starting from next year, parents who are receiving income support, who have children who are of a compulsory school age and who are living in the trial areas will need to provide Centrelink with information about their child’s school enrolment. Parents who fail to provide that information to Centrelink will need to engage with Centrelink—and I will come back to that in a moment. Parents who fail to enrol their children in school will also be required to engage with Centrelink. The bill also provides that those parents whose children are enrolled in school but are not attending school on a regular basis will also be required to engage with Centrelink.

In engaging with Centrelink there will an encouragement on the part of Centrelink for those parents to rectify whatever the situation is that is out of kilter—be it providing the initial information about the enrolment, ensuring that the child becomes enrolled in school or, if they are already enrolled and they are not attending, trying to make sure that attendance occurs. In engaging with the parents, Centrelink can rely on writing letters, phone contacts, referrals and ultimately providing social work support.

I guess the point in making those observations at the outset is that, before we get to the issues in this bill that have gained the most attention, there will be a concerted effort to try to work with the parents to rectify whatever is outstanding in the situation that exists. If that is not successful, the bill provides an ability for Centrelink to suspend income support payments. In the event that the situation is rectified—the child starts attending school or the child becomes enrolled in school—there is the power for Centrelink to reinstate those payments up to a period of 13 weeks, and indeed in some situations to back pay beyond a period of 13 weeks. If that as a sanction is not successful in terms of ensuring that the children are enrolled at school and attending school, there is then an ability, in the most extreme of circumstances, for Centrelink to actually terminate those payments altogether.

This bill provides for Centrelink to terminate payments in eight trial locations, which I indicated, in the Northern Territory communities which form part of the Northern Territory intervention and also in communities which are not part of that, as well as in schools which have Indigenous children in them and also schools which have non-Indigenous children in them. In having two locations outside the Northern Territory it is hoped that there will be a wider demographic so that a proper assessment of the affect of this trial can be obtained. It is acknowledged that ultimately the power for education and for schooling rests with the territories and the states, and it is acknowledged that there is not a power within this bill to compel non-government and government schools to participate. But a range of incentives may form part of this regime to be provided to the states and territories in order to encourage those schools to participate in the scheme.

At the end of the day, that describes the trial and the regime that we are talking about putting in place. It is not a new idea. Linking parents’ welfare payments with children’s satisfactory attendance at school is an idea that has been put in place in 40 states within the United States. In some of those states there have been very encouraging outcomes from such programs. In California, for example, where there has been a comprehensive system of welfare sanctions combined with active case management—and that is a really important aspect of this—there have been results which indicated an increase of eight per cent in school attendance, and that is a very significant outcome indeed. The United Kingdom also has in place systems of conditional entitlements of this kind. Whilst it is in a sense new to this country, it is not an entirely novel idea and it is one which has an international basis.

It is important that we embark upon a program and trial such as this now because of the statistics on school attendance which confront our country. It is estimated that right now there are 20,000 Australian children of compulsory school age who are not enrolled in school. That is by any measure a disgraceful statistic and one which brings shame upon our country. An OECD analysis of the population aged between 25 and 64 shows that in Australia people within that age bracket who have obtained upper secondary education—this is a 2005 figure—is 65 per cent. Of the 35 countries who participated in that particular OECD survey Australia was eighth from the bottom. Again a shameful situation for our country.

Under the Howard government we saw school retention rates stagnate, after a period of significant growth during the Hawke and Keating years, such that year 12 retention rates now are at around 74 per cent. One in 10 year 7 students is currently unable to meet national reading and writing benchmarks, and one in five is not able to meet numeracy benchmarks. Again these are appalling statistics to characterise Australia in 2008.

In my electorate of Corio, which covers the city of Geelong, there is equally difficult reading when one considers the statistics that apply there in relation to education, particularly when we look at the suburbs of Norlane and Corio, which have the lower socioeconomic outcomes. In Norlane and Corio secondary schools the average days of school lost for students range from 14.2 per cent, or almost three weeks, up to 28.7 per cent, or almost six weeks. According to ABS data from 2006 the completion rate for year 12 education in Norlane and Corio stood at 23 per cent. Fifty-one per cent of the residents of Corio and Norlane aged between 20 and 24 have not completed year 12, and that compares with 25 per cent in greater Melbourne and 29 per cent in Victoria. The school retention data over the past five years for students moving between years 11 and 12 at Corio Bay Senior College show that only around 50 per cent of year 11 students remain at school for year 12.

These are statistics which absolutely bear out the need for us to look at new ways in which we can keep our children at school so that they complete their education. These statistics are staggering for a developed country like Australia and they bear out the failure of the Howard government over the last 12 years. We cannot improve those statistics if we do not have the most basic issue of our children attending school. We will not improve year 12 completion rates if children do not attend school during their early years.

We know that regular truancy often results in an increased risk of students dropping out of school. It results, in turn, in an increased risk of those students ending up as long-term unemployed. It involves an increased probability that in adult life those students will end up being welfare dependent and it also involves an increased risk that those students will have an interaction with the criminal justice system at some point in their adult lives. This is stark evidence and it requires and demands a response. This idea and this trial is an attempt to provide that response.

But from the opposition we have seen no clear direction at all on this issue which is confronting our country. We have seen nothing other than the consistent flip-flopping—the consistent inconsistency—which we have seen from the opposition on almost every major piece of public policy since November of last year. On 25 August, in an interview with the ABC, the member for Warringah said that he supported the government’s policy in relation to this area. On the very same day, a New South Wales senator, the shadow minister for human services, Senator Coonan, criticised the policy on the Liberal Party website but in the same breath noted that this was indeed a policy which had been announced by the government in the budget in May. The very day before that appeared on the Liberal Party’s website, the Leader of the Opposition suggested that this was a populist piece of policy being done on the run, even though, as I have just said, his party’s website acknowledged that this policy was announced in the government’s budget in May. Indeed, the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs had made public statements in relation to this policy in both June and July. The opposition, as always, seem determined on this issue to confound the electorate with their obvious lack of direction. They are clearly far more concerned about outdoing each other in their various media sound bites—which, in a sense, is what we just heard from the member for Kalgoorlie—than they are on focusing on the critical issue which is before this parliament and the Australian people today.

This trial needs not to be seen in isolation. It forms part of a greater commitment by the Rudd government to a fundamental education revolution in this country. That is an important symbolic statement but it is in turn backed up by significant resources. It is worth reminding the House that in the budget $1.2 billion was committed to delivering computers to schools around our country. We have provided an education tax refund of up to $1,500 per child per year, at a cost of $4.4 billion over four years. We have provided $2.5 billion towards trade training centres in schools and of course an $11 billion Education Investment Fund. These are real commitments. This is a real desire to try and improve our education system. The current bill before the House and the trial which is inherent in it have to be seen in the context of that suite of measures to try and improve education in this country.

In conclusion, let me say that the Rudd government is utterly committed to improving the state of our nation’s education system—an education system which, frankly, was allowed to fall into a state of disrepair over the 11 years of the Howard government. The 20,000 unenrolled children in this country—and their futures and what that means for our nation—are crying out for action. They are the clarion call for action within this area. It requires that decisive action be taken in this area. It requires that innovative action be taken and, yes, it also requires in certain circumstances that tough action be taken. But at the end of the day those children, and the potential for themselves and for our country that they represent, absolutely deserve nothing less, and so I commend this bill to the House.

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

I must say from the outset that I support the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008, recognising that it is no silver bullet to fix truancy and underenrolment, which is a permanent intergenerational handbrake on the children of our nation and their futures. There will undoubtedly be many teething problems in bringing state government bodies, education facilities and Centrelink together and sharing personal information, but let us take the government at its word that it can achieve all this.

While it is envisaged that in the medium term these requirements will be rolled out through the wider community, there is no doubt that in the first instance it is about addressing the crisis in remote Indigenous Australia. My electorate of Grey, as I often have cause to say in this place, is by its nature extremely diverse. Part of this diversity includes the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands in the far north of South Australia. If in the first instance the government have seen fit to trial these changes in the Northern Territory as part of the intervention, then the question must be asked: when will they take the problems of the APY lands, which are part of the same inland communities, just as seriously and get started there as well?

I would be the first to admit I am no expert on Indigenous issues in South Australia, or anywhere else for that matter, but since being elected last year I have devoted as much time as possible to trying to learn about the problems facing Indigenous Australia, both in the urban population and in the remote areas. While there are significant problems facing our urban Indigenous population, they pale into insignificance when compared with those of their remote brothers and sisters. Much of what I have seen on my journeys into these areas is totally dispiriting. The evidence of the dysfunctional nature of these societies is everywhere: poor health, domestic violence, substance abuse, poor educational outcomes, teenage pregnancy and the breakdown of traditional structures. The problems and symptoms are easy to identify; the solutions are much more difficult. I have just listened to the member for Kalgoorlie list the problems of his electorate, which is the same dynamic, the same group of people that I am talking about, as we have adjoining electorates. As he was speaking, I found myself nodding as he listed the problems of these communities and some of the issues we need to face.

In the last few weeks we have seen the announcement by the government of a guest worker program. Immediately the cry has gone up that our Aboriginal population should be filling these roles. That is undoubtedly right, and a concerted effort will hopefully see some advances in this area. But it is a sad fact of life that, for many in this group, particularly those in remote areas, educational outcomes are so poor that this population is largely not equipped to participate in the workforce at any level.

The problems of the lands have been exacerbated by a form of racism whereby, in almost every area, we the wider community, in our efforts to help, have accepted lower standards than we would accept for the broader community. This condescending attitude must end. Hopefully the proposed amendments to the legislation will at least be part of the answer. However, when we take into account the government’s full reinstatement of the CDEP scheme, we must question the government’s overall commitment to reforming the concept of mutual obligation. Education is not just about what happens inside the school gate; it is about how children are prepared for life.

On Tuesday I attended a function here at Parliament House to promote National Child Protection Week. All of those who attended witnessed a very strong presentation that gave pause for thought. The abuse of children is a tragedy of national proportions. It includes physical abuse, mental abuse and neglect. Neglect, by any standard, includes not ensuring that all children receive an adequate education. But my purpose in mentioning that presentation by the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect is to highlight their slogan: ‘Children see, children do’.

One of the purposes of CDEP is to prepare workers for the workforce and condition them to a working environment. The track record of this program is that many of the participants do not have regular hours or days of work. They roll up when they like. Sometimes they come; sometimes they do not. Not only does this not prepare participants for work in any real sense, but it also adds to the appalling role models presented to the children of these communities. We have evidence that the government are getting tough in one area, or at least talking the talk, but going weak at the knees in another. They penalise people who will not ensure that their kids are going to school, but to others they offer pseudo-jobs where it does not matter whether you roll up or not.

But this inconsistency goes even further. As a result of these amendments, parents will be penalised if they do not ensure that their children attend school. This is an attempt to protect children by ensuring that benefit recipients are fulfilling their end of the bargain with taxpayers. It would seem logical, then, that the unemployed should also be penalised if they refuse employment or deliberately underperform. After all, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. But the government are sending the opposite message. They are winding back the penalties for noncompliance in the labour market but tightening up the penalties for noncompliance in education.

When we relieve people of their responsibilities, we reinforce and reward substandard performance. For all Australians, there must be carrots and sticks—too much of one and not enough of the other will not give the right results. Mutual responsibility means, yes, the government—that is, the taxpayer—will support you but you must be prepared to help yourself.

That premise is inherent in these amendments; it should provide a guide to the rest of our system. Every time you relieve someone of a responsibility, you ensure that they will not do the task. It is no longer their job; it becomes your job. This condition affects not just Indigenous society but all groups. If you usurp responsibility, whatever your motive, you destroy the motivation for self-reliance.

As I said at the outset, I believe these amendments are a step in the right direction. But they are just one step. Let us see if the government can follow up on the promise and treat the problems of the APY Lands as seriously as they treat the problems of the Northern Territory. An emergency is an emergency, children are children, and a state border should make no difference to a determined government.

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

I wish to commend the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Education and Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations for her commitment to education and the Rudd government’s education revolution. There is no person in this parliament who is more committed to seeing that every child in Australia gets a quality education. She and the Rudd government are committed to ensuring that young people, no matter what school they attend, will have an equal opportunity to learn and get the skills they need to succeed in today’s world. Education is the key to success. It unlocks the door that gives young people the opportunity to succeed and enjoy a prosperous life. That is why the Rudd government has invested in the computers in schools program and established trade training centres in schools. That is why the Rudd government is committed to raising literacy and numeracy levels in Australia.

We on this side of the House know that, without the tools that a quality education provides, a person is denied life’s opportunities. The minister has introduced the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008 because she is committed to the education of all young Australians. She knows that there are 20,000 young Australians who are not attending school. The effects of this have been aptly identified by Graeme Withers, who noted in his paper for the Dusseldorp Skills Forum that failure to be in school long enough to gain basic skills and knowledge has personal and social costs—unemployment, poverty, homelessness and minor or gross criminal activities. The community bears the social and economic costs that escalate from a failure to attend school.

The legislation before us will give effect to welfare payment reform measures announced in the 2008-09 budget. This bill enables the implementation of welfare reform measures to improve school enrolment and attendance. To begin this process there will be a rollout of measures from the commencement of the 2009 school year. The measures will be rolled out in eight trial locations and will affect parents and carers of children of compulsory school age.

I know just how committed the minister is to ensuring that young people attend school. Part of this legislation will include the suspension of welfare payments for parents whose children do not attend school. That can happen over a 13-week period. The payments can be reinstated once the matter has been resolved. Parents who receive income support will also be expected to ensure that their children regularly attend school. Centrelink will actively work with these parents to assist them to comply with these requirements once parents demonstrate that they are taking reasonable steps to ensure that their children are attending school.

I know, as I have said, how committed the minister is to ensuring that young people attend school. I know that this is an approach that is being trialled in countries throughout the world, and there have been some trials here within Australia. But there are other trials that have had great success in ensuring that young people attend school. To discuss those in some degree I would like to refer to overseas literature. In doing so I must say that, whilst I support this legislation and the minister’s position, I do have a few concerns about the suspension of welfare payments for families whose children do not attend school. Some of those children may not attend school for a variety of reasons. I am a person who likes to look at the causes of problems, and I think maybe this is looking more at the effects.

Looking at the things that have been shown to work, in overseas studies in this area and in some of the projects that have run within Australia, there was the Halls Creek trial. That actually was quite inconclusive. I know that the minister is going to evaluate this program and that the result of this program is going to form part of her evaluation. But overseas research in this area has shown that the best programs aimed at improving school attendance involve relationship building, where students receive individualised attention at school; contacting parents regarding absenteeism; having a strong connection between the school and the parents; strong and clear attendance policies—and I know that part of this legislation looks at that; intensive school intervention programs, which look at mentoring and various other approaches; establishing ongoing truancy prevention programs for schools rather than one-time efforts only targeting high-risk students; trained and committed school staff; and ongoing rigorous evaluation of programs.

Research of all of the different approaches has been inconclusive. Rewards and incentives for attendance have been found to have mixed benefits. Peer counselling once again has been shown to have mixed results. Probation officers devoted to truancy cases have also had mixed results. One of the things that have been found not to work has been school uniforms. They do not have an impact on truancy. Another thing that has been significantly found not to work is financial sanctions against families and tying their benefits to school attendance. That did not appear, from all the research that I have read—and I have read a lot of research on this—to have any impact at all. The research I am referring to here is in Effective Truancy Prevention and Intervention, by Gerrard, Burhans and Fair. That research shows that the best outcomes in truancy prevention involve a strong case management approach, mediation counselling support, improved involvement with interagency collaborations and providing family support.

Let us be honest about it: truancy is a big problem. When you have 20,000 students not attending school it is a big problem. I think that we have to be creative in the way we address this problem. There is not going to be one size that fits all. We have to adopt an approach that is based on solidly researched evidence as to its effectiveness and that involves intensive ongoing intervention. We have to look at well-defined policies. We have to make sure that there is parental engagement, family counselling and individualised plans. That has been found to have a really big impact on truancy.

I notice that members on the other side of the House have blamed the states for problems with truancy. I would like to talk about a program that was run in New South Wales, a program that I believe was one of the most effective programs dealing with truancy. I was involved in it. It was run out of the then Gateshead high school, which is now called the Hunter Sports High School. The program involved students from Belmont, Swansea, Broadmeadow, Cardiff, Gateshead, Newcastle, Warners Bay and Whitebridge high schools. Fifteen students were involved and they were between the ages of 12 and 15. These were hardened truants. These were students who had not attended school for a very long period of time. These were students who had had multiple suspensions. They were chronic truants; they just could not operate within the multi-teacher high schools.

This program, JASPER, has won awards. It won the PCYC Blue Heeler Award and, for programs that actually worked, gained equal first place in New South Wales for the Australian Institute of Criminology’s Australian Violence Prevention Award. The students who enrolled in JASPER had not attended school; however, once they had enrolled, their attendance rate increased to 77 per cent. All but one of those students are now working in the community. After completing JASPER, some went back to mainstream high schools, some undertook traineeships and others undertook apprenticeships. This program was an outstanding success. It cost $45,000 a year to run and was run by the New South Wales government. However, eventually, because it was no longer funded, the program ceased. However, this program delivered. It cut down on chronic truancy even though, in nearly all cases, those involved in it had had such an appalling record of not attending school over a very long period of time.

There is a variety of reasons for students not attending school. It can be because of poor literacy and numeracy. We have heard the case argued around the chamber in relation to Indigenous students. It can be because of bullying within the school. It may be because they are victims of child abuse. I think all policies that are introduced need to cover every aspect so that a holistic approach can be developed to address the issue of nonattendance at school.

I know how committed the minister is to ensuring that all students have the opportunity to attend school. The minister says and has said on many occasions that we cannot have an education revolution without every child receiving a world-class education, and that is what she is seeking to achieve with this legislation. She has said that she knows that all students who are regularly absent from school are at greater risk of dropping out of school. Associated with that is that many students who do drop out of school and who are truants come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and have a higher poverty index. Invariably, the problems that those children experience were experienced by their parents.

A number of programs have been trialled in both the UK and the USA. A Personal Responsibility Program and a work obligation program have been operating across a number of states in the United States. But, even in those programs, it has been shown that the most effective way of dealing with truancy is through case management. Conditional cash transfers, which were modelled on a program trialled in Mexico, are another approach that has been adopted in New York. But, even with that program, the best results were found to be achieved by programs like JASPER.

Sitting in this chamber earlier, I found it appalling to listen to members on the other side bagging the states. Our state governments are committed to seeing that students attend school. They do everything they can. They do their utmost in confronting the multitude of problems that exist. They are dedicated educationalists. Bagging the state governments is the opposition’s way of dealing with any issue. They do not try to get to the bottom of what the trouble is and look at what is really causing issues around truancy; it is, ‘We’ll use this piece of legislation that we’ve got before the parliament to say that we in the opposition are great and the states and the federal government are failing people, including the young people of Australia.’ I disagree strongly with those on the other side of the House and I welcome the commitment of the minister to ensure that all young Australians have access to a quality education. I truly believe that this legislation will ensure that more students do enrol in school.

A number of those 20,000 students are not enrolled in school. You only have to look at what the previous government did with immunisation to see that linking payments to enrolment will achieve an outcome. But the area in which I think there may be a little bit of a problem is in ensuring that, once those children are enrolled, parents are able to ensure they attend school. I am very pleased to know that the program will be re-evaluated and that the minister will be looking at the research and seeing how effective it is—I hope it is effective. But I strongly argue in favour of looking at some of the evidence based research from overseas.

I know that the minister will be evaluating these outcomes. I would also like to encourage her to look at other successful programs and strategies from around the world—programs such as JASPER and strategies that have been identified as effective in other countries. I encourage her to look at strategies that will not lead to any homelessness or breakdowns in families, and programs that build on the strength and resilience within that family and within the community. Like the minister, I am committed to ensuring that all young Australians have a quality education which will ensure they are able to reach their full potential and have a full and rewarding life—a life that is only delivered by having a quality education, by learning and by embracing everything that education can offer. You can only get that if you go to school. This legislation is about getting students to attend school. I know that the minister will evaluate the outcomes once the trials are completed.

Margaret May (McPherson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to contribute to the debate on the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008. This bill aims to introduce conditions on the receipt of income support payments whereby parents are obliged to ensure their children of compulsory school age are enrolled in school, as well as taking reasonable action to ensure regular school attendance. The bill provides the mechanism to suspend or cancel welfare payments of parents who are considered negligent in this role.

I preface my remarks tonight with what I hope is a statement of the obvious: education is the key to the future. It is the key to my future, it is the key to my children’s futures and it is the key to my grandchildren’s futures. In fact, it is the key to all children’s futures in this country. Although the opposition supports this bill, I have some serious concerns about the extra bureaucracy and administrative burden the bill will place on welfare agencies, particularly Centrelink. I also have concerns that the Rudd government is imposing a punitive measure on parents while doing nothing to address the issue of truancy itself.

I believe in its essence this bill has good intentions. It aims to reduce the high levels of truancy currently being experienced by schools across Australia—that is a good thing. And it certainly is a good thing that those of us speaking on this bill recognise what we are trying to achieve through this bill. Parents certainly must take responsibility for their children and they must also respect the importance of education. There is no denying that truancy is disruptive. It disrupts classes and it disrupts education programs being run by schools. Many of society’s long-term problems such as unemployment and social disadvantage have their origins in a lack of school attendance.

I think it is great that the Labor Party has finally come to realise what a number of other Centre Left governments around the world came to realise a decade or so ago—I am referring the United Kingdom under Tony Blair’s leadership and the United States during the Clinton administration. Both the UK and the USA learnt long ago that welfare was seen as an inalienable right that came without any responsibilities for the recipient. It was not so long ago in Australia that if you questioned welfare payments or suggested welfare reform you were called ‘mean-spirited’. Certainly when we were in government we had those types of tags placed upon us. If you raised those same concerns in regard to Indigenous people, you were called ‘mean-spirited’ and a ‘racist’.

I am pleased to see that the debate has finally progressed in this country. The truth is that there are no easy solutions to the problem of truancy. It is a complex and multilayered issue. The reasons for truancy can be related to medical problems. They can be related to financial problems. They can be related to crime in certain suburbs. Of course, we all know that families are under enormous pressures and stress at this time. They are feeling it through rising grocery prices and cost-of-living pressures.

The Rudd government could do well to study the welfare situation in the United Kingdom and heed some of the hard lessons they learnt there. In the United Kingdom 55,000 students a day were missing lessons during 2003-04; this was an increase of 4½ thousand students from the previous year. In response to this poor result, the Blair government decided on a tougher approach to persistent truancy. Parents were given 12 weeks to improve their child’s attendance or face the threat of court action. Potentially parents faced fines of up to £2,500 or three months in jail. This approach in the United Kingdom has resulted in parents of truants spending time in jail, and yet the statistics out of the United Kingdom show that this hardline approach has not tackled the problem. The Blair government spent almost £1 billion pounds on measures to tackle truancy—and it would be fair to say the problem has worsened in the UK; it certainly has not improved.

In the light of the UK situation, can the Deputy Prime Minister point the House towards any evidence that the Rudd government’s approach is going to get more truants back to school? I think that is a question that needs to be asked and certainly needs to be answered. In an interview with ABC 774 in Melbourne on 26 August, the Deputy Prime Minister said that there will be a range of support measures for families to help them get their child to school every day. The Deputy Prime Minister reiterated that same point four times in her short interview with ABC radio. What she did not explain once was what these support measures exactly entail, and tonight we still do not have those details. What are these support measures that the Deputy Prime Minister feels are so important to mention—four times during that ABC interview—but fails to provide any further details on?

My concern and the concern of many on this side of the House is that the Rudd government is introducing a punitive measure without concurrently addressing any of the causes of truancy. At a time of rising inflation, rising grocery prices, rising fuel prices and stretched household budgets, this measure could place even greater stresses on households. As it is, families on welfare survive on barely more than $400 per week. What is missing from this measure is the parenting skills course, access to drug and alcohol rehabilitation services and an attempt to address the causes of these issues affecting people’s lives on a daily basis, which in turn affect young people in this country.

I move to ask what it is that the states are doing to prevent and address truancy. It seems obvious to me that the answer is, ‘Very little,’ because, if they were, there would be no need for the federal government to introduce a bill that does the job that the states should be doing. It is their responsibility. The Prime Minister is fond of saying that he will end the blame game. If his answer to ending the blame game is to do the job of the states for them, I can only assume that in due course he will be seeking a constitutional amendment that abolishes the states. The much lauded saviour of wall-to-wall Labor governments is a complete and utter failure. This is their role; this is their responsibility. It is up to them. The new federal government is picking up the ball for the states. Where is the strengthening of truancy programs in this bill? Perhaps the minister might explain to members the process she intends to undertake through COAG to work with the states and territories to strengthen the truancy programs.

Perhaps of more concern than the inability of the state Labor governments to do their job—after all, that is something we have come to expect; we see it day in, day out with the federal government picking up the states’ responsibilities—is that this new program from the Rudd government will be administered by Centrelink. The Prime Minister and the finance minister have taken a great deal of pride in the work of their razor gangs. Centrelink, a large and extremely important government agency, did not escape the razor gang following the Rudd government’s first budget in May. With 2,000 jobs at Centrelink on the chopping block, it is beyond comprehension that the government seeks to further increase the administrative burden on an agency that is already stretched beyond belief. What extra resources, what extra personnel, will be allocated to Centrelink to undertake this task?

The detail of this bill requires school principals to report truancy to Centrelink if parents fail, as the explanatory memorandum puts it, ‘to comply with the school attendance requirement to the satisfaction of the person responsible for the operation of the school’. Does this mean that school principals will become judge and jury over welfare families, making their own determination about whether parents have taken reasonable steps to ensure that their children are enrolled in and attending school? If so, will it be administered consistently or on a school-by-school basis?

In bringing this bill before the parliament, the Rudd government seems to be saying that it is only welfare dependent households that have or will have problems with truancy. This is patently not the case; it can occur in any household. However, this government is of the belief that in low-socioeconomic areas it is the family that is to blame. This is reflected in the communities chosen to trial this new measure. Given that truancy is occurring in the main in the most dysfunctional communities, schools should be given the capacity and the resources to work with these families, to find out what the problems are and to work with relevant government agencies to help these families.

Indigenous families will be particularly hard hit from this new measure. Indigenous students do not always have schools to go to, particularly in remote areas. By denying them an education, you deny them a future. You deny them the opportunity to reach their own individual goals. You deny them the opportunity to flourish. You deny them secure futures. The alternative—no education—can lead to a continuation of the cycle of poverty, welfare, crime, alcohol and drug abuse.

The lack of distinct detail in this bill as to how the government will address the issues really concerns me. I know this is of concern to many members on this side of the House. Statistics can only tell us part of the story. There is no simple solution. Try as they assuredly will, there is no easy grab for headlines for the government. There is no easy fix to the problem. There is one thing I can say with certainty: any attempt to address this issue will be resource intensive. I am just not sure that this government have the stamina or the focus to see it through.

Notwithstanding my serious concerns about the bill that is before the House tonight, I do believe that both sides of the chamber want to see something done about truancy in this country. We do want to support those families and those kids who need an education. For me, an education for every young person in this country is extremely important. It is really about the future of this country. I certainly hope that, with the will of the government and with our support, this bill will address the issues and the concerns regarding truancy in this country. With the reservations I have put on the table tonight, I do support the bill and hope that, in doing so, we support the young people of this country.

Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Social Security and Veterans’ Entitlements Legislation Amendment (Schooling Requirements) Bill 2008. It is legislation aimed fairly and squarely at ensuring that kids get to school. As previous speakers have said, there is nothing more important in life than ensuring that kids—our children—get the best education and the best start in life. Part of that is making sure they get to school.

Having listened to this debate, I have heard arguments about this legislation being seen as something in isolation. The reality is that there are plenty of programs being run by the state governments already which are about supporting kids at school and supporting parents. What this measure is about is providing another weapon in the armoury of government and of schools to support and encourage parents to get their kids to school. One of the things that the Rudd government have embarked on is an education revolution, because we do recognise that education does have to be looked at holistically. But this legislation is just one part of what we are doing in education. As part of our education revolution, we are looking at education from early childhood, primary, secondary, vocational education and training through to university. We recognise that we need to make additional investments and additional commitments to support our education sector, but this bill is an important reform as part of that overall package.

If you do not go to school and you do not get an education then you are really setting yourself back in terms of your long-term prospects in life. Sadly, it is estimated that in Australia there are up to 20,000 children of compulsory school age who may not be enrolled in school; there are even more who are enrolled in school but who are not attending regularly. Research indicates that kids who are not going to school and who are not getting an education are more likely, as I have said, to end up unemployed. More importantly, they can also end up homeless. I believe that in certain circumstances they are also more likely to end up in the criminal justice system and, sadly, in jail, because if you do not have a good basis in life then you often do not have the self-esteem and the other life skills that enable you to participate fully within the community. This legislation needs to be looked at within that whole broader education and social context.

I know that there are many kids in my electorate of Leichhardt that struggle to get to school. I have a very diverse and broad electorate. It ranges from the border of Papua New Guinea, including the Torres Strait, through Cape York Peninsula, including the great city of Cairns, to smaller regional towns like Mossman and Port Douglas. I have a broad spectrum of schools in my electorate, and I love getting around and visiting those schools; I have some fantastic schools. This year I have been up to Boigu Island and I visited a school up there. They are running a fantastic cultural program where kids come and get involved in dance. That encourages kids to come to school; they enjoy it, but they also get involved in reading, writing and arithmetic. Their benchmarks are improving.

Tagai State College, which has really clustered many of those Torres Strait schools, is doing a great job, but there are still kids up there who are not getting to school, and we need to look at ways that we can actually encourage and support parents to get their kids to school. But, in the end, if they are not getting their kids to school, we need to investigate new ways of ensuring that that happens. That is what this legislation is about. It is about establishing a trial in the Northern Territory and in a couple of other locations to look at those other measures. Coming down Cape York Peninsula—it is a great part of Australia—there are real issues with attendance at school in that area. Members may not realise, but the reality is that welfare reform in relation to school attendance is already occurring in my electorate. Welfare reform is happening in Cape York Peninsula. The Aurukun, Hopevale, Coen and Mossman Gorge communities are already engaged in welfare reform. As part of that welfare reform program, parents who do not send their children to school can have themselves referred to the Family Responsibilities Commission.

The Family Responsibilities Commission is led by Commissioner Glasgow, a retired magistrate, and is made up of Indigenous elders from those communities. It is a trial at the moment in those four communities in my electorate. It recognises that, if you do not send your kids to school, if you are having issues with child safety, if you have issues with the rent and maintenance of your property or if you are in trouble with the criminal justice system, the community needs to engage with you. There are community elders on the Family Responsibilities Commission who will work with you and look to encourage you to make changes in your life and provide you with support services.

This has been controversial, but there is a clear difference between what is happening in my electorate on the Cape York Peninsula—and I see the member for Lingiari here—and what is happening in the Northern Territory intervention. That difference is that it is not about punitive measures against the whole community; it is about working with people who are doing the wrong thing and are not effectively getting their kids to school or are breaking the law and having some other problems in the community. It is about working with them in partnership with the community and working with the community to develop different norms. So it is a different approach, and I think that it is an approach that we need to trial and we need to tackle in my electorate. It is an interesting situation that we already have that reform going on in my electorate of Leichhardt and now we are looking at trialling a different measure in other parts of the country. But it is important that the House does realise that the Rudd government is already trialling these types of programs in other parts of the country.

Turning to the more mainstream schools that we have in Cairns, it is obvious, when you get around there, that there are kids who do not often get to school and kids from difficult backgrounds who struggle at times to get to school. This measure is not going to impact on those schools. But I believe that, if we are looking at Indigenous children falling within this net, then we should also be looking beyond them to the broader population. We need to ensure that we are not just targeting Indigenous parents and kids but looking across the spectrum. Non-Indigenous parents can also have social problems and difficult situations, whether to do with alcohol or other things, and we need to ensure that we are providing them with support mechanisms and that they are providing their kids with every opportunity to get to school.

So linking school attendance to income support through welfare reform is already happening in my electorate of Leichhardt, and this legislation demonstrates a further commitment of the Rudd government to trial and look at how we can introduce measures to get kids to school. The approach will initially be trialled in six communities in the Northern Territory as well as in two metropolitan locations in other jurisdictions. One, I understand, is part of the Cannington region in Perth and the other location is yet to be finalised. The impact of the measure will be minimal for those parents who do the right thing and have their children enrolled in school and attending regularly. We need to be clear: parents in those areas should not be frightened. If you are working with the school then you have nothing to fear from this legislation. Parents who actively engage with their school, who actively engage with their kids and look to get their kids to school, are not going to fall into the net of this legislation.

However, truancy is a complex and difficult area, and there are kids who do not always do what their parents say and who do not always get to school, for a whole range of different reasons. They may have confidence issues. It may be about bullying. It may be about mental illness. There may be a whole lot of reasons why they do not get to school. What we want to ensure with this legislation is that parents are actively engaging with their schools and with their children and trying to ensure that they do make every effort to get their kids to school.

So, as part of that, all parents receiving income support in those areas will have to ensure that their children are registered with a school and that they report that to Centrelink. I do not think it is too much to ask of parents who receive income support to demonstrate to Centrelink that they have their children enrolled in school. Parents who fail to provide enrolment information without a reasonable excuse will need to engage further with Centrelink. Those parents may have their income support payments suspended until they enrol their children or provide information that that has occurred. So we are asking parents in those areas to enrol their kids in school and to demonstrate that to Centrelink. If they do not, then Centrelink will look to engage with them further. But if they do not enrol their children in school then there is the real risk that they will have their income suspended for up to 13 weeks.

Parents receiving income support will also be expected to ensure their children are regularly attending school. In instances where a child is not attending regularly, the relevant state or territory authority can inform Centrelink. Parents who are not taking responsible steps to improve their child’s school attendance may have their income support payments suspended until such time as they can show they are doing so. So parents need, first of all, to enrol their kids in school and to demonstrate that they are enrolled in school, and they need to get their kids to school. As I have said earlier, where a child is attending for less than one in five days a week, or 20 per cent, then there is a real chance that they are not going to reach their benchmarks. So we need to work with those parents and those schools to ensure that we are doing all we can to get those children to school.

The previous speaker, the member opposite, seemed not to be sure whether they were supporting or opposing the legislation in their argument, even though, at the end, they said they were about supporting this legislation. But I would say to them that it is important to remember that there are already programs out there working with parents and children. Obviously, the states are already doing work on this, and we want to work cooperatively with the states in terms of this type of legislation. As I said, I travel extensively in my electorate and visit schools, and I talk to school counsellors about engaging with parents and engaging with kids. The ‘You Can Do It’ program is a fantastic program that is running in a number of schools in my electorate. Schools have breakfast programs to encourage kids to get to school. So there are already programs out there that are supporting and working with parents in encouraging kids to get to school. It is very simplistic to argue that this legislation is looked at in isolation, particularly in terms of the broader arguments, because truancy is already a problem, states are already making efforts, the Commonwealth is looking to support those efforts, and we need to work cooperatively. Just saying, ‘Oh, it is the states’ responsibility,’ is again going back to the old blame game. Well, we are not interested in the blame game. We are interested in improving educational outcomes for kids, and one of the first things we have to do in terms of that is to get them to school.

If parents do not comply they can have their income support payments suspended for 13 weeks. But if they do start to engage, if they start to work with schools and start to work with their kids, then Centrelink has the capacity to reinstate those payments and back-pay them. This is not about being punitive; it is about providing a carrot. We are recognising that there are carrots in the system but that, in certain situations, there may need to be a stick involved. And we will use the stick, but only as a last resort.

In the most extreme cases—of parents who do not cooperate, and where there is no evidence of a reasonable excuse or special circumstances, and then only after a minimum of 13 weeks of suspended payments—it may be appropriate to cancel income support payments completely. So, in certain circumstances, where the parent has had payments suspended and yet continues not to engage, then there is an opportunity to suspend the payments permanently. But, again, we are not looking at this legislation in isolation, and I would expect and imagine that state governments would engage with this. And, really, if a person is not getting their child to school then we need to have child protection and those sorts of organisations start to look at and work with that family. Again, we need to recognise that this is about looking holistically at the education sector.

So I am supporting this legislation. I think it is important legislation. It is not about taking punitive measures against parents; it is about looking to provide a framework where if you are not engaging with the school and you are not engaging with your child then you do run the risk of having your welfare payments suspended. I support the legislation and I commend it to the House.

Debate interrupted.