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

Last Friday, I attended the Isolated Children's Parents' Association annual general meeting in South Australia. Quorn is about 340 kilometres north of Adelaide in my electorate, and I try and attend these meetings most years. They have not a huge crowd but have some people that look after some of the most beautiful parts of Australia. They are the caretakers, if you like. But, increasingly, the difficulty of getting anyone to live in the outback regions, because of the state of education, is becoming a very real matter for them.

For instance in South Australia we have just recently, as the other states seem to have done, split primary and secondary schooling into two six-year segments. Consequently, the School of the Air has discontinued year 7 lessons. Now people who live in the outback are faced with the reality of having to send their children to six years of boarding school. I don't know if any of you have looked at boarding school rates recently, but generally speaking the average boarding rate—not the high end of town—is about $23,000 a year in South Australia. On top of that you can put another $18,000 to $20,000 worth of tuition. You're pushing up towards $50,000, and you're not in the best school—far from it.

Imagine if you had three children. I called in on a property between William Creek and Oodnadatta last year, and the manager was there. The manager of the station had just contacted me and said, 'We'll have to pack up and leave.' Imagine if you were a leading hand or a jackaroo or whatever and that you had a family. There isn't really another option. You've got the School of the Air, which is a fabulous service, and we should be proud of it in Australia. And then it just chops off, and you've got to go to distance education. For a couple running a property or doing whatever out there, that means virtually that you've only got one income, because the other income has to be inside the house being the child-minder and the schoolmaster. While distance education works well for those who are extremely motivated, I challenge anyone to keep a 13-year-old boy inside out on a sheep station—with all the activity that's going on—to try to keep his education up. So, clearly, you're back to one income and, even if you're well paid—you'd might be in the low $100,000s—it's $50,000 a year for each kid for six years.

In South Australia, the state government offers a living-away-from-home allowance. It's sub-$5,000, and has been for many years. It's 10 per cent. So if Australia wants people to live, care and work in our outback regions we simply have to come up with a better model and be more generous to these parents who are facing these incredible difficulties.