Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. I was making the point that, as to Indigenous enrolment in vocational education and training, although there were around 62½ thousand Indigenous students enrolled in vocational education and training in 2005, the completion rates for those students remain low. We particularly want to note that education department data indicate that the numbers of Indigenous students starting higher education are continuing to fall. The 2004 commencements of 3,865 Indigenous students represent a nine per cent decline since 2002, and these trends are compounded by continuing concerns over Indigenous students’ completion rates.

The March 2006 report of the Indigenous Higher Education Advisory Council indicated that the success rate—that is, the progression of students through qualifications—is lower for Indigenous students. The council also reported that the course completion rate for Indigenous students, which is around 42 per cent, is only two-thirds of the completion rate for other students, which is around 65 per cent. In other words, Indigenous graduates are declining as a proportion of total Australian graduates.

These are unacceptable figures. We on this side understand the need for a more strategic approach to Indigenous students’ success and completion, and Labor’s white paper for higher education has foreshadowed that a Labor government will support Indigenous students to participate successfully in higher education. Amongst the policies which have been outlined, we have foreshadowed the provision of incentive payments to universities for Indigenous student enrolments in the second, third and fourth years of a degree course in order to improve Indigenous graduation rates. It is critical, if we are serious about improving the position of Indigenous Australians in this country, that we attend to increased educational outcomes at primary and secondary school and also at the higher education level.

The bill before us includes some urgently needed assistance but it does not consider some of the fundamental issues underlying education and training policies for Indigenous Australians. As I indicated at the outset, Labor will support this bill. I commend the second reading amendment that I moved earlier.