Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I would, Minister, just repeat the urgency of dealing with this question of secondary schools because there are many quite large communities where there is a full and functioning primary school but when students reached secondary school level there is nowhere for them to go. I have been into schools where 14- and 15-year-olds are in classrooms with primary school students because they want to keep learning but there is no option for them to go to a secondary school. I am surprised that this is not central to what you are doing. You appear to be very concerned about those young people who are not employed and have no occupation and not a very good education. One of the reasons they do not have a good education is that there is no education facility for them. There may be a primary school but, as I said, in many communities I have been into there is quite a large community of secondary school age students but no provision whatsoever for educating them. If this whole approach is going to work and we are going to improve the economies of Aboriginal communities then it seems to me this is fundamentally important. I am surprised you do not have a grasp of the extent of the problem, and some sort of solution to fix it.