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

I wish to take note of the answer provided by the Minister representing the Minister for Education. Firstly, we are pleased that the Labor government is moving on preschool, but I was disappointed in the minister’s ability to answer the question concerning the many other issues that plague Indigenous education.

Even if you just focus on preschool, there are some huge problems to be addressed here. It is not enough to say that all four-year-olds need to be in preschool in remote areas. What we know is that there are measures that need to be put in place to see that they thrive in these circumstances—one of which is that bilingual education be made available to them. That certainly needs Indigenous education workers who are locally based, because the evidence shows that they will attract attendance and they will be much more successful in the transformation from childhood through preschool into school.

There are huge problems both within preschool education and beyond. The 2004 inquiry of the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education had an enormous number of very serious and worrying findings and made 34 recommendations for action. I think none of those recommendations was taken up by the last government, and I would hope that this new government would make an announcement as soon as possible that it will do so.

Some of the health problems associated with Indigenous education—and we have had many inquiries on this subject—include diseases like otitis media, which, if untreated, can cause deafness and even complete deafness. This is a major problem for children attending school. If they cannot hear anything, then they are not likely to turn up day after day. We also know that there are very, very high levels of trachoma. A study recently conducted showed that in north-west Australia up to 50 per cent, or more, of children have active trachoma, which can lead to blindness.

As with so many other issues for Indigenous people, it is not wise and it is not possible to solve problems by simply taking them one at a time. In the case of education, it is to do with the availability of teachers who are properly skilled in Indigenous education in these remote areas. It is to do with the necessity of providing a learning environment which is both culturally suitable and which includes the use of the language spoken by that child. We need to fix some of those health problems which, frankly, can only be fixed if we fix the housing problems. The extent of problems in Indigenous communities is such that cherry-picking bits and pieces and coming up with bright ideas, as Labor has done—and again I welcome it—is not enough. What we want to see from Labor is a much more comprehensive approach and one which will solve some of the educational problems across the board.

Let me just mention a couple of the other problems we discovered. In the Northern Territory there are Aboriginal communities where there are substantial sized primary schools but no availability whatsoever of secondary schools. Why the Commonwealth has allowed the Northern Territory to get away with this for so long, I cannot imagine. There are schools that are poorly equipped—frankly, you would not put your dog in some of the ones that I have been into—and yet we have seen no substantial increase in funding for infrastructure. The Northern Territory is still, as I understand it, funding schools on the basis of average attendance. In other words, at the beginning of the semester or when the weather is right—when it is not the wet season—there may be too many students to fit even in the classroom, because they are funded for the average. There will be huge class sizes. As a result, students drift off, they become uninterested in education—if they ever were interested in the first place—and they disappear. That has to be fixed.

With regard to housing, as I said, it is not uncommon in Indigenous communities for 20 people to be in one house. This means there are very few books for children. There is no time for quiet study or advancement of their education. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.