Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support what my colleague the shadow minister said in relation to this. However, the amendments which we will be moving relate to clauses 66 to 69. I am now talking about clauses 70 to 71, and I am inviting the minister to explain.

I will have a look at clause 69, which talks about secondary education for Indigenous children. This is the problem that I have identified and which has been identified to your officials—but which they have not, apparently, taken up. Clause 69 talks about ‘Indigenous secondary students at remote and very remote school campuses’. It is talking about the location of the school, not the location where the students come from.

This is the problem with St Pat’s on The Strand in Townsville. It is not a remote school; it is in the centre of the biggest city in Northern Australia. It is not a remote school. But clause 69 refers to the assistance going to ‘remote and very remote school campuses’. St Pat’s is not a remote school campus, but a lot of the children that they get funding for come from very remote parts of North Queensland, the Torres Strait and I think even from the Northern Territory. That is the flaw in the bill that the Catholic Education Commission have been trying to point out to you and your officials, but the officials have not been able to respond. That is the issue.

I have asked a number of questions now—firstly, in relation to clauses 70 and 71, which you have not answered, and, secondly, in relation to clause 69, which is underlying the whole problem. Believe me, Minister, I am trying to look after these schools. I am sure you did not mean to shaft them, and I am trying to help you and your officials to make sure that there are not unintended consequences of this bill. I know you do not want to shaft them, and I am trying to help you fix it up.