Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

When you have got a challenge like this you have got to be able to chew gum and walk at the same time. There are a number of challenges in communities that are not about school attendance, and one of the principle ones is employment. That is why I am delighted to advise that, now, more than 500 local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been engaged as school attendance officers and supervisors. From the beginning I insisted that this program employ 100 per cent Aboriginal and Islander people, and that has been done. Few of the people who are now employed had been employed before. Most of them were unemployed—but that was not because they did not have a particular set of skills. The skills they have are like having a degree in 'Wiluna' or a degree in 'Yuendumu'; they are not available anywhere else. These individuals have those special talents of knowing exactly where a family is up to, where the mobility is, and exactly what the barriers facing those families are. We are capturing that skill set. So congratulations very much to those communities and those members for their efforts. (Time expired)