Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

We are doing everything we can to achieve the Closing the Gap targets, including halving the gap in attainment of year 12 or equivalent qualifications between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and non-Indigenous Australians by 2020. This bill helps achieve exactly that. It increases the support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families with children who need to live away from home to attend senior secondary school. The priority investment approach modelling of my department suggests that an increase in support for younger Indigenous Australians to complete year 12 will lead to long-term benefits for everyone. Those children who achieve year 12 are more likely to be in work and less likely to rely on welfare. On average, within five years of leaving school, Indigenous young people who study year 11 as boarding students are projected to have income support costs that are 38 per cent lower than those of their peers who leave school earlier. This modelling shows that these students do better in the longer term as well.