Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today with a massive sense of frustration. Throughout COVID, hundreds of families across regional and remote Australia commence each school term with a great sense of trepidation, not knowing whether the child they are sending off to boarding school or university will be caught on the wrong side of a border due to a sudden state lockdown. It was 12 months ago that I rose in this chamber to tell the story of Barney and Charlie Mort, who'd been caught up in just such a lockdown in Victoria, with their parents 1,000 kilometres away north-west of Bourke. Through negotiation with the state agencies, we managed to get Barney and Charlie home via a commonsense route—a direct route with a COVID-safe plan that enabled them to drive from their school to their home, avoiding all COVID hotspots, wearing a mask and stopping only at set locations for fuel, and they got home safely. Unfortunately, we are still hearing stories of children getting caught up in lockdowns every term, every time there's a new lockdown. We have not learnt from the past experiences.

In mid-July, students in Victoria returned to school for the start of term. Many travelled from remote parts of New South Wales. Less than one week later, that state went into a lockdown. Some of those children were able to return home; others weren't. The schools did everything they could to support the students. Students who had to remain in Victoria were supported by the schools, and I congratulate and thank the schools for that. One of the students caught up, again, was my friend Charlie Mort, and this time it's done him. Charlie, while being supported by the school, is going to see out the remainder of the term, but he's decided he cannot take the risk again. He is not going to return to school.

Why are we doing this to our students? Why are we doing this to our younger generation? Year 12 students in Victoria have not attended a full term of school since they started their final two years. I appreciate we are doing all we can to keep our community safe, but we really need to think seriously about what we're doing to our younger generations and to our regional, rural and remote students, who don't get a choice. I'm talking about students who, if they were to attend their closest state school, are looking at over an hour of travel on unsealed roads, one way. It is unfeasible for those students to attend a state school. Boarding is their only realistic option. This is not limited to the border between New South Wales and Victoria. We have the same issue in Queensland, although I commend the Queensland government for currently having a border bubble that does allow students, and their parents, who live in close proximity to the border to cross over for educational and support purposes. But, outside the bubble, if those students are to return home they have to isolate.

As I said, I've been raising this for 12 months. I wrote to the Prime Minister in January, warning that the issue remained unresolved as we were entering the 2021 school year. I wrote to the Prime Minister again just last month. National cabinet needs to come together and seriously look at this issue. Each term, as these parents are sending their children across a state border, it seems like we're starting from scratch. We haven't learnt from previous lockdowns. We haven't looked at what worked. We haven't looked at the commonsense approach that we used for Barney and Charlie last year with the COVID-safe travel plan to get students home and ease the minds of parents and children alike. The mental health issues from the impact this is having on our students is immeasurable. I'm getting reports from parents of daily and weekly phone calls from their children expressing concern because of the uncertainty. The Isolated Children's Parents Association have done a lot of work in this area. In November last year they provided a comprehensive submission to the government, with the hope that it would be implemented for January.

We have been calling for consistency from national cabinet on a number of issues. National cabinet very early in the piece agreed to a national freight initiative to apply a consistent mechanism for our freight transport companies to be able to cross borders, even when there's a lockdown. That has worked. It took a lot longer, about six months longer, but finally national cabinet agreed on a set of rules to allow agricultural workers also to cross borders. Despite some confusion shortly after, it was implemented with another lockdown towards the end of last year. It seems to be working, which is great. It shows that when we have agreement, when we decide on a consistent approach, when the rules are clear and when people know how to apply for an exemption and what rules they must follow to get an exemption the rules work. Unfortunately, despite calls from the Isolated Children's Parents Association, from the Australian Boarding Schools Association and from others, we have no such approach to boarding school students. Each term, students going from south-western New South Wales into South Australia need to review the rules. Often they need to reapply for another exemption. Often they're told they're not going to get an exemption, that they have to go into isolation. In Victoria the rules change weekly. We've had a border bubble between New South Wales and Victoria. The boundaries of that bubble have recently been adjusted. The reasons for travel within the bubble during a period of lockdown have also changed, as recently as last night. There is no consistency in our rules. I understand the angst that our families have when they're trying to work out what is best. They all want the best education opportunities for their children, but they all want their children to be safe and well, mentally as well as physically.

We can now see that until there is a sufficient level of vaccination and confidence in the community the states will continue to rely on lockdowns as a mechanism to manage the virus in the community. That is their right, but in the meantime, our rural, regional and remote students should not have to suffer additional burdens when there are commonsense approaches that we can use. We are not talking about sending students from hotspot to hotspot. We are talking about students who are actually happy to isolate on their home farms—most of these students are farm kids. Most of the families are happy to comply with any COVID-safe travel plans that are put in place. So I implore national cabinet to sit down and develop a consistent set of rules that can apply to interstate students, be they boarding school students or university students, because this impacts them across the board.

I had a suggestion about national cabinet sent to me by email from a constituent. In the email, this constituent said: 'After each national cabinet, the Prime Minister comes out and extols about how well it's working, how robust discussions happen but consensus decisions are made. But then, within hours, if not minutes, state premiers return to sniping backhanded comments to each other, create negative media stories and create their own rules.' This is the problem that must be resolved.