Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator, for your question, and thank you for joining me this week when I reached out across the aisle to all parliamentarians from every party to try and close the gap in many of these areas, including education and educational attainment. Clearly, that's one of the things that we've tried to do, in terms of the Northern Territory. For example, just recently Minister Jason Clare came to the Northern Territory to work with the NTG on an agreement to boost education funding for all public schools across the Northern Territory—and I know that he's also trying to reach out to all the states across the country.

We certainly are very disappointed in terms of the NAPLAN results. One of the things I know is that, in regard to Alice Springs, for example, getting the kids to school is our biggest challenge. We've seen how we've had many difficulties with this in Central Australia in particular—but they are mirrored across many of our regions, even in your state of Queensland—where we need to work harder in terms of getting First Nations people even to school, let alone trying to pass the simple examination at such a young age, with NAPLAN.

I commend the education minister for the work that he's doing in the space, Senator Roberts. I know we have a long way to go, but we are certainly trying to do that in terms of our work in the Northern Territory.