Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of a bill that has a national focus but which brings extremely positive benefits in Northern Australia and particularly across the length and breadth of the Northern Territory.

The Australian Education Amendment Bill 2014 is a much-needed piece of legislation that boarding schools in the Territory and nationally, which house Indigenous students, have been waiting for. It signals changes to the Australian Education Act 2013, on which I have been working closely with my friend and colleague, the education minister, Christopher Pyne, to have introduced. It is with great pleasure and a measure of pride that I am able to speak to these amendments today.

The amendments have a number of provisions, but it is the one that relates to Indigenous boarding schools which I am particularly interested in and which will be the focus of my comments here today. During the time they spent together in the Northern Territory's East Arnhem region last month, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Education and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs put special emphasis on improving educational outcomes for Aboriginal people, particularly across Northern Australia. One of the key focuses was on school attendance, which varies between one community and another but in some cases can be as low as 30 per cent. My Northern Territory Country Liberal Party colleague Senator Scullion has been doing some great work in that space around trying to cut truancy numbers in communities, but this legislation is part of a suite of measures to improve Indigenous education outcomes.

Around Australia, boarding colleges provide accommodation for Indigenous students who, in many cases, travel hundreds and hundreds of kilometres from remote communities to continue their education. In the Northern Territory thousands of Indigenous students have attended boarding schools over many years and have been the recipients of a learning stream that would not have been available to them in their communities. In my electorate of Solomon, which encompasses Darwin and Palmerston, we are fortunate to have Kormilda College, Marrara Christian School, Northern Territory Christian College and St John's Catholic College. These outstanding institutions have been providing vital learning and accommodation services for Indigenous students for many years. These services are not limited to my electorate. Other educational institutions providing these vital services across the Territory include St Philip's College, Tiwi College, Woolaning Homeland Christian College and Yirara College in Alice Springs. Some of these institutions have been financially impacted by the former Labor government's policies. One Labor minister after another came to the Territory and promised to fix their wrong. But they never did. It is this government, the Abbott government, that is yet again fixing the mistakes of the former Labor government.

By way of background, the Australian Education Act 2013 is the principal legislation by which the Australian government provides financial assistance to approved authorities for government and non-government schools. The act was a product of the previous Labor government but only took effect from January this year. Under its requirements, state and territory governments distribute funds to approved authorities to public, private and independent schools, in line with the requirements of the act. This year alone, around $14 billion will be paid to government and non-government schools under the Australian Education Act, and the Commonwealth is investing a record $64.5 billion in schools over the next four years.

The amendments being discussed here today will create a mechanism that enables payments to be made under the government's newly established Indigenous Boarding Initiative, which is required to provide additional recurrent funding in 2014 to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boarding students at non-government schools. The Indigenous Boarding Initiative was announced in this year's budget to rectify a shortfall in funding that had been identified in an independent review. Under the amendments before the House today, more funding is available to schools if they have more than 50 Indigenous boarding students from remote or very remote Australia or more than 50 per cent of their boarders are Indigenous and from remote or very remote Australia.

The Indigenous Boarding Initiative will provide around $6.8 million in additional funding in 2014 to non-government schools that meet the criteria to provide boarding students with the essential services and support they need to achieve a high-quality education. This initiative recognises the cost pressures faced by schools that support Indigenous students from remote areas and will address a resourcing shortfall. When I was in opposition a number of Territory schools with a large number of Indigenous boarders contacted me to outline their concerns. In particular, they were concerned that what was currently being provided was not enough and that additional funding would be required to enable them to meet the costs of providing boarding and tuition to cater for the additional needs of these students.

Former Labor ministers Garrett and Crean, and other former Labor ministers such as my fellow Territorian the member for Lingiari, promised to fix this funding issue. But that never came about. This issue stems back to the 2010 election—before I was elected. Labor were big on promises and slack on delivery back then, and this is a classic example. It has been left to this government to deliver on this very important issue—and I thank Minister Pyne for listening and for making sure that occurs. I want to thank in particular the principals and school councils of Kormilda College and St John's College, who worked with me to put the case forward to Minister Pyne. I know that, when he visited the various schools across the Territory, he was able to see firsthand the implications of not fixing this issue.

I brought to the attention of the House in May last year that Kormilda College, which has around 220 students from outback communities across the Territory, was considering cutting its Indigenous programs if the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government did not attend to serious shortfalls in funding. Labor, loves to claim—falsely—that it is the champion of the disadvantaged and of Indigenous Australians, but the school was running at a shortfall of $500,000 as a result of the previous Labor government's funding cuts. This prompted the then principal of Kormilda College to state: 'We're in financial difficulties based on the change in funding that is taking place'.

In developing the Indigenous Boarding Initiative, the Abbott government also considered the findings of an independent review that identified significant additional costs faced by non-government schools with a large number of Indigenous boarding students. In response, and as I have already mentioned, the Abbott government provided an estimated additional $6.8 million in the 2014-15 budget for the Indigenous Boarding Initiative. This will support eligible schools; and a broader welfare review, including a review of Abstudy, will be conducted.

This extra funding has turned a serious fail into a very strong pass for boarding schools and Indigenous students, particularly those in the Northern Territory. The eight schools I mentioned earlier are among 21 eligible non-government boarding schools in the Northern Territory, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia. The extra funding will allow eligible schools to provide improved services to Indigenous boarding students from remote or very remote areas and provide effective additional support to boost school attendance and engagement.

It is remarkable to me that the previous Labor government was so uninterested in issues associated with remote education that they allowed such a funding shortfall to have such an impact on Indigenous students and boarding schools across the country. The member for Jagajaga, the member for Adelaide and the member for Lingiari all cannot wait to jump up on their soapboxes and spread misinformation about coalition policies, but at the same time they were quite prepared to leave Indigenous boarding schools and Indigenous students high and dry. It is absolutely outrageous. It was a pretty sorry effort by the Labor government, and it took the coalition government, with its determination to bring lasting benefits in all areas of Indigenous development, including education, to fix up this mess.

On the subject of the Labor Party and the misinformation it is spreading out in the community, I want to take this opportunity to put on record the full extent of the coalition's funding profile in the Northern Territory. The deception from those opposite is incredible. The Labor Party love to talk about cuts. Those over there are as mad as cut snakes, and they are about as trustworthy as cut snakes too. They are a sinister crowd who are trying—and, I hope, failing—to spread their poison into the broader community. In the Northern Territory, for instance, there is $272.5 million more funding, and this point has been acknowledged by the Territory Minister for Education and Deputy Chief Minister, Peter Chandler. The total Commonwealth funding to all schools in the Northern Territory will increase by $108.9 million, a 53.9 per cent increase, over the forward estimates. The annual increase for all Northern Territory schools, government and non-government schools, for recurrent and capital spending, in 2014-15, will be 28.6 per cent; in 2015-16, it will be 8.1 per cent; in 2016-17, it will be 9.1 per cent; and in 2017-18, there will be an increase of 1.6 per cent. The first-year funding is extremely high, and this is to redress issues associated with the Territory's historically low funding base. The total Commonwealth funding to government schools in the Northern Territory will grow by $66.3 million by 2017-18, which is a 72 per cent increase from the 2013-14 to 2017-18 financial years, while the non-government sector will grow by 38.8 per cent over the same period.

I want to once again congratulate Minister Pyne for his commitment to improving education outcomes in the Territory. I want to close by briefly touching on other components contained within this amendment bill. The bill provides funding certainty for 16 independent special schools and special assistance schools that would otherwise see their funding reduced from next year. These schools will now transition towards the standards consistent with other schools. This government has already extended the More Support for Students with Disabilities funding in 2014 which was cut by the previous government. The bill extends the commencement of school improvement planning requirements. This extension will provide regulatory certainty for schools while we continue to identify command-and-control requirements with states and territories. We are also ensuring that schools moving between approved authorities will not be financially advantaged or disadvantaged. This bill also corrects the location loading that applies to major city schools, ensuring the right approved authorities attract the location loading needed and that funding entitlements can be correctly pro-rata-ed where a school does not operate for a full year. There are also a number of smaller yet equally important amendments brought by this bill that I stand in support of this afternoon. These amendments are transparent, wide-ranging and necessary. I commend the bill to the House.

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