Mr LEE (11:44 AM) —The Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Bill 2000 is intended to replace the Indigenous Education (Supplementary Assistance) Act 1989 from next year. This bill will provide continuing funding for the Indigenous Education Strategic Initiatives Program, IESIP, from 1 January 2001 to 30 June 2005, covering both recurrent and specific project funding, as well as the away from base element of Abstudy.

The bill seeks to implement the 1999-2000 budget initiative which announced a new national indigenous literacy and numeracy strategy. Under the strategy launched in March this year, the government claims the funding will be performance based, with priority given to a focus on literacy, numeracy and school attendance. At the launch of this program, the Prime Minister incorrectly claimed that additional funding was being provided for indigenous literacy. He said:

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, the Prime Minister seems to have had little idea about what is actually going on in the education portfolio. In fact, at the very same launch that the Prime Minister was claiming that this strategy represented a firm commitment of resources from the federal government, we also had the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs stating the following—and I quote from the minister for education's speech at the launch of that strategy:

So in other words, we have the Prime Minister claiming that there was an increase in resources going to indigenous literacy and at the same launch the minister for education making it clear that this is simply an allocation of existing funds. When this matter was raised with the Prime Minister in the House, we had the Prime Minister stating that he stood by the statements he had made. In doing so, he misled the House. When this issue was raised with the Prime Minister, he gave me an assurance that he would investigate the matter, and I am glad I am not holding my breath because I have still not heard back from the Prime Minister for the obvious reason that, in fact, he understands that he misled the House in stating that new funds were being directed towards indigenous literacy in the new national strategy when, in fact, the minister for education has simply reallocated the existing pool of funding.

There are many people on that side of the House who would, I am sure, be quite keen for the Prime Minister to show a keener interest in education matters because the current minister for education—frustrated, temporarily, in his pursuit of university deregulation—is extremely busy elsewhere in his portfolio, cooking up plans to make more and more decisions behind closed doors and giving himself more unfettered power. As an example, this bill does not reproduce the table of per capita amounts payable to different types of education providers—preschools, schools and vocational education institutions—which is included in the current act. This appears to give the minister absolute discretion in the distribution of funding between different levels of education and between government and non-government providers. I will return to the subject of funding shortly.

In terms of the agreements to be made with education providers, while the current act gives the minister the power to set conditions not specified in the legislation, it indicates that the main conditions dealing with payments relate to the acquittal of the amount and monitoring, evaluation and reports on the education program—no penalties are specified. By contrast, the new legislation says that funds are recoverable if a condition of an agreement is breached. Neither the bill nor the explanatory memorandum spells out what the conditions might be, but the minister's letter of 8 June this year to state and territory education ministers regarding the new IESIP arrangements says:

I understand that performance targets also will be set as part of those agreements.

While even the states grants legislation currently before the parliament that provides funding to government and non-government schools across the country sets out a series of steps to be taken in the event of school authorities not meeting performance targets, this bill simply says that if one or more of the conditions of an agreement is breached, then the money is recoverable by the Commonwealth. I do not think that the minister would ever intend to apply the same onerous criteria to some of the category 1 schools that he seems to be so keen to give massive funding increases to.

This bill also states that the Commonwealth may recover the amount as a debt through the courts. I actually think that this is a fairly extraordinary provision to be placed in this bill, especially given that this bill is making grants for education. I would be grateful if, in the response to the second reading debate, the minister could clarify the government's intentions in this area. I would in particular like him to explain how he intends to deal with situations where providers may in good faith have tried to meet required performance targets but nevertheless have failed to do so.

The Labor Party will be strongly opposed to the use of the powers spelt out in the bill to recover moneys already paid and already expended by education authorities, except in the most extreme circumstances. Our preference would be, and we would certainly hope, that in the first instance the government would adopt a more constructive approach to addressing any concerns it may have about an education provider failing to meet performance requirements. In particular, we would hope that education providers would be warned that future funding was at risk if they did not meet particular performance indicators. I suspect that the government would have difficulty trying to recover money in court if it had not given a warning before action was initiated in court to recover money already spent on educating indigenous students.

I would like to return now to the issue of funding. I mentioned earlier the discretion given by this bill to the allocation of funding by the minister. It was with great concern therefore that the opposition found that this year's budget papers showed that only 45.7 per cent of IESIP funds was being directed to government providers. That was down from 56.7 per cent in the 1998-99 budget, and we raised this matter with the office of the minister for education. In a letter dated 7 September, the minister advised me that a so-called technical error had occurred and that Budget Paper No. 3 was incorrect, which is quite an admission from a minister who seems to specialise in making statistics say anything he wants. But we are pleased that the government has admitted that there is a technical error in Budget Paper No. 3. I understand that the technical error flowed from the fact that Abstudy away from base funding, which has now been incorporated with IESIP, had been incorrectly included with funding for non-government education providers. I am pleased that this situation has now been clarified because of the opposition's questions and that the split between the government and the non-government sectors appears much more stable. Rather than funding for indigenous education by government providers falling from 56.7 per cent to 45.7 per cent, in fact it rises from 56.7 per cent to 64 per cent. That certainly eases our concerns.

I note, however, that the attachment to the minister's letter to me on this issue is careful to state that, according to the minister, the sector split is `indicative only'. This again highlights the minister's much wider discretion under this bill, certainly compared to the current act, in the allocation of funds. As to how the money might be spent and what sort of agreement providers will need to sign, we have noted that the National Indigenous Literacy and Numeracy Strategy focuses heavily on literacy, numeracy and school attendance. In addition, the minister's letter to states and territories, to which I referred earlier, says the following:

In this context, I wonder to what extent providers will need to shift their focus away from cultural issues onto the more basic ones of literacy and numeracy. No-one is disputing that improvements need to be made. Only 32 per cent of indigenous students stayed to commence year 12 in 1998 compared with around 73 per cent of non-indigenous students.

Data presented by the minister for education at a gathering last year in Alice Springs shows that there have been some improvements in the last several years. The number of indigenous people participating in education increased from 1.8 per cent of total students in 1986 to 2.5 per cent in 1996. The number of indigenous people with an educational qualification increased from 10.6 per cent in 1991 to 13.6 per cent in 1996. There was a 28.3 per cent increase in indigenous school enrolments between 1991 and 1996, and a further 10.3 per cent increase to 1998. Vocational education enrolments by indigenous students almost doubled between 1994 and 1998. Also, indigenous students represented 1.3 per cent of higher education enrolments in 1998 compared with just 0.3 per cent in 1981. We have a great distance still to travel before indigenous Australians can hope to have educational opportunities that come near those available to non-indigenous Australians.

At this point I would like to highlight a report that was commissioned by, and recently provided to, the Northern Territory government. It is a report that was prepared by former Labor senator for the Northern Territory Bob Collins. Bob Collins and the members of his support staff did a great deal of work in seeking to investigate the problems in indigenous education in the Northern Territory. Highlighted in the Collins report are a few things that I wish to refer to today. It found that just six per cent of year 3 and only four per cent of year 5 indigenous students in non-urban Territory schools achieved national reading benchmarks in 1998. This compared with 54 per cent and 36 per cent respectively for their indigenous counterparts in urban schools. For non-indigenous urban students, the rates were 82 per cent and 78 per cent. So there is a massive difference, especially for indigenous kids going to school and living outside urban areas in the Territory. The Collins report in particular highlighted the massive difficulty of poor attendance by indigenous students at Territory schools. It said:

It also highlighted the enormous difficulty that students face because of the high turnover of teachers in non-urban Territory schools.

For whatever reason, we can only hope that the Northern Territory will pick up and implement as soon as possible the very sensible recommendations that came from the Collins report. In many ways, we can never ensure that students will develop a strong foundation, especially in literacy and numeracy at school, unless they attend school and immerse themselves in their training every day. Having had the privilege of visiting some non-urban schools in the Northern Territory in my capacity as federal shadow minister for education, I know that some of those schools have very dedicated staff. They have people with enormous commitment to trying to ensure that the indigenous students have a better start in life through a decent education. Those people face an enormous task in trying to ensure that kids in those schools have a fair opportunity to build up literacy and numeracy skills. I know that many of the communities rely on the staff in those schools to ensure that their kids have a decent educational foundation. But addressing student attendance and trying to reduce the massive turnover of staff in non-urban schools right across the country is very important.

Several of those communities have also highlighted the importance of a bilingual education in ensuring that their culture remains strong and that the students not only develop a good foundation in English but also have a good foundation in their first language and a good foundation in the traditional cultural practices of their community. The Northern Territory some time ago was looking at winding back its commitment to bilingual education programs, and I note that at several stages the federal minister for education was giving his support to the Northern Territory government's decision to do so. I am pleased that the Northern Territory government to date seems to have had second thoughts about that decision. Certainly within those communities there is very strong support for the maintenance of the bilingual education programs to ensure that their culture remains strong. Some of those communities were represented in the opening ceremony at the Olympic Games. Any of us who had the chance to see those communities participating in the `awakening' segment at the Olympic Games would understand the enormous importance they place on ensuring that their culture is communicated in a strong way to their kids.

What we are suggesting is that there is still an enormous task ahead of us in indigenous education, whether it is in ensuring that kids have a chance to get a basic foundation in literacy or numeracy or whether it is in ensuring that as many indigenous students as possible complete year 12 and have a chance to study at TAFE or university. We still have great lengths to go before non-indigenous Australians will even begin to approach the opportunities that are there for them. What we need is greater cooperation and an intensified effort in implementing programs that are demonstrating success in indigenous education across the country. While the government has made much of its National Indigenous Literacy and Numeracy Strategy, which was launched by the Prime Minister in March, we also have the minister claiming that this strategy was quite a historic leap. We certainly hope that it continues to lift the educational outcomes of indigenous Australians and that it does fulfil the ambitious claims made by the government about it. But we are concerned that, if the minister for education has his way, none of us will be able to tell. There is no provision in this bill for parliamentary scrutiny of ministerial decisions in relation to expenditure, agreements or performance information. The opposition will be circulating an amendment in a few minutes that seeks to deal with these issues. At the end of my speech, I will be moving a second reading amendment that deals with some of these issues as well.

I would like to take this opportunity to ask the minister once again to explain why he felt justified in reducing Abstudy payments, especially to older indigenous students. The government has never made public the findings of its review of Abstudy, on which it apparently based the changes, announced in December 1998. I cannot see any reason why the public should not have access to the review of Abstudy, which the government has used to justify the dramatic changes it has made. Those changes involved aligning many Abstudy payments with those made to non-indigenous students under the youth allowance. The minister claimed that the alignment was justified except in cases where `special provision needs to be made to cater effectively for the particular disadvantages faced by many indigenous students'. Students aged 21 and over were the biggest losers under the Abstudy changes brought in by the Howard government, with some payments dropping by around $65 a fortnight. The minister has never explained why these students do not qualify for his special provision, given that, while the proportion of indigenous people with a formal qualification rose to 13.6 per cent, as I mentioned, the comparative figure for the general population was much higher—34.4 per cent.

A report was prepared for ATSIC by Ms Wendy Brabham and Associate Professor John Henry from the Institute of Koorie Education at Deakin University dealing with the very Abstudy changes which came into effect some time ago. That report found that the changes would significantly disadvantage indigenous TAFE and university students who are aged 21 and older, are independent, are single or with a partner and are with or without children, of whom there were 9,950 in 1998. They also found that it would significantly disadvantage TAFE and university students who are getting either a sole parent or a disability support pension. There were 4,810 such students in this group in 1998. An important point about the ATSIC report findings is that it is mature age students who make up almost 80 per cent of the indigenous TAFE and university student population. The report quotes research over the last 30 years indicating that many indigenous people of mature age with community and family responsibilities return to education and training. These are the very people who are being hurt by the cuts to Abstudy payments, and there is a great deal of information to suggest that the cuts are already having a significant impact.

I will return to the bill before the House. The minister needs to explain why, if the government is serious about its stated aims for improvements in education outcomes for indigenous students, it seeks to pursue these aims behind closed doors. Why does this bill seek to reduce the information available to the public about what the government is doing in funding indigenous education? Why is this bill such a bare bones effort, with all the meat hidden from view? Where are the guidelines which will operate under this legislation? My office asked that the guidelines, at least in draft form, be provided before this bill was debated. We have not seen them yet, and I doubt that we will see them before the government rams this through both houses of the parliament. It seems this minister does not know the meaning of cooperation, openness, transparency or accountability. If there is one area where we do need cooperation, openness, transparency and accountability, it is in indigenous education in Australia. For this reason, I now move the opposition's second reading amendment:

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mrs Gash)—Is the amendment seconded?

Mr Emerson —I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.