Mr SNOWDON (4:09 PM) —by leave—Firstly, can I thank both the Minister for Education, Science and Training and the shadow minister, the member for Jagajaga for their remarks in relation to the tabling of the National report to parliament on Indigenous education and training, 2001. I am sorry that I have not had an opportunity to read the document, but I have had an opportunity to scan it and I did listen intently to the comments made by the minister and the shadow minister. I just want to make a couple of remarks in relation to the appalling state of education for Indigenous people of the Northern Territory. The minister and shadow minister will be aware, as will members of this House, that this is not a new subject to me when discussing the concerns I have with regard to Indigenous education, but I want to make a couple of points. The first is that the minister referred to the Collins report in which Bob Collins said he:

He then said:

Minister, broadly speaking, I concur—but there is a fundamental problem. For most students in the Northern Territory who live in isolated communities, if you are older than 13 or 14, school is not an option. I have used these figures before and I have yet to validate them but, frankly, it is worth pointing out that there is somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 young people between the ages of 13 and 18 in the Northern Territory who have no access to high school.

On the one hand, I accept that it is important that parents take an interest in their children's education. But the facts are that, since self-government was introduced in 1978, and since the Commonwealth transferred responsibility for education to the Northern Territory government, successive CLP administrations in the Northern Territory sadly did not pay sufficient attention to Aboriginal education—indeed, Minister, to the point where you will recall that, when the Labor government came to power last year, one of the first things they did was sign an outstanding IESIP agreement with you. That was because the previous CLP administration had been most obdurate, as it had been over successive years, in coming to an agreement with the Commonwealth about the terms and conditions of these grants. They knew, Minister—as you would know from reading the Collins report—that, in instances of grants made to the Northern Territory for IESIP, in excess of 40 to 50 per cent of moneys were appropriated by the then Northern Territory government for its own purposes. That clearly raises significant concerns. We have to be very careful that we do not put ourselves in a position where we are blaming the victims for the results of poor administration and poor public policy. The facts are that, in the context of the Northern Territory—and indeed I say this with all the graciousness I can muster—it is not only the Northern Territory government that is responsible for this; it is, of course, also successive Commonwealth governments, including Labor governments.

I also want to point to the fact that the testing regimes which are used are not always appropriate. They are indices of a test that is applied across the board, but they may not be indices of the competencies of children in their home environments using culturally appropriate material. I think it is extremely important that we understand that, across the Northern Territory, there are particular circumstances which prevail in relation to young people. English is their second or third language, and I note that there is no testing of literacy in their first language. I also note that, in the context of the development of educational outcomes for Indigenous students, in the Northern Territory the bilingual education program, which had been initiated prior to self-government by the Commonwealth government and which was very successfully in place for many years, was abolished by the previous CLP administration.

There are real issues here about the nature of the curriculum. There are the issues of what languages are used in the schools, what materials are available to students to be used in schools and whether or not those materials are culturally and socially appropriate. Whilst I accept the appalling outcomes that this document indicates and I know that they are true, the fact is that we need to contemplate different forms of testing. We need to understand that, in many schools in the Northern Territory, the people who are responsible for delivering the education services themselves, prior to moving to these communities, had no understanding of the cultures or the circumstances of the people they are going to be working with. That, fundamentally, is a real issue because pedagogy requires a fundamental understanding. If the teacher does not understand the culture and the language of the children that he or she is working with, then his or her ability to transfer knowledge is of course impeded.

Very significant issues are raised by this document. Another issue which needs to be contemplated— which this document will not contemplate because it is not required to contemplate it—is the abject poverty that many people in Indigenous communities find themselves in. It is little wonder that young students find it difficult to achieve at school if, as in many cases, they live in circumstances of 15 to 20 people in a three-bedroom house and if they go to school hungry. There is a whole range of circumstances which these documents do not contemplate and do not comment on. While I applaud the minister for his frank assessment this afternoon—and indeed the shadow minister—this goes a lot deeper. If we are to really address this issue, we have to understand the root cause of poverty, we need to contemplate the relationship between health and education, and we need to understand our responsibilities as legislators and as public policy makers to ensure that there are sufficient funds available to attract teachers of sufficient capacity and understanding to work in these communities.

While I have made comments about a lot of teachers who are first year out and go to these places without any knowledge or experience of the cultures with which they are going to work, the bottom line is that there are also many dedicated professionals who are working their backsides off in these Indigenous communities without a lot of support. I am pleased to have had this opportunity to speak to this report and say to the minister that I would be happy to engage with him and with the shadow minister in a bipartisan way to make sure that we have—

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr SNOWDON —I understand what you are doing, but this happens to be a very important issue to me and a fundamentally important issue to Australia. If we are really concerned and interested in ensuring that Indigenous Australians are able to have a better life and the diversity of choices which the minister refers to in his speech, we have to give them a fundamental choice and a right to education. We will only do that when we address the issues I have raised this afternoon.