The remote community education scandal in the NT

                                                            That glib and oily art

to speak and purpose not.

King Lear, Act one, scene one.

 

The Weekend Australian (23-24 September 2023) has begun publishing a series of articles (link here and link here $$) researched and written by three independent journalists and has also published an editorial titled NT schools worsen disadvantage (link here $$). The front page article is accurately titled Nation’s forgotten schoolkids scandal, and the back up article is titled Thirst for learning in education desert.

 

 The articles describe appalling conditions in makeshift classrooms in remote outstations, endemic shortfalls of registered teachers, and quite atrocious educational outcomes. The article also points out that large numbers of Indigenous students fall below established minimum standards and attendance rates are extraordinarily low. The NT Education web page (link here) provides a good overview of the extraordinarily poor attendance levels particularly in very remote regions. What those figures do not tell us is the proportion of students who are attending 90 percent of the time. For example, fifty percent attendance may mean that every student is attending only half the days in the school year, or that fifty percent are attending every day, and fifty percent none. The devil is in the detail. In any case, those outcomes scandalous in their own right, a ‘scandal’ informed observers have been aware of for decades (link here), and a ‘scandal’ the NT Government has been aware of and has done nothing substantive to address. Of course, the real scandal is that these outcomes are scandalous, but not a scandal that forces government action.

 

 The ‘scandal’ The Australian article authors point to are the funding mechanisms in place in the NT education system for remote schools. In particular, they point out that the NT is the only jurisdiction that funds schools on the basis of attendance numbers, and not enrolment numbers.

 

 According to The Australian articles, following a 2022 Deloitte Report that identified the harm arising from this system, the NT Government announced it will move to an enrolment based system over the next five years, but the NT Minister would not answer the authors questions on the current status of this transition. The result is a massive level of underfunding, estimated at $214m, that impacts on the most disadvantaged students in the nation.

 

 The second funding mechanism that is defective, and according to the article directly affects an estimated 400 remote students, relates to so called Homeland Learning Centres, that are in effect classrooms notionally attached to a hub school. The article states:

There is no public record of HLC student numbers, teaching ratios, educational outcomes, facilities or funding.

 It is not clear if the hub schools incorporate these statistics or not. A 2014 Review commissioned by the NT Government and cited by the article raised “issues about equity and quality in the delivery of education for all NT students” and suggested that hundreds of Indigenous students lived in homelands with no education provision at all.

 

 A third issue, raised by the Australian Education Union NT (AEUNT) was that education funding required on the ground is instead directed into the NT bureaucracy. According to Productivity Commission data compiled by the AEUNT, the NT has 22 non-school staff per 1000 students compared with nine in the ACT and eight in Tasmania.

 

 The Australian’s editorial includes the following assessment, with which I would agree:

The situation is unconscionable and suggests the NT government is not fit for purpose. The indifference, warped priorities and maladministration that have created the problems stretch back for decades across the political divide.

 

 So what are we to make of all this in policy terms?

 

 At the risk of gross simplification, and bearing in mind that remote NT is not the same as remote Victoria, it is worth assessing this from two perspectives, a micro community level perspective; and the macro jurisdiction wide perspective.

 

 At the micro level, the provision of education services by the public sector is just one element in a labyrinthine intercultural world, where community priorities are shaped by the seasons, the geography, cultural responsibilities, localised conflicts and alliances, family obligations, and the obligations and opportunities across multiple sectors emanating from mainstream institutions. To use a gross over-simplification, it is a complex micro policy environment. Mainstream values and assumptions are not guaranteed to operate as they might in Melbourne. Nor do local communities necessarily punish a government that does not provide services (particularly when all governments effectively treat them the same); instead, bush community members may take the view that voting is irrational and not a priority (link here).

 

 At the macro policy level, mainstream policy engagement is shaped overwhelmingly by political pressures and opportunities, with Cabinet and Ministers making zero sum decisions regarding the allocation of resources, both in terms of what is available to a particular sector (like education) and then where the finite and perhaps insufficient resources are allocated, making zero sum decisions within the sector, funding some schools more than others. If for example urban infrastructure is the paramount priority in a polity with small electorates, and where winning margins are razor thin, politicians and governments will be strongly incentivised to put electoral considerations above fairness, above long term investments with payoffs in the future, and above the interests of particular groups of citizens, above the public interest, and above the national interest.

 

 The funding available to a particular school, and its associated homeland learning centres, is a function of factors operating at both micro levels and macro levels. Governments are adept at finding bureaucratic processes (that is, systemic institutional processes) to allocate resources which deliver the outcomes desired by the political agenda of the government while appearing to be neutral and fair. The use of attendance rather than enrolment to allocate school resources across the NT is a prime example of this. It is not a policy mistake or oversight, but a deliberately chosen policy mechanism designed to deliver political outcomes while appearing anodyne and even appropriate. Other strategies adopted by governments include deliberate reliance on opacity or overt confidentiality, prioritising secrecy over openness. The articles in The Australian mention a number of times various reports that have been commissioned and not released, and information that is not available or not even collected. Transparency is the friend of the public interest and good policy, not its enemy (as governments implicitly argue).

 

 The educational outcomes at a particular school, and aggregative across the sector, are a function in large measure of funding availability, but also a function of other factors at both micro and macro levels. This is widely recognised by all participants in the sector, but paradoxically, it becomes a further reason for governments to rely on under-investment as a political strategy as outcome failure can always be blamed on something else (e.g. poor parental commitment, poor teacher skills, remoteness and poor roads, the weather, welfare dependence and so on). Yet while adequate funding is not in itself sufficient to guarantee good educational outcomes, it is certainly necessary (that is, essential) for good educational outcomes. Other factors that are essential include  effective alignment between the curriculum and approach to instruction and the cultural values of the school community; safe and secure housing; social stability within the community (including protection from alcohol related violence; and of course access to good health services. There may well be others such as effective community governance, and perhaps access to sport and recreation facilities, access to traditional country, and so on.

 

 In other words, if we as a nation wish to ensure that remote Indigenous communities are able to access an effective education system, we need to adopt a more holistic policy approach that is both culturally aligned and which priorities the community interest over short term political interests. This may sound somewhat naïve and idealistic when written in abstract prose, but it needs to be remembered that politicians are making decisions that are affecting adversely the life opportunities of tens of thousands of children and adolescents over the course of any decade. Those decisions are, in a very real sense, shaping and determining future life paths: prison or employment, alcohol or sobriety, sickness or health, long life or early death.

 

 If this all sounds too hard, I beg to differ. It is certainly complex, difficult and challenging. But there are people in the NT, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, who in the face of the widespread political indifference and obstruction outlined in The Australian article, are giving it their best shot. I refer readers to the Karrkad Kanjdji Trust (KKT) (link here) which is primarily an organisation established to care for country. It has apparently taken the view that education is too important for its members and their children to be left to the NT education system’s under-performance. They established and supported an associated entity, the Nawarddeken Academy (NA) which now operates three schools in western Arnhem Land. Their 2021 Annual Report (link here) outlines in detail what they are seeking to do. I do not have first hand knowledge of their educational approach and strategies, but what is available in their documentation strikes me as a significant step in the right direction. The fact that there are people working hard in the face of the political and bureaucratic indifference outlined in The Australian’s article is to my mind inspiring.

 

 I am however very conscious that micro success in delivering education programs (if achieved) is not the whole solution. It needs to be replicated across the whole sector. It may well be that the talents and commitment of the intercultural teams at KKT and NA are not widely available even if funding were to be made adequate and other ancillary requirements provided. Macro policy is, in this respect, more difficult than micro policy. This leads me to conclude that there is a need to focus on making macro policy settings effective and fit for purpose.

 

 In a recent submission to the Productivity Commission in relation to their draft report on the review of the operations of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap (link here to a my post on this issue – click through to my submission), I argued that the current closing the gap policy architecture was sub-optimal and used the absence of a target which directly monitors the effectiveness of school education as an example. I cited Productivity Commission research that links poor education outcomes to continuing deep disadvantage. I also argued strongly that the Commonwealth should step up and take an oversight role in relation to the performance of the states and territories on closing the gap. Importantly, I argued that the Productivity Commission should make the case for a more effective policy architecture, an approach that I hadn’t discerned in its draft report.

 

 It struck me that the Productivity Commission should be using its status as an independent expert body to provide potential solutions to the deep-seated inequities confronting First Nations citizens. The Australian exposé just reinforces the argument that the Productivity Commission, and indeed, the Commonwealth, must look beyond the strict terms of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap if they wish to see real progress in the next thirty years.

 

 In relation to the NT education system, it seems obvious to me (and increasingly others) that the NT Government has neither the political incentives, nor the policy capabilities to deliver adequate education services to remote communities. The Australian’s editorial suggested that elements of the NT education system be handed over to ‘an experienced non-government education service.’ I don’t support this idea as any such non-government entity would be at risk of direct or indirect  interference and pressure by electorally (and not policy) motivated NT politicians.

 

 It is time that the Commonwealth accepted that the NT Government is incapable of delivering remote education in a manner consistent with the public and national interest, and in such a way that it actually delivers outcomes. These poor outcomes are feeding directly into the social dysfunction that is endemic in parts of remote Australia, and which I have previously argued is a slow burn catastrophe (link here). I suggest that what is required is a joint Commonwealth and Territory Authority, inclusive of Indigenous representation and interests, to oversight the allocation of funding resources and development of policy for the delivery of education across the Norther Territory outside of Darwin and perhaps Alice Springs.

 

Such an Authority should be established by Commonwealth legislation, and should have a finite term, say twenty years. The Commonwealth should fund the authority, and adjust the existing funding to the NT if it so wishes to effectively ensure joint funding. There may also be merit in considering whether such an authority should be extended to remote regions in other jurisdictions. The 1967 referendum provided the Commonwealth with the legislative remit in relation to Indigenous matters in the states and territories (as does section 122 of the Constitution in relation to the Territories). The Commonwealth Government should fulfill its responsibility to the citizens of the NT who are being systemically deprived of the opportunity for an education, and the life opportunities that flow from that by the longstanding policy decisions of the NT Government.

 

 

 

 

The 2019 Federal election and Indigenous affairs: rough seas ahead

I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have rived the knotty oaks, and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam,
To be exalted with the threatening clouds…

Julius Caesar, Act One scene three.

Policy is never made in a vacuum, and Indigenous policy is no exception. While policy is normally driven by incremental developments, and the concerns and advocacy of interest groups, it is also heavily influenced by political issues and developments. Indeed, given the propensity of Indigenous issues to demarcate ideological divides in the community, we would be safe in concluding that Indigenous policy is even more political than most areas of policy concern.

To take just one example, eleven years ago, in the lead up to an election, the then Howard Government decided to instigate the NT National Emergency Response, usually known as the NT Intervention. The Labor Opposition was successfully wedged, having to decide between opposing an electorally popular policy and supporting a policy which was anathema, including as it did provisions which sidelined the operation of the Racial Discrimination Act, and the use of the Australian Defence Force (albeit in an unarmed capacity).

We currently have a set of similar political circumstances to 2007: an unpopular government, a Prime Minister with a proven capacity to impose robust and punitive policy measures in sectors where the electoral consequences will not be negative (think refugee policy), and an Opposition determined to maximise its chances of winning the coming election. Added to this are the internal politics of the LNP Government, with a strong internal conservative dynamic, plus a range of smaller conservative parties to its right prepared to play the ‘race card’, and who are a real threat to its primary vote count especially in regional and non-urban electorates.

It is therefore worth looking at recent policy initiatives to ascertain if they are signalling a potential return to a more interventionist and ‘political’ policy framework in Indigenous affairs. In short, there appears to be a number of developments which suggest the Government is putting in place the building blocks to make Indigenous policy a key plank in its electoral strategy, albeit a tactic which makes the states and territories alleged failures the primary target thus disguising the underlying targeting of Indigenous citizens. The fact that WA, the NT, and Queensland all have Labor Governments make this a viable electoral tactic.

So what are these policy building blocks for a potential political attack on the states and territory? The core policy arena is shaping up to be child protection. This is an area where the states and NT right across the nation have yet to get on top of. The statistics on out of home care, particularly for Indigenous children, are a national disgrace. And there are regular reports of individual cases which involved the death and serious abuse of young children, most recently in Tennant Creek. A second policy area is school attendance, which is often seen (erroneously in my view) as a proxy for poor educational outcomes. While attendance is important, it is just one of a number of necessary elements in the successful delivery of education to Indigenous children, particularly in remote regions. A third building block (which I have posted on at length previously) is the area of remote housing where the Government has effectively cut $3bn from the forward estimates for the next decade, on the spurious argument that provision of social hosing is a responsibility of the states and the NT.

The evidence that the Government is putting in place the building blocks for such an electoral strategy is set out below.

First child protection. In a press conference on 23 April 2018 in Darwin (link here), the then Treasurer Scott Morrison noted in relation to a question regarding the Commonwealth’s decision to establish a Royal Commission into Youth detention in the NT:

…when you look over Royal Commissions in the past you will find they are called for different reasons on an array of issues but I think the one here in the Northern territory was quite pointed. You couldn’t have the government here inquire into itself. Could you? That would be a nonsense when it came to this issue. It did require a step back and one removed to get into those issues. (emphasis added).

I am not suggesting that the decision to call a Royal Commission was not warranted, but merely point to these comments to highlight the Prime Minister’s preparedness to apply a different standard to the NT than to other jurisdictions including the Commonwealth itself in relation to contention and politically sensitive issues.

On 4 September 2018, the Prime Minister was reported as commenting that the sexual assault of another Tennant Creek toddler makes his heart cry (Morrison denounces ‘sickening’ NT assault: link here).

On 18 September, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released a report on Children’s Headline Indicators (link here) which included data on child abuse nationally by jurisdiction. On 19 September 2018, The Australian ran an article which reported the AIHW findings headed ‘NT indigenous child abuse rate rises 30 pc’ which indicated that in the NT an average of 33.7 cases of sexual, physical or emotional abuse or neglect per 1000 children in 2016-17 compared with 27.3 percent a year earlier, a rate three times higher than the next highest jurisdiction.

In response, the Prime Minister suggested he might intervene in child protection in the NT (‘Morrison puts NT on notice over baby’s death’: link here paywall). In turn, this engendered a response from the NT Government (‘Feds need to pay, not intervene: NT Government’: link here and here). The Australian reported:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison's suggestion he might intervene in child protection following a baby's death near Darwin has been rejected by the NT government who said he should instead provide them with more funds.

The death of a six-month-old boy on Tuesday, which is being investigated by police, prompted the prime minister to say he would override Territory authorities if they did not meet their responsibilities as the former leader John Howard had done in the 2007 intervention.

NT Attorney General Natasha Fyles said the federal government should be contributing to the cost of fixing the youth justice and protection through the recommendations of last year's Royal Commission.

In relation to school attendance, the Prime Minister appointed Tony Abbott as a special envoy on Indigenous affairs, and his focus will be on remote education issues. He was quoted by the Guardian on 30 August 2018 (‘Tony Abbot accepts job as special envoy on Indigenous affairs’: link here) as describing his role as follows:

What I expect to be asked to do is to make recommendations on how we can improve remote area education, in particular, how we can improve attendance rates and school performance because this is the absolute key to a better future for Indigenous kids and this is the key to reconciliation,”

Upon coming into office in 2013, the Government initiated a major push on school attendance (which is the responsibility of the states) including the establishment of a new Commonwealth program, the Remote School Attendance Strategy (link here). Progress has largely stalled, and the Minister’s public statements on the issue have dropped off considerably. See previous posts on the issue here and here. In my March 2016 post, I concluded:

The Commonwealth’s current policy on remote school attendance appears to be fundamentally flawed. It bears all the hallmarks of a policy initiative designed to be seen to be doing something, yet runs the risk that it will actually allow the states and territories off the hook . 

The appointment of Tony Abbott appears to be setting the stage for a belated reversal of the Commonwealth’s policy position, where they will revert to blaming the states for poor progress. It is a pity that the Government didn’t work with the states rather than attempting to go it alone in 2014.

Third, in relation to remote housing, I merely refer readers to the multiple previous posts on this blog relating to the issue. The Government has gone out of its way to frame this issue as a Commonwealth / state dispute rather than what it is, a calculated decision to cut services to the most disadvantaged citizens in the country. The fact that this strategy has been largely successful and has had no discernible adverse electoral consequences will merely serve to encourage the hard heads within the Government to resort to a similar strategy on other issues.

Finally, the appointment of retired Vice Admiral Ray Griggs to the most senior position in the Indigenous affairs group within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is quite curious (link here). Griggs (who I don’t know) was before his recent ‘retirement’ one of three leading contenders for appointment to the position of Chief of the ADF, a position which went to Angus Campbell. He is clearly an effective and well regarded manager, albeit one with limited exposure to Indigenous policy. While there is likely to be some concern in relation to this latter point, the issue I wish to focus on is the potential for the Government to use Griggs’ defence background and experience as a cloak to avoid criticism for any interventionist policies and to signal to those more conservative voters that the Government is taking a tougher line with Indigenous issues.

While the likelihood of the Government resorting to the strategy outlined above seems high, and the portents are in plain view for those prepared to look, one change between 2007 and 2018 is the ubiquity of social media, thus creating the opportunity for highly targeted campaigning by political parties. This means that the Government will not necessarily adopt a high profile ‘intervention’ on a national basis, but has the option of pursuing a more low key approach, with selective messaging to its core constituency and key electorates. It does however suggest that the Government’s policy stance on Indigenous issues will harden up over the next half year, and if the opportunity presents itself it will do everything possible to wedge the Labor Opposition.

For its part, Labor is yet to lay out its policy platform on Indigenous affairs, and while this too involves electoral and political considerations, the delay in outlining its platform and commitments leaves open the possibility that Labor will be left flat footed, and subject to the threat of an electoral wedge in the lead up to the election.

Labor should seek to take the high ground on Indigenous policy, bearing in mind that it is a policy realm which impacts our national reputation, and which will face extremely high expectations form Indigenous interests, and will require significant focus and attention if they win office. Labor should confront the issue of child protection head on, and consider committing to establishing a royal commission or high level inquiry into the issue nationally. It should announce its plans for the Indigenous affairs portfolio, including whether it will establish a new agency or leave Indigenous affairs where it is. It should commit to establishing a Commonwealth / State taskforce to work with the states on reforming remote education, including investing the necessary resources to ensure the states and the NT can invest in raising the quality of teaching standards, and exploring the opportunities for strengthening non-school educational opportunities as is occurring in some parts of central Australia. And it should commit to reinstating the $3bn in cuts to remote housing over the coming decade.

While predicting the future is inherently fraught, particularly in relation to Indigenous policy, I am confident that the combined interactions of Minister Scullion, Minister Wyatt, special envoy Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, Shadow Minister Pat Dodson, Opposition leader Bill Shorten, and the nation’s diverse Indigenous leadership will mean that the next six months will not be plain sailing. Perhaps appointing a Vice Admiral to head up Indigenous affairs wasn’t such a bad idea!

Remote school attendance: a gap worth closing

Minister Scullion visited Gunbalanya a week or so ago to launch the school year with the local remote school attendance strategy staff. The Remote School Attendance Strategy (RSAS) has been one of the Minister’s signature or headline initiatives.

I have been drawn to look again at the program as a result of the Minister’s rationale for justifying likely cuts to remote housing programs, namely that it is a state responsibility and the Commonwealth has no role. While I don’t agree with that rationale in relation to remote housing, it is an argument with the Minister has ignored entirely in relation to school attendance.

Traditionally the delivery of education services has been a state responsibility. In 2014 however, the Minister broke new ground when he initiated RSAS with funding of $46.5m, and extended it in 2015 with added funding of $80m. It now involves dedicated staff in some 77 communities across WA, Qld, SA and the NT. I previously posted on the RSAS in April 2016 (link here).

I don’t propose to undertake a detailed assessment of the program here. For those interested, key documents include the two evaluations of the program (link here and here) and the chapters in the two most recent Closing the Gap reports, each of which deal briefly with the RSAS.

What is clear is that progress nationally on school attendance has been falling (albeit only marginally) in recent years whereas the Government introduced a five year Closing the Gap target in 2013 which aimed to reach parity by 2018. Overall school attendance for Indigenous students nationally is sitting just above 80 percent.

The hardest nut to crack however is in remote regions where RSAS selectively operates. Here there is little current information on progress, consistent with the Government’s parsimonious approach to real and timely transparency. As an aside, rhetoric about making data available to communities for better local decision making, mentioned in the Discussion Paper on the Closing the Gap refresh (link here) and in Martin Parkinson’s Wentworth Lecture (link here), and moves for more evaluation as the driver of better performance (link here) ring hollow while important performance information on progress on issues as important as school attendance is withheld or not compiled.

Given the paucity of current information on the Department’s website, I thought I would undertake a mini-research project of my own, which I don’t claim to amount to a comprehensive assessment of the RSAS program, but are enlightening in opening a window into the reality of school attendance in particular locations and as a means of assessing the Government’s rhetoric against some objective data.

In the Minister’s media release, he states:

“The Gumbalanya RSAS team does a wonderful job encouraging kids to go to school and stay in school every day and I have no doubt that the team is making a real difference to the lives and futures of the children.

“By the end of 2017, the Gunbalanya RSAS team supported a 13 per cent increase in school attendance over the past 12 months demonstrating the success of our Government’s commitment to working in partnership with Indigenous communities.

The My School website (link here) allows citizens to access key data on virtually every school in the nation, including attendance data. So I decided to have a quick look at Gunbalanya and then a few other random schools in the RSAS program. I emphasise that these are random selections, and may not reflect the average for all 77 RSAS schools, however in the absence of a continuously updated data base on the Department’s website ( a useful transparency and accountability initiative for a program the Minister claims is addressing one of his headline priorities) there is little alternative.

The 2015 Interim Progress Report on RSAS had found that on average, there had been a 13 percent improvement in term three attendance levels over the first year of the program.

The following table lists attendance data for four schools: Gunbalanya (NT), Papunya (NT), Indulkana (SA) and Roebourne District High School (WA). The attendance rate is the average percentage of students attending each day over the course of the semester or term. The attendance level refers to the percentage of students who attend 90% or more of the time.

	Attendance Rate Sem.1	Attendance Rate Term 3	Attendance Level Sem. 1	Attendance Level* Term 3
Gunbalanya
2014	57
2015	56	45	14	8
2016	53	50	8	10
2017	49	43	4	5
Papunya
2014	63
2015	65	59	7	4
2016	69	46	11	4
2017	54	52	1	2
Indulkana
2014	82
2015	77	69	27	27
2016	73	68	19	17
2017	72	64	27	16
Roebourne
2014	51
2015	61	48	15	9
2016	62	51	10	12
2017	55	51	14	11

So what do these random data tell us? First, notwithstanding the Commonwealth program intervention, there appears to be since 2014 a generalised downward trend in school attendance in these schools, with Roebourne perhaps the exception. Second, the data suggest that at best, only around two thirds of students are attending on average, and in three of the four schools the term three figures are around a half of all students. These figures are well below the national attendance rates of 80 percent mentioned above. Third, of most concern to my mind are the extremely low figures for attendance levels as they indicate virtually all students (around 85 percent) experience gaps in attendance which have the potential to disrupt their learning and once students fall behind the risk of early exit entirely from the education system increases dramatically.

None of these data give me any cause to change the conclusions I drew in my 2016 post (link here). I encourage readers to re-read it. I will repeat the key paragraphs:

The Commonwealth’s current policy on remote school attendance appears to be fundamentally flawed. It bears all the hallmarks of a policy initiative designed to be seen to be doing something, yet runs the risk that it will actually allow the states and territories off the hook … RSAS operates in a limited number of remote locations, and thus will only ever have a partial impact. A more effective alternative would have been to allocate the funds to the relevant education departments utilising an incentive structure which rewards not merely improved attendance (an output), but ideally improved NAPLAN scores (an outcome), leaving the methods to be employed to the education experts….

…There would be merit in developing and publishing a strategic plan (or mini white paper) on the overall Commonwealth’s strategy for achieving improved educational outcomes in remote Australia. Such a plan would ensure that a comprehensive and coherent program logic would be devised, and would canvass how best to harness the resources and expertise of the states and territories, and thus lay out a comprehensive rationale for the Commonwealth’s involvement.

If the states and NT were not prepared to cooperate, the Commonwealth should then canvass options for the Commonwealth to take over the whole school education system in remote Australia from start to finish rather than inject random interference as at present.

In the absence of such a strategic rationale for the Commonwealth’s involvement in remote education, interested citizens can be forgiven for seeing RSAS as merely another instance of politics subverting good policy. It will most likely end up on the scrap heap of failed policies in Indigenous affairs, with Indigenous citizens wearing the reputational damage of yet another policy fiasco, taxpayers being $125m worse off, and yet another generation of remote citizens reaching adulthood without the literacy and numeracy skills which will allow them to fully participate in our nation’s future.

Finally I want to return to the Minister’s recent press release on Gunbalanya. He claims that the local team have ‘supported a 13 per cent increase in school attendance over the past 12 months’. Yet the My School data suggest that attendance rates fell in Semester One by 4 percentage points and in Term Three by 7 percentage points.

On his ministerial webpage (link here) the Minister states:

My priorities as Minister are to ensure that Indigenous children attend school every day and receive a quality education; ….

I am left wondering about the vast gap between rhetoric and reality. That would be a gap worth closing.