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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 3011 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

I urge members to read the report in full. I would appreciate any feedback on any other things that they think might assist in the next six monthly report. I commend the first six monthly report on performance on indigenous education to the Assembly. I move:

MR BERRY (4.06): This report is the first of what will be a series over a long period about the approach that this government and future governments take in relation to indigenous education. It emerged out a motion which I moved in this Assembly on 24 May and which was happily supported by the Assembly with one small change. The motion I moved called for quarterly reports and the eventual decision of the Assembly was for six monthly reports. I welcome that decision and the product of that decision, the first report.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a celebration, in effect, of the awarding of a doctorate to Nelson Mandela. It is interesting to note that in the course of his speech on the subject he referred to education as being fundamental to the development of the disadvantaged society in Africa. There is no doubt that we have to focus our energies on the disadvantaged in this country. Whilst Mr Mandela drew attention to different demographics, there are many similarities.

This report has its origins, as I said, in a motion which was passed in the Assembly and the emergence of some quite disturbing reports in the media about perceptions, if I can use that term, of the way our education system was coping with the difficulties that we faced in indigenous education. In my view and, happily, in the Assembly's view, it was extremely important for the Assembly to have a progress reporting system to bring some confidence back into the community which uses our system, if possible.

Some elements of our community were unhappy and lacked confidence in the process. I do not want to go into the detail of that because that is probably a debate for another day as time passes. But I think that this reporting system will provide a vehicle for the building of confidence in our community in relation to indigenous education issues, provided that we produce the goods.

I have not had a chance to look a the report in detail, but the fact is that we are now treating this issue seriously and there will be regular reports. The government is now on notice and, in particular, the education bureaucracy is now on notice that the Assembly wants to keep its eye on this matter. I am confident that we as a community, both in the political sense and in the community sense, can join in and watch the development of better education outcomes for our indigenous people.

We have been faced in recent times with some serious issues on the drug front for our young indigenous people. We have also been faced with serious issues so far as law and order is concerned. I take the view, and I think I am joined by almost everybody in that view, that if we can find a better formula in our education system for indigenous people as well as other disadvantaged people the outcome so far as law and order, health and those sorts of things will be much better and, as a result, we will be building a stronger and more cohesive community in this country.

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