Mission & Justice

Patricia Karvelas; 15/5/08

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has defended spending cuts on the Northern Territory indigenous intervention, saying the Government would boost funding as on-the-ground resources including teachers and nurses become available. More than $200 million has been cut from the intervention program launched by the Howard government last year, despite Labor’s promise to close the 17-year gap in life expectancy in a generation. Ms Macklin said the Government would still spend $666 million in the territory and add “new initiatives in the Northern Territory to those which are part of the intervention”. She said additional funding had been budgeted to pay for 200 extra teachers in the territory.

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Justine Ferrari; 14/5/08

In keeping with the Government’s commitment to ensure the basics are right, the main strategy for halving the gap in school performance between indigenous and non-indigenous students is a $56.4 million program to expand the delivery of intensive literacy and numeracy programs.

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Nicolas Rothwell; 13/5/08

Scholar and grandmother, translator and cultural defender, Dr R. Marika, who died, aged 49, over the weekend near her home in northeast Arnhem Land, was one of Australia’s most prominent and admired traditional Aboriginal leaders. Dr Marika’s long list of achievements, appointments and accolades highlighted her brilliance; but they give little clue to the determination, bravery and sweetness of character that made her so loved by her wide circle of friends. Born into the Rirratjingu clan-group of the Yolngu people, the eldest daughter of the land rights campaigner Roy Marika, she devoted her life to education and to the cause of communication between the English-speaking mainstream and her own society.

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Patricia Karvelas; 14/4/08

All rural and remote Aboriginal children would be entitled to a bed in full-time hostels built by the federal Government beside new schools, under a radical proposal to be put to the 2020 Summit. West Australian Aboriginal activist and chair of the Northern Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance Peter Yu - a participant in the 2020 indigenous panel - said if the Rudd Government was serious about social change, it would invest millions into school-based infrastructure. Mr Yu, who is a previous leader of the Kimberley Land Council and made his name during the native title debates of the 1990s, believes the new hostels should be built in all regional centres and provide full-time mentors to indigenous students

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Andrew Trounson; 12/5/08

Shirley Godwin knows all about Aboriginal mistrust of the medical system. It was in a West Australian hospital shortly after her birth 41years ago that she was separated from her indigenous mother and placed with foster parents in Victoria. But now Ms Godwin is one of the shockingly small band of just over 100 indigenous medical students whose ambition is to help overcome that historic mistrust of health professionals. Like the majority of her indigenous colleagues, she wants to use her skills to tackle the massive health disadvantages in Aboriginal communities.

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John Stapleton; 8/5/08

Therese Rein demonstrated yesterday she will be quite different from her predecessor, Janette Howard, when it comes to public speaking. While Mrs Howard was notoriously wary of the media and kept a low public profile during her 11 1/2 years at Kirribilli House, Ms Rein was more assured yesterday as she mixed with some of the book industry’s senior figures after her first speech in Australia as the patron of a charity. The wife of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has become the patron of the Indigenous Literacy Project, a national book industry initiative in partnership with the Fred Hollows Foundation to improve literacy in remote indigenous communities by providing books for children.

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Helen Hughes; 6/5/08

Marion Scrymgour, the Northern Territory Minister for Education, is to be congratulated for taking responsibility for the crisis in Northern Territory indigenous education by directing her Department of Education, Employment and Training to post national literacy and numeracy test results on its website. All Australian children will be sitting years 3, 5, 7, and 9 literacy and numeracy tests from May 13 to 16. In the past most children in remote areas did not sit these tests because their teachers knew that they could not pass them. In May, all children will be required to sit the tests. By insisting that the numbers of children enrolled, the numbers who sit the tests and their pass rates are posted on the internet, Scrymgour is leading Australia. This school-by-school information will provide essential data for school reform, and will enable Kevin Rudd to give his promised report about the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous students on the first day that parliament sits in 2009.

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Natasha Robinson; 2/5/08

The Northern Territory’s Deputy Chief Minister is under fire after shifting blame for the crisis in remote education to alcoholic, drug-addicted parents who fail to send their children to school. Marion Scrymgour, who also holds the Education portfolio, yesterday warned parents that failing to send their children to school was illegal and that she would enforce penalties for those who failed to do so. Ms Scrymgour, one of the most senior Aboriginal politicians in the country, will establish, “subject to negotiations”, two community partnership education boards, to be located in the Walpiri triangle in central Australia and selected communities in East Arnhem Land. Ms Scrymgour’s plan to tackle what she admits is a crisis in remote education was delivered to Northern Territory parliament this week, with parental responsibility at the core of the Government’s attempts to improve the shocking literacy and numeracy outcomes among Aboriginal children in the Territory.

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Paige Taylor; 1/5/08

A simple edict that Aboriginal children read and write for two hours every morning is finally reducing appalling levels of literacy in remote parts of Australia. The literacy of children at Kiwirrkurra in the Gibson Desert, 700km west of Alice Springs, was so poor four years ago that only a handful had the reading and writing skills to attempt the West Australian Government’s annual written literacy exam for all students in Years 3, 5 and 7. Of those who sat the test, not one met the national benchmarks. In the remote township of 150 people, only 15 adults can read and write English. But the students are now making small but significant gains after the West Australian Government’s Aboriginal literacy strategy, rolled out to 42 remote schools in 2006, made it compulsory for teachers to devote the first two hours of every school day to guided reading, guided writing and word games.

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Natasha Robinson; 19/4/08

Throughout the dusty reaches of the Northern Territory, the crisis in remote education is usually well-hidden. But in Ali Curung, on the edges of the vast Tanami desert, the indigenous community is not prepared to watch yet another teacher walk away. Almost 100 people in the small community, also known as Alekarenge and 170km south of Tennant Creek, have signed a petition in support of teacher Robert Bartholomew, who has blown the whistle on the Northern Territory’s crumbling education system, which he says is dooming the future of Aboriginal Australia. Dr Bartholomew, an American sociology professor who has lived in Australia for 13 years, has been working as a teacher in remote schools for several years. He told The Weekend Australian that walking into the Alekarenge School was like entering the Third World. Conditions were so bad that only one of six teachers who started at the school at the beginning of this year made it through to the second term.

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