MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Julia Gillard, good morning.
JULIA GILLARD: Good morning.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Can you first of all explain just what the Federal Government is planning to do in terms of welfare payments and truancy, or parents who can’t be bothered or unable to get their children to school.
JULIA GILLARD: This morning I’m introducing legislation into the Parliament, which will give the Federal Government power in eight trial communities as a last resort to suspend welfare payments if kids aren’t going to school. But it’s a long way before we get to that stick. What we’re saying is, first off, if you are an income support beneficiary, if you get a welfare payment from the Government, you will need to show Centrelink that your child is enrolled at school. Now that’s not going to be a hard thing to do. I mean, at the end of the day it’s a legal obligation to make sure kids are enrolled at school. And then, if there becomes an attendance problem, Centrelink would work with the family involved to try and resolve it. And only ultimately, if all else fails, will a sanction come into effect. Now that’s the mechanics of it.
The important thing is why we are doing it? Well, the evidence shows that there are around 20 000 Australian kids who aren’t enrolled or aren’t regularly attending school. And you don’t need to be a professor of education to work out that if a child misses large parts of their compulsory school years then you are setting them up for a life of failure, and we want to fix that problem.
DAVID BEVAN: So is the obligation on the school to let Centrelink know that kids not turning up?
JULIA GILLARD: In the first instance, the obligation is on the parent to show Centrelink that their child is enrolled at school. Then schools, because they already collect attendance data, would let Centrelink know if there was an emerging problem with non-attendance. And obviously by non-attendance we don’t mean, you know, the usual things that happen when kids go to school. They need a day off here or there because they’ve got a cold or a sore throat or other form of lurgy. We understand that that happens in a normal school year. We’re talking about real absences, unexplained absences.
DAVID BEVAN: Isn’t there a risk here though that you’re going to make matters worse in already troubled families? Because if the parents don’t care enough to make sure their kid’s turning up to school each day and then they find out the kid hasn’t been turning up and their welfare payments are cut, that there may be some retribution against the child.
JULIA GILLARD: Well, seems to me in those circumstances we’re talking about a family that needs some support and intervention and that’s what is going to happen first. In the first instance, Centrelink is going to work with the family to resolve the problem. But if we don’t do anything, then we are condemning these kids to not getting an adequate education. You can’t learn to read and write and all of those really important things in school you don’t go.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Is this a recognition that the states aren’t doing their job properly despite millions of dollars being spent on child welfare departments, social workers, bureaucrats and all of paraphernalia that goes with that?
JULIA GILLARD: I think it’s an extra measure. I think the states are working across all that range of areas and these problems are complex. You know, there’s not one measure that is going to be the magic bullet that solves everything. It’s not as simple as that.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: But if a state government doesn’t know that children are going to school, then it’s a failure, is it not? And if they are doing it, it would be a fairly fundamental thing to check on in terms of child welfare. As you said, you know, if you’re not getting educated you’re not really getting out of the blocks in our society. Why does the Federal Government have to do it?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, we believe it’s an extra measure that can work as a companion to the things that state governments are already doing. So state governments, school systems generally, many of them do have very rigorous follow ups if children are not attending school. But this is an extra, a companion measure, which we think will also help to make a difference, and we’re going to trial it in eight communities first. That’s going to be happening during the course of next year, assuming of course the legislation clears the Parliament and I’ll be introducing it today. We’re going to trial it in eight communities first to see if it makes a difference. But if it does make a difference then we will roll it out nationally and my view is anything extra we can do to help with this problem is worth doing.
DAVID BEVAN: Did you flag anything like this during the last election campaign?
JULIA GILLARD: We certainly, in the last election campaign, said we wanted extra measures to assist with attendance. We appropriated the money for this in the Budget, so it’s actually in the Budget papers. It’s been the subject of discussion publicly for a period of time now. Most particularly my colleague Minister Jenny Macklin made announcements about the communities that were going to be subject to the trial. So it’s been a long time in the works.
DAVID BEVAN: But nothing in the election campaign along the lines of, ‘If you vote for us, we will introduce a scheme whereby if parents persistently don’t make sure their kids are at school, we’ll cut their welfare payments’. Nothing like that?
JULIA GILLARD: We certainly signalled in the election campaign we wanted further measures on attendance. But obviously, the development of the specifics of this measure has happened in Government and we’ve been through all of the processes of government, including appropriating the money to support it in the Budget.
DAVID BEVAN: So when did you come up with this idea?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, we’ve been working on it for a period of time. Obviously, to get things in the May Budget you need to be working on them. The Government got sworn in in December, so the idea came forward as part of our normal consideration of what’s going to go into the Budget and what we think is a good education measure.
DAVID BEVAN: So were you planning this in Opposition?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, certainly in Opposition, we were looking at a range of things.
DAVID BEVAN: Including this one?
JULIA GILLARD: Look, there were discussions in Opposition about attendance measures, but this particular measure has been worked on in Government.
DAVID BEVAN: You’ve really got your skates on. The bureaucrats must’ve had this one in the top drawer.
JULIA GILLARD: Well, we’ve got our skates on. Let me tell you, we’re a Government with a big agenda, a big agenda that we took to the election. We’ve come in and every Minister is actively managing a big policy agenda. It does require a lot of hard work from the Ministers involved, from their staff and from the departments that support them.
DAVID BEVAN: It came as a bit of a surprise to your own MPs from all reports.
JULIA GILLARD: Well, we had a discussion of it in our party room and that’s to be expected. But, you know, the overwhelming thing here that we’ve got to remember, who’s at the centre of all of this? Well, it’s that child and that child and their school education which is at the absolute centre of it. And I just think as an Australian, I don’t want to feel that children are missing out on such basic block of life going to school. And our society already recognises how important that basic building block is for life by making school attendance compulsory. You’ve got to have your kids enrolled at school for the compulsory years and you’ve got to have kids going to school.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: You’re listening to Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard here on 891 Mornings with Matthew and David. I am … our phone lines are open 1300 222 891. You may have a view on this. Good idea, bad idea or, you know, you’re mulling it over? Is there another way of doing it?
Julia Gillard, now you’re saying eight communities—just what we have in front of us—there are six in the Northern Territory, one in the Perth suburb of Cannington. Where else?
JULIA GILLARD: Well, there’ll be one other site to be selected and obviously we’ll work with the state governments on the selection of that site.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Given what has happened recently in the northern suburbs of South Australia, northern suburbs of Adelaide, you’ll be very familiar with that. And in one case there’s a legal case underway on that, but certainly children had to be taken out of a home in the northern suburbs. Would you be looking at Adelaide or suburbs of Adelaide as your eighth cab off the rank?
JULIA GILLARD: We’re going to talk to state governments and make a selection but obviously we will be trying to focus on a community where we think that there are non-attendance problems and that this would make a difference. That’s been done with the sites selected so far. So I’m not in a position to tell you where the eighth site will be.
DAVID BEVAN: You also have to find a cooperative state government. You’ve obviously got one in WA. Have any of the others states said, ‘Oh yeah, we’re happy to take part in this’?
JULIA GILLARD: My colleague Jenny Macklin has been doing the discussions with state governments and we’re still working that through. So, I think, when you look around the states people are saying that they’re concerned about making sure kids get to school. When I talked to the state ministers for education we have those conversations. When I also talk to leaders in the independent and Catholic school sector, we have that conversation. People who care about education understand how important it is for kids to be in school.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Because … say the South Australian government put up its hand, it’d be an admission of failure on one level, wouldn’t it? I know you’re saying this is another level, but if a state government was doing its job, you wouldn’t have to do this.
JULIA GILLARD: I just don’t accept the premise of the question. We are the Government, the level of government that makes income support payments. We are there for the only level of government that could design this measure and we believe it’s a useful companion measure to things that states and territories are already doing.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Julia Gillard, Deputy Prime Minister, thank you for talking to 891 Mornings. We appreciate it.
JULIA GILLARD: Thank you very much.