ALI MOORE:
Well, do you have trouble sending your children to school, making them go to school? And if you’re on welfare payments, will it make a difference? The Federal Government is introducing legislation into Parliament this week. It’s trialling the plan first in some eight regions. But the plan is that if you don’t send your child to school—chronic truancy—then your welfare payments will be cut. To tell us how it will work, Julia Gillard is the Deputy Prime Minister. Julia Gillard, good morning.
JULIA GILLARD:
Good morning, Ali.
ALI MOORE:
So how will this work?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well, how it works is firstly, we’ve got to remind ourselves it’s already an obligation for parents in this country to have their kids enrolled in school and attending school. What we’re saying in these eight trial communities is for people on income support, they will have to show Centrelink proof that their children are enrolled at school. If an attendance problem becomes apparent then there will be a range of support and intervention measures to make sure that the family ends up able to get the child to school each day. So this suspension of welfare is a last resort, very much a last resort, and won’t ever be imposed on someone if they do the very simple thing of complying with Australian law, enrolling their child in school and making sure their child attends school.
And what’s it all for? Well, kids need school. We all know that. If they’re going to have a good start in life, a successful life, then they need to be regularly attending school. If children miss out on large amounts of schooling, then that’s setting them up for a lifetime of failure and we want to make sure every Australian kid is getting the possible start in life and the best possible access to education.
ALI MOORE:
But Julia Gillard isn’t it true that family dysfunction is often caused by financial stress. By making a poor family poorer, how does that help?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well Ali, in the first instance what would happen is there would be support measures for the family. The welfare suspension is the very last resort. So a family that is in difficulties, that is struggling, would be in contact with Centrelink, and Centrelink would help them work the problems through. But we want to make sure that children end up in school. And Ali if I can put the reverse to you, we think today there are around 20 000 Australian children who either aren’t enrolled or aren’t regularly attending school. Now that’s the best count that we can get from the ABS. Now we don’t want children in those numbers to miss out on the benefits of schooling, so we’re looking at a system that will bring the problem to attention with a view to resolving it, rather than just turning a blind eye to the fact that kids are missing out in school.
ALI MOORE:
You’ve got the President of the Australian Primary Principals Association saying that she fears the changes could lead to teachers and school administrators being subject to violence from angry parents. There are others who claim that could potentially lead to children turning to crime, to try and make some money to feed themselves. I guess, what’s your reaction to those sorts of criticisms?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well, quite frankly, I would have to disagree with those criticisms. Schools already collect attendance data. Teachers every day have a look around and see who’s in class and isn’t in class.
ALI MOORE:
But welfare payments aren’t cut if people don’t turn up.
JULIA GILLARD:
And often schools already check if kids are there and if they’re not there they go through a range of support measures themselves to get children back into school. So these attendance issues are already there in our schools for teachers. In terms of a welfare suspension, that would be an absolute last resort in circumstances where the child is not in school and, of course, the welfare suspension is processed by Centrelink, not by anybody in the school community.
ALI MOORE:
I take your point that it’s a last resort, but if it was to be imposed on a family, where would it leave a child?
JULIA GILLARD:
Our welfare system has a series of rights and obligations in it. We give people money when they’re in difficult circumstances to support themselves and to support their children most importantly, and in exchange for that we ask people to abide by the rules. Now we do have welfare suspensions for other reasons, Ali. I mean, if you don’t provide Centrelink with your residential address, for example, and you just refuse to do that and refuse to do that and refuse to do that, then ultimately that will lead to a welfare suspension.
We’ve got to have a way of making sure that people abide by the rules. And I’d have say of all the laws in Australian society that matter, the law that says kids need to be enrolled and attending school for the years that school is compulsory has got to be right up there with one of the most important ones. And so we’re saying to people, make sure kids are at school, it’s your obligation anyway, it’s in the interest of your child, and what responsible parent wants their child to miss out endlessly on school.
ALI MOORE:
If you’ve got a family …
JULIA GILLARD:
If there’s a problem then we’ll try to assist you with the problem.
ALI MOORE:
You say that there’ll be, if there is an attendance problem, there’ll be support, there’ll be assistance. I guess, if families don’t respond to that support and assistance, that would be evidence, wouldn’t it, that they are indeed the most troubled and probably dysfunctional families in the first place. So by cutting off their welfare, again I ask you the question, where does that leave the child?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well, where it leaves us is enforcing the rules that matter in Australian society…
ALI MOORE:
But I’m not asking where it leaves you, I’m asking where it leaves a child. If a child lives in a dysfunctional family where there’s not enough money to go around anyway and suddenly there is less …
JULIA GILLARD:
If a child lives in a dysfunctional family then we’ve got an obligation to do what we can to address that. This is a system that will bring non-enrolment and non-attendance to our attention then we will help people get their children to school. In the last resort, if there is a welfare suspension, people can fix that immediately and be back paid everything that they’ve missed out on by getting their child enrolled and at school. So it’s a process to help people through.
Yes, it does have a stick at the end of it. I understand that. It’s a stick there, not one that we want to see administered because we want to see the outcome that gets kids into school. And I would say to everybody who’s listening, the simple way to make sure that no one ever experiences a welfare suspension is for people to comply with what I think is a parental obligation, a legal obligation, a moral obligation, and that is to enrol their child at school and to make sure that their child is attending school.
ALI MOORE:
Six of trial sites are in the Northern Territory that’s led to perception that you’re targeting Aboriginal families. How widespread will this become under the draft legislation?
JULIA GILLARD:
Well, the legislation that will come to Parliament this week has eight trial communities. Six are in the Northern Territory, one is in Western Australia and the location of the final one is still being worked through. Obviously, we work through these things in cooperation with our state and territory colleagues. We are going to have this measure in place for the next school year in those eight trial communities. We are then going to evaluate if it’s made a difference in those eight trial communities. If it has made a difference and done a very important thing, and that is to get more children regularly attending school, then the legislation does empower a rollout nationally. But the process is all about building an evidence base to see if it works and …
ALI MOORE:
What about those parents who are not on welfare who don’t send their kids to school?
JULIA GILLARD:
The Federal Government only has so many levers in its hands when it comes to issues like this. This is one that we do have in our hands. We are the level of government that makes income support payments and so we’ve chosen to use that lever. Ali, we also know when we look at educational attainment in this country, and it’s something we’re really determined to look at and address, that low educational attainment tends to be correlated with low socioeconomic status. Now we know, also, demography isn’t destiny, that kids from the poorest of families can come out with great school results if they’re in school and they’re in a good school with a quality teacher. And we are working on all fronts to make sure kids are in school, they’re in a good school and with a quality teacher.
ALI MOORE:
Julia Gillard, thanks for joining us.
JULIA GILLARD:
Thanks Ali.
ALI MOORE:
Julia Gillard there, the Deputy Prime Minister in Canberra.
ENDS