Garma Speech: A Country of Contradictions

Before I got on the plane yesterday, I dropped my four year old at child care. I got down on my knees and told him I had to go away for a few days. He asked me where I was going, and I told him the top of Australia.

He put his hand on his heart and then he drew a line to mine. I said “Atticus, what’s that?”. And he told me it was an invisible string.

I didn’t teach him that. He taught me that. And there’s wisdom in that.

There is an invisible string that connects all of us. That criss-crosses the country and crosses time. More than 60,000 years of it.

I begin by acknowledging the Gumatj people. I pay my respects to Elders past and present. And I acknowledge all the people of the Yolŋu nation gathered here at Gulkula.

A place of ceremony and law. And a place of education. A place that reminds us education is older than classrooms and campuses.

As Education Minister I feel very privileged to be here again and to be invited to speak here tonight. Can I also acknowledge the Prime Minister of Timor Leste Xanana Gusmao, Ambassadors, Ministers, the Chief Minister, and leaders from across and Pacific. Djawa Yunipingu the Chair of the Youth Yindi Foundation.

The CEO, Denise Bowden, and all of the organisers and volunteers who bring Garma to life. And a special shout out to my childhood hero, a man who is here every year, the inimitable Jack Thompson. I also want to acknowledge the teachers and principals who are here.

The big brains and the big reformers. Friends like Yalmay Yunupingu and Noel Pearson and Ray Ingrey, Dyonne Anderson and Mick Gooda. A month ago, America celebrated its 250th birthday.

The Declaration of Independence. For its time what it said was something considered quite extraordinary. The idea that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.

It is also full of contradiction given it was written and embraced by men who owned other human beings. We are a country of contradictions too. We were one of the first countries in the world to give women the right to vote.

And one of the last to give that same right to our first people. We have lived for generations in suburbs with Indigenous names like Parramatta and Dandenong and Inala. And at the same time we accepted the legal fiction that until Cook arrived there was no one here.

The path to changing that goes back beyond Mabo, beyond Murray Island, to the Gove Land Rights Case, to Yirrkala, to the Bark Petitions, and to the Yolŋu. And so I am very conscious of where I am, how sacred this place is. I am also very conscious of the responsibility I have as Minister for Education and its place in the contradictions of our country.

The power of education to do so much good. To pass on wisdom and knowledge. And how that power was used to try and eradicate Indigenous language and culture.

How education can change not just the lives of those it touches, but everyone they touch too. How its impact ricochets through generations. How it changes communities and countries.

And how we have failed. I don’t want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on who your parents are, where you live, where you went to school, or the colour of your skin. But we are.

We are. If you are a young Indigenous boy today, you are more likely to go to jail than university. That’s what it looks like at its searing worst.

But it’s not the only example. If you are a child from a poor family or you live outside a big city, you are less likely to go to university, you’re less likely to finish school, you’re more likely to fall behind at school and you’re more likely to start behind than other kids. No education system in the world has closed that gap.

But good ones can bend it. And that requires two things. Funding things based on need.

On the individual need of different children. And doing things based on evidence. The evidence of what works.

First need. That’s what finishing the work David Gonski started is all about. Something that no government has done.

Until now. It means an extra twenty billion into public education over the next decade. It also means doubling Australian Government funding to public schools here in the NT.

Where it’s needed most. It’s what the changes to child care, that started this year, are about, that guarantees every child who needs it gets access to the child care subsidy three days a week. And provides the same guarantee to every indigenous child five days a week.

Why? Because that’s where the need is greatest. It’s also what the changes we have made to apprenticeships are about.

The good news there is the number of Indigenous apprentices in-training has jumped by 35 per cent in the past five years. And it’s what the changes I am making to universities right now are about. Three years ago I introduced laws that guaranteed a place at university for every Indigenous student who has what it takes to take on a course they want to do.

In the last three years the number of Indigenous students at university jumped by nearly 13 percent. That’s a big jump. Preliminary data indicates it is up again this year.

Over the next decade my department thinks it could double. In the Parliament right now is a Bill to do the same sort of thing for every student from a poor family, from the regions and from the most remote parts of Australia. And for the first time needs based funding like we have for schools for universities.

What does this mean? It means the more students a university has from poor families or the regions or the bush, the more funding it gets. That’s for things like tutoring and mentoring and other supports to help make sure they don’t just start a degree, but they finish it too.

That’s what a funding system based on need looks like. But that’s only part of the challenge. It’s also got to be built on evidence.

Evidence of what works. We know what works. You will see that next week when the NAPLAN results come out.

There’s some good news for Indigenous students, particularly in numeracy, and particularly in remote communities. Over the last four years, the numeracy results of Indigenous students have gone up and up. Up in Year 5 by 9.5 points.

And up in Year 7 by 9.3 points. And in remote communities it’s almost double that. In Year 7 it’s jumped 17 points.

That’s a good sign. In schools across the country that have used explicit teaching methods for a while, what’s sometimes called phonics, and small group tutoring, where you give kids who are struggling extra intensive help, we are seeing big leaps. Schools like Highvale Primary School in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

There the number of Year 3 students reading at the top level has jumped from 43 per cent to 68 per cent in just four years. A jump of 25 percentage points. That’s big.

Right? That’s what we have got to roll out across the country. That’s how you change a system that’s treading water into one that’s swimming.

And it’s what the $20 billion I talked about before is tied to. These sorts of reforms. We are also changing teacher training.

Driven by the same evidence. And what teachers tell us. And we are also making changes to the curriculum.

To make it simpler and easier to teach. Again driven by the evidence. It’s what we have to do.

Everywhere. Especially for the most disadvantaged and disenfranchised students. That’s what this is about.

We are working on a First Nations Education Policy. The first in 37 years. Working on it together.

With the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Corporation, led by Ray Ingrey who is here with me. And the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Principals Association led by Dyonne Anderson who is here too. And the other education peaks.

And sitting down with people here today to help us get it right. Part of that is tackling racism. Part of it is fighting the bigotry of low expectations.

And recognising that good intentions aren’t good enough. Noel helped me understand that. And part of it is making it easier for a teaching assistant at Yirrkala Public School to become a teacher without having to leave North East Arnhem Land to do it.

Yulmay taught me that. And part of it is what we are going to build at Gunyangara. A bank of ancient wisdom.

And a place where the future is made. A new tertiary and vocational education centre, owned and run by the Yolŋu people. Where you can do a VET course, a bridging course or a university degree.

That’s what the Garma Institute will be. The Australian government has committed $46.4 million to help bring it to life. $6.4 million for Stage 1.

That’s the feasibility and planning work. And up to $40 million for Stage 2. Construction.

Not far from where the Institute will be at Gunyangara, a boy was born, just after the war. A boy who would grow up and challenge the contradictions of our country. Who would help write the bark petitions and fight the Gove Land Rights case.

Who would present the Barunga Statement to one Prime Minister and ask another if he was serious. Who would lead the Northern Land Council for 23 years. Who didn’t just fight for land rights, but also for the right to an education.

Who with his brother conceived this festival 27 years ago. And who had a vision about this Institute. These are the words of Dr G Yunupingu: “I did well at school and I enjoyed learning.

There were Yolŋu teachers in the classroom. “Education was for a purpose. It was to arm ourselves with knowledge for the future.

“And that was a lifelong commission. “We were commissioned by our fathers. The Elders gave us our commission.

“And this commission was not just to be interpreters of the future for Yolŋu people, but to be the future”. I said we are a country of contradictions. But an old man in an ancient land talking about the power of education to interpret the future.

To be the future. There is no contradiction in that. Only wisdom.

The sort of wisdom that makes a country better not bitter. The sort of wisdom that can turn the country of our imagination into something real.