Thank you very much Jackie, Mick Dodson, Mark Leibler, Chip Goodyear, ladies and gentlemen. Before going to the substance of my remarks, I would like to thank Joy, once again, for her very gracious and warm welcome and to pay my respects to the Wurundjeri people, the traditional owners of the land on which we gather. It was as always a very friendly and very generous welcome, and I thank you for that.
Can I pay a special tribute to Mark Leibler and Jackie Huggins for persevering with the arrangements for today and working very patiently and toiling gallantly and successfully to bring this about. This is a complex issue and I want to respond very directly to Mick's comments because there was great truth and wisdom in what he said. And there's no point in pretending when you're talking about a subject such as this. There are many areas where I'm afraid Mick and I would disagree, and there's no point in us pretending otherwise. And I've disagreed on some of these things with other indigenous leaders over time. But what I think fills us with, to use the two words that Mick used in relation to this gathering, fill us with hope and possibility, is the fact that there are many areas where we do agree.
And I think what is encouraging about the reconciliation process to which I recommit the Government, quite unconditionally, is that we are moving towards a greater understanding of the need to work together in those areas where we can agree. There will remain in the Australian community legitimate debate about such matters as constitutional arrangements, the symbolism - and I don't discount the importance of symbolism, never have, it's a question of getting a balance between practical outcomes and symbolism. But there are many areas where we can really make, together, an enormous difference. And can I by courtesy of the place card that we were all given, can I just quote some words that are repeated there, that I said at the gathering in May of last year, when I said that 'the journey towards reconciliation will only be complete when indigenous Australians enjoy the same opportunities as other Australians'. Now I believe that and I think that is the centre-pole of the tent - if I can put it that way - around which our efforts must be directed. And I particularly welcome here today the presence of so many representatives of the business community - and I thank you Chip for your generosity and that of BHP Billiton - and I pay tribute to the ANZ Bank, to BHP Billiton, Canberra Investment Corporation, Centrelink, that's a familiar name, Melbourne City Council, Oxfam, the South Australian Department of Administrative and Information Services and the Yarnteen Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation. And could I also especially welcome here today the representatives of the major sports of Australia, or a number of them, because the role of sport in bringing indigenous and other Australians together is quite fundamental. Sport is so much at the centre of our lives and some of the most inspiring role models within the indigenous community, and there's very conspicuous...one of those here today in the presence of Michael Long. Their inspiration to young indigenous people remains very, very important as part of the process.
I think all of us are aware that reconciliation is not going to come as a result of eloquent rhetoric or high-level communiqu‚s. It will come through indigenous and other Australians taking millions of small steps in the right direction. I think it's important if we're realistic to understand that. I think all of us have probably seen some of the television images in the past few days of Australians coming back from the Middle East and despite what some of their misguided leaders back here may have said, they have all expressed profound gratitude at what was done to bring them home. And you can almost hear them collectively saying, this is the greatest country in the world, and aren't we pleased to be back to it.
Now there's a relevance in that to this gathering. It is the greatest country in the world. But in the area of indigenous opportunity and advantage we still do have a very long way to go if we're to live up to the highest ideals and aspirations of that deeply held belief that we have. And today I want to particularly focus on the issue of education, and because I believe it lies at the heart of bridging that gulf between indigenous Australians and the rest of the community.
And although structures are important, and I acknowledge that, I don't want us to spend undue amounts of time debating structures and process to the detriment of results and outcomes. We do need to focus on the practical application that delivers results on the ground. And at my speech last year I spoke of a number of things. I spoke of a combination of the symbolic and the practical; of the need to balance rights and responsibilities; of governments, communities, families and individuals all sharing responsibility; and as Mick rightly reminded me, a preparedness on the part of my Government to go more than half way in achieving progress.
It is important, as Mal Brough, my new Indigenous Affairs Minister has emphasised, we must remember that real economic and social progress in indigenous communities - as is the case in any community - can only be built on a foundation of law and order. And to pretend otherwise is to defy reality.
Mick has quite rightly called on us to invest more - I won't directly respond to that - but I will gently put on record, ever so gently, that real spending on indigenous-specific programmes has gone-up by almost 50 per cent, that's real terms after inflation over the last decade. And in the last Budget we committed another $500 million to indigenous-specific programmes and Mal has put another $130 million on the table in the fight against family violence and child abuse.
But we do have a duty to ensure that existing resources are well spent and that more resources will make a difference. I do particularly want to focus on how we do things more effectively in one particular area and that's education. Not because I think education is some magic mono-causal solution for indigenous disadvantage. Educational advancement clearly demands advancement in other areas such as health and housing, employment and community safety. But because I do believe rather passionately that education offers the proven avenue of lasting hope for young indigenous Australians.
Because education, formal or informal, has been the passport to progress in every culture since the dawn of time. And in 21st Century Australia, it opens doors to economic independence, to health and happiness and for laying foundations for wise choices and larger horizons in later life. It's not only a path to individual advancement, but it's also a path to social equity. We all know that the major cause of poverty in Australia is joblessness and we also know that the major reason for weaker employment outcomes for indigenous Australians, compared with the rest of the community, is education. And of the countless statistics that dramatise our nations challenge to lift the life opportunity of indigenous Australians, two in particular stand out to me. The first is the one that Mick focussed on, and that is the 17-year average life expectancy gap between indigenous and other Australians. I mean that is the statistic we should all be constantly reminded of and it's a statistic that we should all strive towards removing.
But the other, to my mind, is the one that Jackie mentioned, and that is the share of Australia's indigenous population that's 14 years or younger. It's almost 40 per cent, 39.3 to be precise, and it compares with 20.4 per cent of the non-indigenous population, that is 14 years or under. In other words, it's virtually doubled. Now that says lots of things. And although that second statistic is not unrelated to the first, it's a better measure of the enormous opportunity, as well as the enormous challenge we have in our midst. And it underlines yet again the importance of education. And we do need to foster a generation of indigenous Australians who recognise and reap the benefits of a good education and pass those values on to their children and grandchildren.
I have in many contexts used an expression in the past, and I use it again today, that I want to see an Australia of all the talents. A country that nurtures, develops and rewards the human creativity within every individual - irrespective of their race, their colour or their background and an Australia where every child has the chance to make the most of their potential. I share Mick's frustration at the underreporting of the good news stories and the focus on the bad. Horror stories do make headlines, while the countless small triumphs of self-discipline, hard work and community responsibility that shine a torch for others to follow, goes sadly unreported.
Quitsysha Frith, a 16-year old student from the Northern Territory, at one time faced what too many of her contemporaries in indigenous Australia confront - a bleak and aimless future because she dropped out of school. But to her credit she went back to school, she worked every day, she completed Year 12 and was awarded the Northern Territory Remote Indigenous Student of the Year. She's now making the most of her talents studying a Bachelor of Visual Arts with the aim of being a pioneer in indigenous contemporary art.
Now this is not a government achievement. It's her personal achievement. And it is part of a larger story of educational progress, albeit one with which none of us can be in any way content. But it is worth saying that 40 per cent of indigenous students progress to Year 12 in 2004. And that compares with 29 per cent in 1996 - an improvement, a big improvement - but still a long way to go particularly when you bear in mind that the figure for the rest of community is double that, close to 80 per cent.
The number of indigenous students in vocational and technical education has almost doubled in the last 10 years, from 32,315 to 62,726. Now they're just figures but they're important figures and you don't hear them very much because there's a sense that we're marking time or even going backwards in some of these areas, and that's not the case. And the proportion of indigenous adults aged between 25 and 64 with a vocational or higher education qualification has never been higher. And the proportion with a certificate or diploma has also risen significantly.
Now a lot more needs to be done but we are making some progress in that very important area of greater school retention and more going on to tertiary education. And when we look at what happens to those who graduate, show a couple of interesting comparisons. The most recent figures show that the full-time employment rate for indigenous graduates was 80.1 per cent, which is in fact slightly higher than what it is for non-indigenous graduates, at 78.6 per cent. And also interestingly average starting salaries for indigenous bachelor level graduates were also higher than for other graduates. Once again, a small snapshot, not something in which we should be in any way complacent.
But I do think these things need to be said, lest people lose what they should never lose, and that is some kind of sense of hope and optimism, that we can make progress. So there is some good news and we ought to understand that, but it ought to, very particularly inspire us to do even better and try even harder. And that, of course, is where the contribution of so many companies represented in this room today is very important. And the partnerships involving companies, governments and individuals has made an enormous contribution. Because local communities working to support safe and healthy learning environments, with dedicated principles and teachers doing their best, is the environment for lifting the educational horizons of all Australians and in particular indigenous Australians.
It means of course that parents and carers must make sure that their children go to school every day, well fed and ready to learn. And it also means that there has to be a determined attempt by governments at all levels to ensure that that happens. But whilst the Commonwealth Government does not own or run schools, I can tell you that each of the five bilateral agreements that I've signed with State and Territory leaders has specific education priorities, such as early childhood education, school retention rates, improving literary and numeracy and improving vocational training and employment opportunities.
Let me tell you that between 2005 and 2008, the Commonwealth will provide $2.1 billion for indigenous-specific assistance to preschools, schools and tertiary providers. And many of the more than 150 Shared Responsibility Agreements that we have entered into include specific education strategies. At Warruwi in the Northern Territory, for example, the community has asked that training and employment of indigenous education workers be provided with parents, local businesses and community elders all contributing to the building of a stronger learning environment at the school.
The Government has also entered into a direct partnership with the Tiwi Land Council and the local community with $10 million going towards building a secondary boarding college on the Tiwi Islands. Many individual schools are themselves doing innovative things to improve education outcomes. The range of activities in remote locations can be quite astounding. Healthy eating programmes, skills education, outreach courses, farming initiatives, linkages with TAFE, and preschool sessions for parents and carers for children as young as two. These sessions all recognise that the education challenge for indigenous children begins well before school.
Earlier this month, Commonwealth and State Education Ministers agreed on a plan which will eventually see every indigenous child gain access to two years of early childhood education before their first year of formal schooling, which is a very significant step forward. But all these plans and all this early childhood support under the sun will count for nothing unless children actually go to school. And in the Northern Territory almost 28 per cent of school aged indigenous children are not even enrolled. We do need better data and that's one of the reasons why the COAG meeting earlier this month I sought agreement from the Premiers and Chief Ministers that all jurisdictions will now report on school enrolment and attendance levels and we're going to establish a national truancy unit to monitor, analyse and report on truancy data.
We all know that the level of achievement in the early years of schooling has major implications for retention and achievement in later years. And we all know that achievement in literacy and numeracy in primary schools is a key determinant of whether children stay on in the secondary environment. And the lack of literacy and numeracy, which is a problem in the entire Australian community - it is more acute in many indigenous communities but we shouldn't kid ourselves that it isn't a problem in large sections of the Australian community - has a big impact on employment prospects, as well as, of course, depressing people's self-esteem and initiative. And the National Indigenous English Literacy and Numeracy Strategy aims at nothing less than indigenous children reaching comparable levels of literacy and numeracy to the rest of the Australian community. And as always we must value and encourage our teachers, because encouraging our teachers, as well as, of course, encouraging our local communities, is the foundation of a very successful approach to education.
I do want to pay particular tribute to the contribution of the corporate sector, to the privately-run Aboriginal Employment Strategy, where banks such as the Commonwealth and ANZ are showing what can be done through traineeships for indigenous high school students. Fifteen-year-old indigenous children in places like Moree, and Tamworth and Dubbo in New South Wales are working one day a week in a local bank, developing skills and earning income with the prospect of a full-time job at the end of a traineeship. St Joseph's College in Sydney's Hunters Hill, a well-known nursery of not only academic achievement, but rugby union football, also provides a model for those who think that obligations of this kind are for governments alone. The College's highly successful Indigenous Scholarships Program brings students from centres such as Walgett, Cobar and Taree to the school community, supporting the boys and their families with financial and other resources. This year there are no fewer than 41 indigenous students at the College and that's an important critical mass in a school community to ensure mutual support and to lessen possible feelings of isolation and loneliness.
As an election commitment in 2004, the Government undertook to further encourage that kind of outreach and under our Indigenous Youth Leadership Program, administered by the Foundation for Young Australians, 23 indigenous students are just starting at some of Australia's secondary schools with a further 26 selected to start at the beginning of next year. It's a good start, but in a country as prosperous as ours, I'm sure there is more that the best of our government and non-government schools can do to support talented indigenous students. And the National Indigenous Council has specifically nominated the importance of children in remote communities having access to boarding schools.
Can I conclude ladies and gentlemen by returning to what I said at the beginning of my remarks and what Mick said at the beginning of his remarks and that is that this is an occasion of hope and optimism. We shouldn't pretend that we've suddenly solved all the problems, we've dissolved all the differences and I certainly don't romance with the notion that everything that the Government says on this subject has the unanimous support of leaders of the indigenous community. And there remains, quite legitimately in a robust democracy such as our own Mick, the room for very legitimate differences, faithfully and conscientiously held as to how to deal with these problems.
But I do think what a gathering like this has done is to remind us that some of the things that we aspire for we do have in common. We do what to remove indigenous disadvantage, we do recognise unconditionally that as a group indigenous Australians are still the most disadvantaged group within Australian society. We do think that the path forward is to be found in removing the causes of disadvantage and nothing is more important to that than the removing the disadvantages of indigenous people in the area of education.
We can argue about symbols, we can debate treaties, we can talk about constitutional change and as the months, indeed the years go by, and we do that, and it's part of the process, we must not lose sight of the opportunity to work together to make progress in areas where we can. And I think the contribution that Reconciliation Australia has made is to be applauded. I think it's an organisation that does bring together men and women of goodwill. It is built on the belief that if we find areas of common agreement and we cooperate to achieve in relation to those, we'll make a lasting contribution to the kind of society we want, the Australia where true reconciliation is achieved, because indigenous Australians have the same opportunities and the same of life's fulfilment as the rest of us.
I congratulate Reconciliation Australia, I thank its leaders for the opportunity it' s given me and on behalf of the Government I renew our commitment to the goals and the hopes and the aspirations of reconciliation.
Thank you.
[ends]