On behalf of the New South Wales Liberals-Nationals I indicate that we do not oppose the Education Amendment (School Attendance) Bill 2009. However, I will make comments on the legislation that are important to put on the record.

It is imperative to say from the start that New South Wales has many measures in place already to tackle school truancy. Existing measures must be implemented to full capacity. The impact of legislation alone is not enough. It is important to tackle the social issue of chronic truancy. However, the Government uses a legislative mechanism to tackle a social issue. It deals with the issue with a judicial solution rather than looking at the causes of truancy. Why are children not attending school? Why is the community so concerned about this issue? What is occurring in the education system to cause children to truant in massive numbers, if that is occurring?

The Government should provide extra resources and support for our teachers who are trying to do their job to the best of their capacity. It should provide support to engage these children in the education system. It should find out why these children have disengaged and are not attending in so-called record numbers. Instead, the Government acknowledges the truancy and applies a big stick. It does not offer any carrot to encourage children to stay at school and to engage in the school environment in a meaningful way. The Government is shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.

Often the children who are not engaged in the education system and who truant are from areas of extreme disadvantage and are already behind in terms of their home environment, community environment and economic circumstances. They often lack the support they need from their parents and school environment. They also lack the support they need from the Government to be able to actively engage in education in a meaningful way. I will refer shortly to the Government's shameful record on its treatment of TAFE, one of our vital educational institutions, which provides second-chance educational opportunities. I will talk a little more about the Government's measures in relation to TAFE. As I said, we do not oppose the legislation. But this mechanism is only one part of the equation in dealing with truancy. In many ways, truancy is society's failure. It is a much broader issue that cannot be dealt with simply by introducing legislation that imposes fines on parents and, shamefully, in some cases on children.

The failure of families to properly educate their children can involve a complex web of issues, including housing, peer support, dysfunctional families, social isolation, mental illness, violence, drug addiction, poor parenting skills and learning difficulties. Any one of these issues or a combination can cause a child to disengage from the education system. Bullying is at the forefront of my mind, as General Purpose Standing Committee No. 2 is soon to report on its inquiry into the bullying of children and young people in New South Wales. As a member of that committee, I understand that the bullying that exists in our community in and out of the school environment is a key factor in children not attending school. They are afraid to attend school or for them school is a confronting environment. In some cases their parents take them out of the school environment because they feel their children are not safe, and no support or solutions have been offered.

The bill does not include alternative and flexible learning options. It does not contain measures that encourage students who have become disenfranchised from mainstream schooling back into the system. That is where our focus should lie. While the legislation deals with penalties for students and parents, it does not contain any measures that will engage students and their families, or provide resources and community support to address the wider social issues. We are all too aware of the sad situation at Hawks Nest in the Hunter region and the very tragic death of young Ebony. The family had moved from one community to another. Truancy was a major issue in the family. Ebony and her siblings were taken out of school under the guise of home schooling. Although the children had not attended school for a number of years, they had not been followed up. It was a key indicator of broader neglect that should have been identified. If authorities had followed up the truancy as an indication that things were not right in the family, the broader neglect would have been identified.

I was horrified, as I know were other parents, to read an article in the Daily Telegraph last weekend about the number of student sick days at a school in Dubbo. According to the Daily Telegraph article, the school has a 13 per cent absentee rate. Given the size of the school, that means that every day about 250 students are away, allegedly sick. That is a phenomenal number of students and it must be very disheartening for the school's teachers who are trying to provide a good educational environment for the students who attend. They know that many of their students are falling through the cracks. This legislation will not fix that problem. The article contained a number of reasons for the high rate of truancy, including the creation of two separate campuses for years 7 to 9 and years 10 to 12. It was said that the students needed better role models. Another suggestion was that bullying was rife.

Understandably, teachers at that school have become disillusioned with up to one-third of their students missing from their classrooms. According to the Daily Telegraph report, they will meet with the education Minister this week. I sincerely hope that all stakeholders in the community are involved in the process. I also hope that it is not too late. I doubt that the legislation will make any difference to the school environment in that community. No doubt the Government encouraged the story to be published in the paper to highlight the issue of truancy and gain support for the legislation. An environment of truancy has led to the legislation. Legislation introduced last year could have dealt with this issue, but it did not. There is no proof that fining parents or children increases attendance at school. It certainly will not increase school attendance if there is no attempt to engage students in a meaningful way.

In the Hunter region, my local region, there are reports of students missing school for as many as four weeks every year—although the region's truancy average for both primary and high schools in 2008 is well below the State average. However, missing four or six weeks of school effectively wipes out that school year, unless a student is extremely bright or supported by lessons, such as those offered in a hospital environment. Windale Public School's home school liaison officer, Bruce Donaldson, told the Newcastle Herald that a student who misses 10 days of school a year would miss more than a term of school by the time the student reached year 6. He said that many of the children at his school missed far more than that.

What is apparent is that those children who currently truant have truanted in the past. That pattern of truanting needs to be stopped early on in the child's education. I do not know whether this legislation will affect that because these children need to be followed up early on before the pattern of truanting becomes entrenched and before it becomes apparent that parents are not encouraging students to go to school because they do not recognise the positive benefits of an education and that attendance at school is needed in order to get that education.

The impact on a child's future caused by a loss of education cannot be underestimated. Currently, under part 5, section 23, of the Education Act 1990, it is already an offence for parents to fail to send their children to school. Furthermore, under the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998, if parental contracts are breached the Children's Court can issue care orders to protect the child, with the possibility of the Department of Community Services becoming involved. However, it appears that the Government has not been transparent on truancy rate data by school or by Department of Education and Training region because there is no publicly available data on a local basis. If there is such information it is very difficult to find.

I cannot understand why the Government has not used the full force of these existing laws in the past. On anecdotal evidence alone, truancy is an increasing problem in New South Wales, but not all truancy cases end up in court. While the Government must use existing laws in New South Wales, the Liberal-Nationals Coalition welcomes some of the measures contained in this bill. We support the Department of Education and Training obtaining more information about the child in question. If more questions had been asked about the Hawks Nest children I mentioned perhaps something could have been done earlier. If there had been empowerment to ask questions and to follow up on the answers to those questions or if those provisions had been followed up we might not be talking about that family now.

Under this proposed legislation the Department of Education and Training may convene a conference of parents, the school executive, other government agencies and community members to design an attendance plan. If the conference and the attendance plan fail, a compulsory schooling order through the Children's Court can be made. That order is not recorded as a conviction but it is a warning that prosecution would be considered if attendance does not improve. That is a good deterrent to non-attendance at school provided, in the first instance, all parties are involved in the conference, that there is agreement on an attendance plan and that some follow-up action is taken to make sure the attendance plan is being followed. Every step of the way needs cooperation, follow-up and support.

The bill also strengthens the power of magistrates, including an increase of the monetary penalty to $2,550 for parents for their first offence, rising to a maximum of $11,000 for subsequent offences. Many students who are truants come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Fining families up to $11,000 when they clearly cannot afford to pay that kind of money will merely serve to place more pressure on struggling families. Again the bill focuses on penalties and on poor parenting, with no emphasis on what the final outcome will be for the children. Magistrates may also opt to serve a community service order on the parents in lieu of a fine, as well as direct parents to undergo rehabilitation programs that could result in improved attendance for the child.

In these cases asking for parental responsibility falls in line with the Liberal-Nationals Coalition policy. We certainly want parents to be responsible and take on board their role as parents. However, I wonder whether some parents may take it out on their children who are truanting when they are faced with a fine of up to $11,000. I can envisage those parents who take a violent approach to behaviour management and to their parenting may well take out their anger on the child.

In cases where the child is independent or beyond the control of his or her parents an attendance conference and compulsory schooling order can be issued. If a child is in that position, the family background is probably already known and if the family has broken down we hope that far more support will go to that child to follow up where they are and what is happening in their lives. If the child is between 15 and 17 years old and breaches the schooling order, courts can issue a maximum fine of $110 against the child, which would not be recorded as a conviction. The legislation does not mention how or where that child might find $110 to pay the fine, how that is going to encourage the child to attend school or what advantage fining the child has on educational outcomes. If that student is struggling with so many aspects of their life, as they clearly are, I find it difficult to see how fining that student is going to help matters. It comes back to responsibility of the Government and it comes back to the responsibility of the Department of Education and Training to work with other government departments, such as the Department of Community Services, and take a leadership role on the issue of truancy.

In April 2008 former Premier Morris Iemma announced that magistrates would be given the option to make special orders against problem parents if their children were repeatedly missing class. There is a pattern here. We have a government in trouble—all sorts of things going wrong; all sorts of issues with planning and other matters; ministers' behaviour—and suddenly a piece of legislation appears that the Government says will make parents more responsible and will crack down on truants. It does not add up.

The Hon. Greg Donnelly: What would you do? What is your policy?

The Hon. ROBYN PARKER: Our Ministers will not be misbehaving, we will not be mismanaging, and we certainly will not be mismanaging planning. We will be leading and you will be able to find out in March 2011 just how we manage. This Government should not be proud of how it manages truancy. The Government should have as its last option the prosecution of parents who disobey court orders in relation to school attendance. Prison sentences were rejected by the Liberal Party and The Nationals and by most people in the education system. Fortunately, the Government decided to drop that proposal. But 18 months later the Government comes back with a bill to combat truancy, backing down on its policy not to jail parents and ramping back up its policy to fine parents.

The New South Wales Coalition is concerned that the introduction of legislation is not enough to combat chronic truancy if there is not a wider social plan to tackle the real issue of why children are not attending school. A slap on the wrist does not address why a child becomes so disinterested in education. Sending a child back to school without addressing why they do not want to be there in the first place will only deliver negative results. Indeed, it will make a difficult situation worse for those parents, worse for those teachers trying to cope and worse for other students in the classroom who are trying to learn, if those students who do not want to be there and are not engaged with school are there simply because if they are not their parents will be fined or they will be fined themselves.

This legislation does not come up with a comprehensive plan across several departments. It is insincere. It does not tell us how government departments and agencies are going to work together with young people and their parents to involve young people, particularly those in areas of disadvantage. The legislation does not refer to involving the Department of Community Services, despite the fact that that department is responsible for protecting children. It also does not refer to involving the Department of Juvenile Justice, despite the fact that some students who are chronic truants get caught up in that system. There is also no mention of a partnership with the New South Wales Police Force, despite the fact that police officers see truanting students when they are on street patrols and they know where they go when they should be at school. Students experiencing poor health, particularly those in disadvantaged regions, generally do not perform well at school and are tempted to truant. This legislation makes no mention of the need to coordinate health and disability services in a truancy action plan. It is simply about fining parents and discriminating against those children who are not engaged in the education system.

As I said, the Opposition does not oppose the legislation, but it is obvious that this is the tip of the iceberg of what can and should be done to combat truancy. The Opposition understands that we need a comprehensive and multi-departmental approach to address all the issues seriously. This legislation is a reminder of other legislation such as the bill increasing the school leaving age to 17. The Opposition supported that legislation, but it did so on the condition that students actively engage in an education system. They must feel part of an education system. They should not be there simply marking time until they reach the age of 17; they should be there in a meaningful and engaged way.

I am not supporting legislation that was poorly drafted; I am supporting its objective. I am outlining the Opposition's reasons for supporting the legislation increasing the school leaving age to 17. Our support for that legislation was very much couched in terms of students needing to be actively engaged, not simply filling in time, and not distorting unemployment data. Disappointingly, that support has been eroded because in the past few weeks this Government has declared war on TAFE. The TAFE system provides second-chance learning opportunities for many young people, and particularly those who are not engaged in the traditional education system. I am referring to those students who do not feel they can do the Higher School Certificate, who are not interested in going to university and who are disengaged from the traditional school environment. In the past they have done school certificate equivalent courses at TAFE. This Government is now closing doors on those students—that is, the students we most need to engage and who will perhaps be listed as truants and they or their parents fined. The Opposition wants to provide support rather than to impose sanctions.

The Opposition encourages all students to complete year 10. However, if for some reason they cannot—for example, if they have been expelled—does this Government intend to deny them the opportunity to get back on track? Schools and teachers must have the appropriate resources to combat truancy, and those resources include school counsellors. These are the students who need the support of school counsellors, whom this Government let down with the imposition of an outrageous 1:1,000 counsellor to student ratio in high schools in New South Wales. Those students—whom the Government intends to fine for truanting—are not supported with a sufficient number of counsellors. The TAFE system also needs resources to provide alternatives to mainstream schooling.

This legislation does not provide the fresh ideas that the community wants and it does not provide a whole-of-government solution. It demonstrates that this Labor Government is out of ideas. It introduces legislation every now and again to try to divert attention from the good work that is done by teachers in the public education system and by parents who are supporting their children through school. The Government wants to divert attention from its mishandling of planning and its Ministers' bad behaviour. That is the intention behind this legislation. I feel sorry for those students who are falling through the cracks because this Government has failed to support them and our wonderful teachers.