Sky News host Peta Credlin has clashed with Liberals for Yes co-convenor Sean Gordon over how to improve education outcomes for Indigenous children, insisting parents need to take “personal responsibility.”
The panellists duelled over the Voice referendum tonight as Mr Gordon reeled off a long list of boards that he sat on to improve outcomes for local communities.
“You just went through a litany of boards you’re sitting on and the gap’s only getting wider,’’ Ms Credlin said.
“You are at the inner sanctum you have had the ear of government many, many times.
“We are mainly talking about the indices for remote Aboriginal people who do not have a voice.”
Ms Credlin said that if children didn’t go to school nothing would change.
“And a lot of this is partly a personal responsibility,’’ she said.
“Yes, we put this conversation front and centre with the Australian people. But if an Aboriginal kid doesn’t go to school and the bus turns up out the front and mother or father or auntie doesn’t kick them out of their home and into the uniform and on that bus, they’re not going to get a better educational outcome.
“It doesn’t matter how much money Canberra throws at them.”
But as Mr Gordon tried to interect, Credlin asked him to hold fire.
“Let me finish,’’ she said.
“Let me finish please. And we also have a lot of issues inherent in those remote communities that are not based on skin colour, or in part based on the remoteness and the geography.
“And some of those horrific statistics for Aboriginal women occur at the hands of Aboriginal men. So let’s have an honest conversation.”
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Mr Gordon noted that Indigenous people cannot be the only ones to blame for children not going to school and questioned if the education system is failing.
“Is the way in which government departments are engaging with Indigenous communities failing? If they are failing then we have got to make adjustments to ensure they are properly engaging.”
Sky News journalist Andrew Clennell also weighed in insisting that some of it was clearly about race, noting that some kids he had gone to school with turned up “one day a year” and despite the fact they lived in the same area and went to same school they didn’t stand a chance.
