Shadow Minister for Education, Jo Hersey, says the Chief Minister’s changes to travel and quarantine, which precludes anyone from a remote or regional area going home after travelling interstate post-December 20, once again ignores Territory boarding students.
“For months now, the Opposition has been calling on the Gunner Government to implement the National Code for Boarding School Students – which it signed up for back in September.
“Currently, boarding students returning from interstate to their properties have no access to home quarantine at the end of the school term. Labor has neglected the promise it made to students and their families, when it endorsed the code in national cabinet.
“The Education Minister, Lauren Moss, has failed to communicate Labor’s plans for boarding students to peak bodies and parents.
“The only certainty boarding students were given, was that the borders would open without quarantine on 20 December; but even that rug has been pulled out from under them with the Chief Minister’s announcement.
“The reality is, these students can’t return home and are instead forced to stay in major centres – like Katherine – where there might be a number of positive cases and people from regional areas and remote communities coming and going freely.”
“The Gunner Government must come clean about when it will implement the Code, which includes the following principles:
- Boarding school students are a vulnerable cohort in need of support and special arrangements should be implemented to support their welfare;
- A class of travel permit should be created for boarding school students and their caregivers to exempt them from restrictions on movement; where quarantine is required;
- Home quarantine should be the priority; and
- States and Territories should communicate with relevant sector authorities, boarding schools, students and families.
“These are Territory children. Instead of being able to spend school holidays at home, the Gunner Labor Government is expecting them to stay in Darwin, Katherine or Alice Springs for two weeks before being able to travel home.
“That means parents, potentially essential workers, must leave their property and livestock unattended to stay with their child in a town that has COVID cases, instead of returning to their property that is isolated from any other community, sometimes by hundreds of kilometres.
“Labor needs to explain how it thinks this plan is in the best interest of the student, their families, or indeed has any health benefit to the community. The Gunner Labor Government has publicly endorsed the Code, so why aren’t they acting on it?” said Mrs Hersey.
ENDS