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Sky News AU
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
'Don't meet the criteria': Father fumes after children denied entry on 'Indigenous-only' charter flight in remote Queensland
An Aussie father was left baffled after his children were turned away from a near-empty 'Indigenous only' charter flight in north-west Queensland. Derek Lord's children were denied entry after he tried paying for seats on a taxpayer-funded flight - designed to accommodate Indigenous students under the ABSTUDY scheme. His children are boarding at a school in Charters Towers, southwest of Townsville, and without access to charter flights, they face a six-day journey to get home for the holiday period. Mr Lord, an air traffic services reporting officer at Normanton Airport, told Sydney 2GB's Ben Fordham he was confused why he could not purchase tickets on the plane given they were typically half-empty. 'The booking company that now does it, which is overseas, refused to allow our children to get on because they don't meet the criteria,' he said. 'It's taxpayer funded and even if we were willing to pay, the plane is coming here – it's been paid for by everyone's taxes whether you're Indigenous or non-Indigenous, the kids are from the same town. 'And by the way, we're in the middle of a flood crisis and we couldn't get in or out. 'So, there was no way to get our kids home unless it's on a private charter ourselves, or through Rex, and Rex can be up to two to three weeks waiting for a seat.' ABSTUDY is a federal government initiative through Services Australia which provides financial support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and apprentices. Katter's Australian Party (KAP) leader Robbie Katter said the current policy was 'madness' as people from the same town and school were forced to operate under "different rules". 'The system is broken and families are paying the price,' he said on Facebook. 'Remote families being ignored, taxpayers being gouged, empty seats going to waste. 'It's not about race - it's about fairness. If the plane's already coming in, and there are spare seats, let kids get home.' Mr Katter said his party would be "pushing hard" to fix the charter flight issue and hold both levels of government to account. The Albanese government confirmed it was reviewing the incident. 'Charter flights are only used where it is the cheapest or most cost effective alternative, from very remote communities. The allocation of spare seats is a matter for the charter company," a spokesperson for Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek said. "The government agrees that empty seats should be made available for other students or community members to purchase where safe and practical to do so. The Minister will request updated advice from her department on this issue to ensure charter fees reflect value for money."
News.com.au
24-06-2025
- Politics
- News.com.au
Children in remote communities denied seats on near-empty ‘Indigenous-only' charter flights
The Albanese government will review charter flight arrangements for students living in remote outback communities after claims non-Indigenous students were prevented from boarding planes because they were not ABSTUDY recipients. Derek Lord, a father of two boys living in the far north west Queensland town of Normanton about five hours north of Mt Isa and eight hours west of Cairns in the Gulf of Carpentaria, said his sons faced a 'six-day ordeal' to get home after they were not allowed to purchase seats on a nearly empty, taxpayer-funded flight. Mr Lord, who is the Air Traffic Services Reporting Officer at the tiny Normanton Airport, said he regularly sees 20-seat planes arriving with fewer than half the seats occupied. But he claims his two sons, who board at school in Charters Towers, 90 minutes southwest of Townsville, have been turned away from those same flights because they're not ABSTUDY recipients. 'My boys have been left sitting at the airport, bags packed, because they weren't allowed on a plane with empty seats,' Mr Lord said in a statement via Katter's Australian Party (KAP) Leader and Member for Traeger, Robbie Katter. 'We'd gladly pay for those seats — anything to avoid the six-day ordeal we have to go through with commercial flights to get them home for the holidays when roads were cut off due to flooding.' ABSTUDY, introduced in 1969, is a federal government scheme for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that offers education-related financial assistance, including course fees and travel costs for students who study away from home. Mr Katter has slammed the new school charter flight arrangement as fundamentally flawed and unfair, describing it as a system that fosters division and fails to meet the needs of remote communities. 'This is not an Indigenous problem. It's a remote living problem,' Mr Katter said. 'When you've got families living in the same town, sending their kids to the same school, but being treated differently — that's wrong. It risks creating division in communities where it doesn't exist.' Mr Katter said the situation had been made worse by the government's decision to hand the contract to a UK-based operator with no local experience, replacing long-time provider Volantair. 'We had a capable, locally based operator with 20 years' experience and regional knowledge,' he said. 'Now we've got a foreign company charging up to $1781 per ABSTUDY seat — almost triple what a regular flight costs — and delivering a shambolic service.' The new operator, Air Charter Services, was appointed last year by Corporate Travel Management (CTM), which is responsible for the ABSTUDY charter contract. Air Charter Services and CTM have been contacted for comment. Since the change, according to Mr Katter, planes had shown up without passengers to collect, flights had gone unused, and single-engine aircraft without weather radar had been deployed into some of Queensland's toughest flying conditions. 'Kids are being left stranded, rural and remote families are being ignored,' Mr Katter said. 'It's time these services were made available to any child living remotely — not just those eligible under a narrow government program — and returned to experienced local operators who know the land, know the people, and care about the outcomes.' Speaking to 2GB's Ben Fordham on Tuesday, Mr Lord said he had even tried paying for seats on the planes but his sons were denied 'because they don't fall under ABSTUDY'. 'The carrier even agreed to take our money but the booking company that now does it, which is overseas, refused to allow our children to get on because they don't meet the criteria,' he said. 'We don't understand it either. It's taxpayer-funded. Even if we weren't willing to pay, the plane is coming here, it's being paid for by everyone's taxes whether you're Indigenous or non-Indigenous, the kids are from the same town.' Mr Lord noted 'we're in the middle of a flood crisis and we couldn't get in our out', recounting the tortuous journey home for his sons. 'So there was no way to get our kids home unless it's on a private charter ourselves, or through Rex, and Rex can be up to two, three weeks waiting for a seat,' he said. 'We would have to bus them down to Townsville and then either bus them or plane them up to Cairns, and then they'd have to sit in Cairns over the weekend because there's no Rex flights, and then they'd have to fly home on Rex if we could get a Monday or Tuesday flight, and that's a big if.' He said 'even Indigenous leaders here don't understand it'. 'I don't think it's about reconciliation, I think it's more about that the system is broken,' he said. 'The gap is not a gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous per se, it's regional versus non-regional. If you actually compared the two I think you'd find many of the non-Indigenous kids and families have the same disadvantages as Indigenous people in rural or remote communities.' Mr Lord added that son's girlfriend was Indigenous and 'the first time this happened, she got on one flight and he had to get on the other'. Fordham said it was 'absolutely mad'. 'Just put the kids on the same damn plane,' he said. A spokeswoman for Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek told the matter was being reviewed. 'The ABSTUDY program was introduced in 1969 by Liberal National Prime Minister John Gorton to help Indigenous students from very remote communities get access to education,' she said. 'Charter flights are only used where it is the cheapest or most cost effective alternative, from very remote communities. The allocation of spare seats is a matter for the charter company. The government agrees that empty seats should be made available for other students or community members to purchase where safe and practical to do so. The Minister will request updated advice from her department on this issue to ensure charter fees reflect value for money.' The Department of Finance, which manages all the whole of Australian government travel contract, has previously clarified that CTM has no exclusive agreements with charter companies and will choose charter providers for the ABSTUDY program based on the needs of ABSTUDY travellers. 'CTM has encouraged competition through the expansion of charters available to be booked for the government, including the ABSTUDY program,' a spokeswoman for the department told Cairns Post last year. 'They have also recently included an additional 12 new charter service providers to the program, including two Indigenous businesses.'
Daily Mail
24-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Aussie taxpayers slugged for Indigenous only flights which are taking off 'half empty'
Primary school students in remote areas are being turned away from taxpayer-funded charter flights with empty seats because they are not Indigenous. Derek Lord, air traffic services reporting officer at Normanton Airport in north-west Queensland, said he regularly sees 20-seat government-chartered planes arriving with fewer than half the seats occupied. Mr Lord said his two sons, who board at a school in Charters Towers, near Townsville, were not allowed to board the planes because they were only available to Indigenous recipients of the ABSTUDY scheme. Without access to the planes, it takes them up to six days to get home for the holiday period, taking buses and planes via Townsville and Cairns. Mr Lord had tried paying for seats on the planes but the 'booking company that now does it, which is overseas, refused to allow our children to get on because they don't meet the criteria', he told 2GB's Ben Fordham. 'It's taxpayer funded and even if we were willing to pay, the plane is coming here – it's been paid for by everyone's taxes whether you're Indigenous or non-Indigenous, the kids are from the same town. 'And by the way, we're in the middle of a flood crisis and we couldn't get in or out. 'So there was no way to get our kids home unless it's on a private charter ourselves, or through Rex, and Rex can be up to two to three weeks waiting for a seat.' Mr Lord said the half-empty flights were a sign that the 'system is broken'. '...The gap is not a gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous per se, it's regional versus non-regional. 'If you actually compared the two, I think you'd find that many of the non-Indigenous kids and families have the same disadvantages as Indigenous people in rural and remote communities.' Robbie Katter, a Queensland state MP and the leader of Katter's Australian Party (KAP), described the plane policy as 'crazy'. Katter said taxpayers were being 'gouged' while empty seats on the charter planes went to waste. 'We've got taxpayer-funded school charter planes flying into towns like Normanton half empty - and still, local kids are being left behind at the airport because they don't qualify for ABSTUDY,' he wrote online. 'It's not about race - it's about fairness. 'If the plane's already coming in, and there are spare seats, let kids get home. 'We'll be pushing hard to fix this and holding both levels of government to account.'
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ankeny officials to share ideas for city revitalization
ANKENY, Iowa — The City of Ankeny is holding a public open house on Monday evening to share ideas for revitalizing a vital part of the community. The city started a revitalization plan for South Ankeny Boulevard last summer, according to the city's Economic Development Director, Derek Lord. Now, Ankeny is nearly done with the plan. 'The South Ankeny Blvd is a vital corridor in the center of our community and really what it means is the plan is intended to ensure that the corridor will remain viable for the next 60 or 70 years just like it's been viable for the last 60 or 70 years,' he said. Postal workers rally in Ames, other rallies occur across the state Their goal was to improve the economic health in the area of South Ankeny Boulevard between First Street and Oralabor Road. The city asked residents for their input through an online survey and at public forums. Lord said around 1,000 residents provided feedback. Some of the improvements residents have raised include: improving vehicle and pedestrian safety creating more consistent development patterns adding more sit-down restaurants building more mixed-use developments, for example, buildings of lots for commercial and residential use establishing better branding to identify the corridor 'We also heard people want to see the diversity of businesses maintained in the corridor because the South Ankeny Corridor does have a nice eclectic mix of businesses that are both local and regional,' said Lord. 'People would also like to see the corridor remain its affordability.' This comes as the city of Ankeny has seen tremendous growth in recent years. According to data outlined by Neilsberg, the city's population increased 169% between the years 2000 and 2023. The Public Open House will take place Monday evening at the New City Church. Ankeny residents are encouraged to stop by between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. to hear the city's ideas for the corridor. The New City Church is located at 849 South Ankeny Boulevard. Ankeny officials to share ideas for city revitalization Postal workers rally in Ames, other rallies occur across the state Iowa DOT plans week of overnight closures along I-35,80 Otter Creek Golf Course in Ankeny opens for the season K-9 deployment in Watrous Heights, expect police presence Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
