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Australia spends $1 billion locking up children. An Aboriginal-led institute is proposing $7 million to keep them in school

Stronger Smarter Institute

Key Facts:

Detention cost source: Productivity Commission, Report on Government Services 2026 (January 2026). Detention-based supervision cost $1.1 billion in 2024-25. National average $1.3 million per child per year ($3,635 per day). Full report: https://www.pc.gov.au/ongoing/report-on-government-services/community-services/youth-justice

Return to supervision figure: Sourced to Justice Reform Initiative and National Children's Commissioner, citing Productivity Commission data. The PC's own measure reports 56.7% return to sentenced supervision within 12 months for those aged 10-16.

Boarding school observation: Dr Sarra's observation drawn from professional experience and engagement with practitioners across the sector. Not attributed to a single published source.

$7 million / 25% tipping point: The Stronger Smarter Institute's estimate of the cost to deliver its High Expectations Relationships leadership programs to 25 per cent of Australia's low-SES and remote schools — the critical mass at which research on diffusion of change suggests systemic adoption becomes self-sustaining.

Alumni figure: Almost 6,000 leaders trained across more than 1,300 schools nationally.

Cherbourg attendance data: Sourced to Dr Sarra's 2015 Senate Occasional Lecture.

Event: Stronger Smarter Together Summit, 7-8 May 2026, voco Brisbane City Centre. www.strongersmarter.com.au

 

EMBARGOED UNTIL 9:00AM AEST, THURSDAY 7 MAY 2026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

At the Stronger Smarter Together Summit in Brisbane on Thursday, Dr Chris Sarra will argue that Australia's approach to remote secondary education severs young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from family, country and culture — and that this severance is driving disengagement, not solving it. His address presents two responses. The first is a Stronger Smarter Virtual Secondary College delivering secondary education on country and in culture. The second: $7 million to train school leaders to identify deficit attitudes in educators and build strength-based, high-expectations relationships with students — less than the $1 billion Australia currently spends locking children up.

The Productivity Commission's Report on Government Services 2026 confirms Australia spent $1.1 billion on youth detention in 2024-25, at a cost of $1.3 million per child per year. Around 85 per cent return to sentenced supervision within 12 months. Sarra's institute has spent 21 years demonstrating a different trajectory is possible: at Cherbourg State School, under his leadership, attendance rose from 62 per cent to 94 per cent. The Stronger Smarter Institute has since trained almost 6,000 leaders across more than 1,300 schools nationally.

The Stronger Smarter Virtual Secondary College addresses the pipeline directly. Drawing on practitioner observations across the sector, Sarra argues that the boarding school model — the current default for remote secondary students — serves only a fraction of those who need it, and that for many who do access it, the severance from family, country and culture undermines the very foundation of sustained engagement. The Stronger Smarter Virtual Secondary College proposes to deliver quality secondary education without that severance: wrapped around the individual, on country, with culture intact.

The $7 million investment is a separate, systemic argument. Research on the diffusion of change — widely associated with the tipping point principle — shows that once 25 per cent of a system adopts a new practice, uptake becomes self-sustaining. Sarra puts the cost of getting the Stronger Smarter Institute's High Expectations Relationships programs into 25 per cent of Australia's low-SES and remote schools at $7 million. Set against $1 billion spent annually on detention, he argues the case makes itself.

The summit's co-keynote speaker, Peter Yu — one of Australia's most respected First Nations leaders and former CEO of the Kimberley Land Council — will set out what sovereignty means in practice: the conditions of trust and integrity required to produce outcomes that endure.

The full text of Dr Sarra's keynote address follows.

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KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Stronger Smarter Together: Reimagining Australia's Modern Sovereignty
Dr Chris Sarra | Stronger Smarter Together Summit | Brisbane, 7 May 2026

Let me start by acknowledging the traditional custodian of this land where we are meeting, and I thank you for your welcome to country.

Respectfully, I thank you for your welcome to country.

We are not yet the country we so often claim to be.

And the question that sits with us — quietly, persistently — is this: who do we choose to become?

We gather here at a time of complexity in our country. A time when many Australians feel uncertain about who we are and where we are heading. A time when some look backwards, to a version of this country that perhaps never truly existed.

And today — if we are honest — a time when we are seeing behaviours in our nation that expose us at our worst.

Moments where respect is reasonably expected, but not given. Moments where something as simple and as dignified as a ceremonial Welcome to Country becomes contested.

Now, this is not about politics. This is about something deeper. This is about who we choose to be when respect, kindness and civility is asked of us.

Because every nation reveals itself, not in its best moments, but in how it behaves when it is tested.

And yet, this summit is not about who we are at our worst. It is about who we are capable of being at our best.

Today and tomorrow, we come together with three clear purposes.

First, to celebrate 21 years of Stronger Smarter in education.

Second, to seek your insight into a new vision — a Stronger Smarter Virtual Secondary College.

And third, to consider what becomes possible when a Stronger Smarter, High Expectations Relationships approach extends beyond education and into the very fabric of this nation.

Let me begin where it matters most. With people. With the school leaders, the community leaders, the teachers who have walked this journey with us.

For 21 years, you have done work that is not easy. Work that asks you to hold high expectations in places where expectations have too often been low. Work that asks you to walk into classrooms, into communities, and say — quietly but firmly: "I believe in you."

And that might sound simple. But we all know it is not. Because belief, when it is genuine, comes with responsibility. It means not lowering the bar. It means not making excuses. It means standing in that space between where a young person is and where they could be, and refusing to let that gap define them.

I often reflect fondly about my time at Cherbourg school. A place where, at one point, attendance sat around 60 per cent. Where expectations were low — not because people didn't care, but because over time, belief in those young people and in the system around them had been eroded.

And yet, in just a few years, attendance rose to over 94 per cent. Literacy improved. Numeracy improved. But more importantly, something shifted in the way people saw themselves.

Because when you change expectations, you don't just change outcomes. You change identity. A change from chronic disengagement and underachievement to strong and smart. You are going to see and hear more about this later today.

Across this country, we have seen this again and again and again. Almost 6,000 alumni of the Stronger Smarter leadership programs — leaders walking this journey. Teachers changing the way they teach. Communities changing the way they engage. And young people returning to school, staying engaged, and achieving at higher levels.

And what we know — with absolute clarity — is this: if you want to transform the life of a child, give them a teacher who believes in them.

Sometimes people say to me, "Chris, this Stronger Smarter approach — it's so innovative." But let me share an important story with you.

Last year, I was in Broome, in the Kimberley. After a session like this, an Aboriginal woman stood up in the audience and said: "Chris, I want to thank you for bringing Stronger Smarter to the Kimberley. I also want to say — this is not a new way. This is our old ways. This is the way of our old people. Thank you for reminding us."

That stayed with me. Because in that moment, she reframed everything.

This work is not about introducing something new. It is about remembering something old. It is about returning to a way of being where relationships matter, where expectations are high and grounded in respect, where people are not seen as problems to be solved, but as human beings to be embraced and honoured.

This is what sits at the heart of what we are talking about today: the idea of the art of the relationship.

We've heard a lot of huffing and puffing about the "art of the deal." But in complex human systems, deals are the easy part. The real work is the relationship.

Because when relationships are strong, trust builds. When trust builds, expectations rise. And when expectations rise, people begin to live into their potential.

But when relationships are weak, or transactional, or driven purely by power, we see something else. We see disengagement. We see disconnection. We see people withdrawing from systems that were never designed with them in mind.

And this brings me to something simple, but profound: when we undermine the humanity of others, we diminish something in ourselves.

I have seen this up close. As an educator. As a leader. And sitting in rooms at the highest levels of government.

I remember once sitting in a room full of Directors-General discussing Closing the Gap. At one point I said: "Most blackfullas I know are not sitting around talking about Closing the Gap."

When systems are disconnected from people, and abject failure gets in our face, the colonial default is to talk about outcomes without understanding the human experience of those we serve. We hear this euphemised by terms such as 'practical reconciliation,' but we get stuck in this colonial default, entrenching despair rather than nurturing hope. We remain stuck by continuing to do things to people — not with them.

Governments who are serious about a positive way forward must break out of their post-Voice Referendum paralysis and seriously contemplate the relationship with First Nations Australians and how we seek to embrace our humanity and our capacity to be exceptional, design policy approaches that nurture hope rather than entrench despair, and do things with us, not to us.

This is the challenge of those in power. Because governance is not just about power. It is about the ethical form that power takes when it comes into contact with people's lives.

Nowhere is this more evident than in how we approach secondary education in remote Australia.

Here, we have built a system that we tell ourselves is working. We say boarding school is the answer. But let's look at it honestly. Generally speaking, for every 100 young people, maybe 30 get that opportunity. And of those 30, perhaps only a fraction will complete their full journey. The rest are left behind, with very little real choice.

We call it opportunity. But for most, it is not.

There is something deeper we must confront. When we take young people and we remove them from their family, their country, their culture, we are not just changing where they learn. We are changing who they are allowed to be.

This matters. When young people are disconnected from identity, from belonging, the connection that keeps them strong begins to break, and fewer pathways remain open to them. Early research is letting us see this, and we must not ignore it.

This is not just about education. This is about humanity.

Which is why we must think differently. This is where relational sovereignty matters — not as a slogan, but as a way of being.

The ability for people to remain deeply connected to who they are — their culture, their family, their country — while fully participating in the modern world. To be all of who they are.

When we design systems that honour this, we don't weaken people. We strengthen them.

So instead of extracting young people from their world, why wouldn't we build from within it?

We want to use the technology we have today to deliver world-class education without breaking the connections that give young people strength. That is the vision of a Stronger Smarter Virtual Secondary College.

Now, people will ask: what will this cost? And that's a fair question. But this is a better question: what does it say about us when we have no problem spending $1.3 million per year to lock up a child, but we hesitate to invest in the opportunities to enable them to thrive?

We estimate it would take around $7 million to reach a Stronger Smarter tipping point — where adult practice shifts and young people engage again. And yet we spend more than $1 billion every year on youth detention.

What does that say about us, and who we are choosing to be?

Because if humanity is diminished anywhere in this country, then it is diminished everywhere in this country.

And this is where I return to the idea that sits quietly underneath everything we have spoken about today. That we are not yet the country we so often claim to be. But we can be.

We can be a country where young First Nations children walk tall, grounded in the oldest living cultures on earth, and ready for modern futures.

We can be a country where teachers walk into classrooms every day, ready to meet young people in high expectations relationships, believing in them without exception.

We can be a country where power meets people in a way that honours their humanity, not diminishes it.

We can be an Australia where high expectations relationships are the standard, not the exception.

So as we move from this moment into listening more deeply to those who have carried this wisdom for far longer than any of us, I leave you with this:

If we are serious about who we claim to be, then we must be just as serious about who we choose to become.

Thank you.

— ENDS —

 

 

About us:

Founded by Dr Chris Sarra, the Stronger Smarter Institute is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led organisation that has spent 21 years building high-expectations relationships in schools and communities across Australia. Its programs have helped lift attendance, literacy and numeracy outcomes while strengthening cultural identity — demonstrating that when young people are seen as capable and genuinely believed in, they perform accordingly. The Stronger Smarter Together Summit marks 21 years of that work, and its expansion into leadership, policy, sport and STEM.

Contact details:

P: 0449 795 660
E: [email protected] | kecreative.com.au